Jogging are a grizzled rock power trio in the classic sense. Channelling the spirit of Husker Du and Archers of Loaf, they take both the power and the positivity of emotional post-hardcore and blend it with an in-your-face kind of sound that loses none of its melodic nous in the maelstrom of drums, guitar and bass. Take Courage is their second album, released last Friday on veteran Limerick label, Out On A Limb. It marks a new chapter in the band’s trajectory following the dissolution of the Richter Collective, who put out their first record, Minutes, in 2010. Ronan Jackson, bassist and singer in the band, took a break from work to give us the low down on the new songs, the band mentality and how Ireland can get real small some times.
Was there a central theme or issues or message you had in mind on Take Courage and was there a more thought-out approach than on your first album?
The first album we recorded at the tail end of our twenties. We’re all pretty much the exact same age, we were all born within two months. So that was kind of an issue. This album, we’re all at the start of our thirties and I know it’s a cliché kind of milestone but it is a milestone. You kind of realise that you’ve been going to places like Whelan’s for 13 or 14 years now and the crowds of people around you change as some people, who were out going to loads of gigs and then they kind of drop off and the whole revolving social situation and insecurities and paranoia that come along with that. Not just in the music scene but life in general. Yeah, getting to that age and wondering what the hell is going on. That was the main theme in my mind when I was writing lyrics anyway.
As you say, you’ve been in Dublin quite a while and you’ve seen a lot of things come and go. What do you see as the positive and negative sides of being a band in Dublin right now? Especially with the type of music that you play.
Trends do come and go and I think we were on the crest of a trend two years ago when our first album came out, which is possibly dying out now. I don’t think it feels as hip as it once was. The Richter Collective is gone now and that kind of coral everyone together. It was very easy to go ‘Oh it’s all those Richter Collective bands’, so it won’t be as easy to do, for people to pigeon-hole it that way. It could splinter off. Even the fact that our label is based in Limerick, it’s not so much of a local scene. It’s kind of freeing in a way. We would have been this band with or without labels or other bands, we would have ended up being the same band. We’ve always been tagged with the same seven or eight bands and I suppose people make assumptions about you before they’ve heard you maybe. Now it feels a little more standalone, just as a band, the three of us. No matter what label or venue or scene is going on, we’ll still be that band.
With the first album there, you’ve got a bit of background and a history and something to stand on. Whereas, when you’re going into your first album, it can help to have people around you. The second time around you don’t need that so much.
Yeah, I suppose people know who we are now. We got a leg up from that on the first one and then people might have dialed out completely and decided ‘This is not for me’. It’s interesting to see who has stuck on board though, we haven’t completely changed our sound or revolutionised anything, but people who are into it seem to be really into it. There was never any huge Jogging hype, there’s just been a constant, average level of buzz, which is good. Again, not to keep bringing up the age thing, but our friends or people our age aren’t going out to gigs so much any more. When you’re starting off in bands in your twenties or your late teens, all your mates are coming whether they like the music or not. Now we’ve kind of lost that because people our age aren’t going out to noisy gigs. Which is kind of freeing too, because people are coming because they really want to. They’re not just there go through the motions, to pat you on the back and have a pint. It’s its own important thing and people should make the choice to come I suppose.
What does the title mean to you?
I just thought it was a really strong title. It’s positive but it’s also cautionary. It summed up a lot of the themes on the album, like that things will get better. It seemed a hearty kind of title, not vague, not pissing around, just kind of blunt.
Your music never strikes me as harsh in the way that a lot of the bands that people might consider to be your influences are. There’s a lot of pop influences there as well. Was that a conscious decision or is it just the natural way?
I think it’s the natural thing. A lot of times we’ll record really harsh jams and then when we listen back through it, it might be to do with vocals, but we might feel like we couldn’t completely sell that. We have listened to them and thought, wow, we could do a totally different band.
