2010 has been a pivotal year for Jakalope. Only a few weeks ago the band released their latest album, Things That Go Jump in the Night, and have had a busy year touring, with a recently announced late December addition to that list here in Vancouver alongside Marianas Trench. Jakalope was also one of the featured artists to appear on the recently released A 604 Records Christmas, with the single “Frostbite Kisses”. asapmusicblog.ca got the chance to go one-on-one with Dave Ogilvie of Jakalope to discuss the new album, the addition of Chrystal to the band, favourite Christmas memories, and more!
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A: Just a few weeks ago you guys released your latest album, “Things that go Jump in the Night”. Tell us a little about what we can expect from this album?
D: I think you can expect to hear some great new music that you haven’t heard before, and here’s sort of a culmination of the last 2 and a half years of my life. It’s something that I’m very proud of in that it’s a new sound for us, and it’s something that is definitely an evolution of what we’ve done before.
A: Why did you choose to go with that specific title?
D: I’ve always tried to have titles that have had something to do with the whole Jakalope concept that I came up with. One day I was just thinking about the whole rabbit aspect of it, and the creature aspect of, and kind of a scary aspect of it, and that seemed to represent everything I was looking at. And it was a lucky little play on words, it just seemed to fit really to the whole project, and to the aspect of how some of the music is as well, where I would love to get people up and dancing with us.
A: That’s awesome! I didn’t even think about that, but it seemed so obvious when you said it.
D: Yeah, it’s just a great picture that it can paint in many ways. When I approached our artist Vincent about whether it would be a great idea for the visual for the record, he just loved it. I think it’s great, so we went with it, and like I said it’s a cool play on words.
A: This is the first album with Chrystal if I’m not mistaken.
D: Yes it is.
A: Tells us a little bit about what elements she brings to Jakalope and what the transition has been like with her in the group now.
D: When Katie B. decided that she was going to move on to do her own thing and enter a different genre of music, I kind of sat back for a bit and thought about what I wanted that Katie didn’t provide, and that was what I was going to look for in the next person. It was kind of tough, because Katie beyond, didn’t have experience really in the live performance aspect of it, it was very hard to find someone who could keep up to what she had started.
I went through and interviewed quite a few people and still never felt that I had found someone who would take us to the next level, when luckily Jonathan Simkin, who is a friend of mine from 604 Records, suggested that he had a girl who he had for years had been trying to find a project for her to be involved in, and that I should hook up with her.
So I met up with her, she was actually living in Kelowna at the time, she drove in and we hung out for a bit and then we started working on some music back and forth, just sending stuff to each other. It started off really well, but then when I found out what a great piano player she was, what a great singer she was, what a great performer she was, and what a beautiful girl she is, then I was like, ‘I think she’s filling in everything I need.’
All of a sudden, luckily I had found the person that was filling all the gaps that were there from before. When we came down to the writing process, it was far more fun for me, because Katie had provided a lot of content, and most of the lyrical content, but Chrystal all of a sudden I had someone that I could sit down with and say, ‘You know I’m getting frustrated here because the C to E Minor to F is working, but what else can I do?’ Where normally that would be my own pain, she was able to sit down with me at a piano, and we worked out stuff, which was just a whole new addition and was really, really important to the evolution of this record.
A: That’s great! You’ve personally got to work with artists like Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails in the past, are there any artists and bands that you’d like to work with now?
D: It’s funny because I just wait and see more of what comes to me, and then I just try and put my stamp on what they’re doing. Luckily I’ve been working with a whole bunch of great Canadian artists in the last couple of years. So I’m really comfortable, and I love being able to stay at home, but there’s always more stuff out there. But I am more of a, when people want to come to me for what I can give to them, I really enjoy that rather than sort of actively seeking people to try and work with. Does that make sense?
A: Yeah, totally.
D: But if I had my choice of people, like if it was who would be my dream client that I could work with, I’d probably go back to my past to two of my biggest influences that started me off, when I did first start in music, would be Kraftwerk and Neil Young. You know with those things, I never expected to be working with David Bowie, I never expected to be working with Motley Crue, I would never in a million years, if you told me I would have been, I would have told you that you were crazy, but those things came to me. To this day, it blows me away that it happens. So who knows, one day in the near future I might get a call from someone saying Kraftwerk wants to work with me, which would be fantastic.
A: So our site mainly focuses on Canadian artists, are there any Canadian artists past and present that have inspired you?
D: Probably in a way, even from working with them, both Sloan and 54-40 really had a big influence on how I proceeded after working with them. Neil Young as I said, and Joni Mitchell would be the other ones that I haven’t worked with. But with both Sloan and 54-40, being able to work with them and seeing how great they are as Canadian artists, those are probably the two biggest ones.
A: Nice. And it was just announced that you guys are playing a show back in Vancouver in late December with Marianas Trench, what’s it like to perform back at home?
D: This is going to be interesting because we haven’t done an all-ages show here for a while. I try to let the music appeal to whatever fan base it wants, and it’s such a drag when you can’t play all-ages gigs because if there’s kids that can’t get into clubs, they can’t come see you. So I’m really looking forward to being able to play to an all-ages audience again here, because those are the shows where you really get great feedback from the audience on what you’re doing. So it’s going to be exciting, and the sort of irony or funny part of this is that I worked very hard on the actual Marianas Trench Masterpiece Theatre record, and was there from the inception of it, and now I’m going to be playing the show on the closing of the whole Masterpiece Theatre record. So it’s kind of interesting that I get to be there for the beginning and the end of it.
A: That’s a cool little cycle, that’s awesome.
D: Yeah, it’s just a weird little thing, and they’re such wonderful guys and letting us do this is just great, and the fact that they want it to be a very theatrical night. I think it’s just going to be a good night for all to be had I must say.
A: So you guys are signed to 604 Records as you mentioned before, you contributed a song to their upcoming Christmas album, “Frostbite Kisses,” was that the first Christmas song that you’ve recorded?
D: For Jakalope or myself, yes it is. I’ve done some for other projects before, but it was definitely an experience. You sort of have to get into the mind-frame of Christmas at a different time of the year, but it was fun to do. The option was there to do a cover tune, but I said no, I’d rather try and come up with something that is different and that can be played every year from this year forward. So it was exciting and a bit of a challenge I must say, but in the end what we came up with, I just love. It’s just a bizarre, fun Christmas song.
A: Well I’m excited to hear it! Going with the whole Christmas theme, what would you say is your favourite Christmas memory?
D: My favourite Christmas memory is always getting presents when I was a kid, getting new toys. To this day, I’ve collected toys for years and years. Just at Christmas morning, opening up new presents that were toys was just the best thing ever.