When we do jam out harsher stuff, I feel like we’re not adding anything that other bands haven’t already done a million times better. I think we’re too goofy as well to get up there and do that, I wouldn’t feel convinced by myself doing it. I can feel convinced by myself playing this music, it’s like this is our noise and to push it out there feels kind of exhilarating. I wouldn’t feel as comfortable doing something harsher, it would feel like I was trying too hard I think.
On the production level, you did put a lot of effort into this one.
Yeah, just the low end, the toms and bass sound so much huger and there’s a much better snare sound. It sends the message home better and clearer when you do have that big production. People won’t get past the first thirty seconds if they’re used to a certain thing. I think that might have been a stumbling block with the first one, it’s a little more lo-fi. I listen to a lot of much noisier and more lo-fi stuff than that but I think some people will just turn it off. If you want people to hear your music, or what serves that kind of music best, is a big production where you can really hear the drums and it sounds kind of fierce.
You’ve played in England and in other bands that have toured as well. Have you noticed any particular difference in attitude between Irish bands and those from elsewhere?
When you tour with American bands, they definitely have more of a “can-do” attitude. A lot of Irish bands are more likely to talk drunkenly about stuff you’re going to do, collaborations or things, and then never doing it. I think maybe Americans have less of that pub culture of standing around talking. Also because it’s such a huge country, it’s a lot easier to go on a tour. Here you go on five stops and then go back to the start again. I know there are thirty-two counties but just in terms of playing places where you can get decent guarantees and decent turn-outs, you do feel a bit limited. That can affect your attitude to it. Apart from that I don’t see a huge amount of different.
Playing outside Dublin is often split along the lines of being really great or really shit. Do you think the scene is over-centralized now?
Yeah, definitely. When we used to play in Cork a few years ago, there was a base group of about 20 people who would come along and they’d bring other people and spread the word. I’d say about 18 of those people now live in Dublin. So when you go to Cork, the group of people who would let people know about Jogging or spread the word or create some buzz about it have left there. That happens in a lot of small towns I think, people leave or they emigrate so you can’t keep depending on the same crowd. It can be disheartening when you go to a place where you’ve got a good crowd before and instead of building on it, there’s less and less. There’s so many factors, it’s hard to tell. It’s dangerous though just to celebrate having a big launch in Dublin where I’m from and loads of people came. I’d rather do ten gigs to ten people than one gig to a hundred people. I’d prefer it if Ireland was better structured and you could do it constantly and you could guarantee there would be a turnout. When you’re playing to five or six people, it can make you question why you’re doing it or if you’re really communicating anything to anybody. It’s dangerous to just play in Dublin though, that’s not exactly progressive either. Hopefully what we need to do with this album is get outside of Ireland, get to England, get to Europe, maybe even further afield. Just for the health and sanity of the band, to play in different places and experience new cities, new people and see how our music goes down.
As you say, being in your early thirties, how do you all work that around lives and jobs and families and all that?
Easily enough I think. None of us have any other hobbies or anything. When I have time off, all I want to do is write or play music. We always still do it two or three times a week, practicing in the evenings or weekend days. It’s kind of what our go-to thing is, it’s how we express ourselves and enjoy ourselves. No one has drifted off that yet. No one is getting into fishing on the weekends or anything like that. I’m happy to have full-time obligations otherwise but we still manage to work things around that. I’ve been in situations where people don’t even have the full-time things and they don’t give as much. When we get into the room we don’t piss around and have tea breaks. We kind of go straight for music for two or three hours. We are driven in that way. If that ever died off, we’d have to question things. If any of our three hearts weren’t in it, I think it’d become very evident very quickly.
Take Courage is in shops nationwide now and you can catch Jogging on the following dates around the country:
Sep 14: Roisin Dubh Upstairs, Galway
Sep 15: Triskel Arts Centre, Cork
Sep 20: Bourke’s, Limerick
Sep 21: The Stiff Kitten, Belfast
