Brooklyn Exclusive: An Interview with Project Jenny, Project Jan

September 23, 2008 4:33 PM
by Marcos Colón

Here at CoolJunkie we receive a giant influx of CD’s that flood our desks. First thing we do is skim over the PR release that accompanies the album. Step two consists of popping in the CD and listening through the tracks to get the gist of the sound. Step three? Classifying the sound. Well, a few weeks ago we received an album from Might Records, an independent label based in Brooklyn, a hotbed of talent in the country. The album cover and name had us interested, but it was step three that stumped us. After listening thoroughly to Project Jenny, Project Jan’s self-titled debut release, there really isn’t a pinpoint classification to their sound. Something that’s finally unique in a world that greets mimicking sounds with consistent radio-play.

Getting together in early 2005, singer Jeremy Haines and programmer Sammy Rubin got together to form Project Jenny Project Jan. A few years later, the boys have already released a debut album, have toured the Northeast with the likes of Fujiya Miyagi, and have made the cut on the Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist soundtrack, even scoring some film time.

CoolJunkie recently caught up with the Brooklyn duo to chat about their debut release, their involvement in the movie and what it’s like to be a successful band from one of the most competitive music scenes in the country.

Cooljunkie: How has the year been treating you so far?

Sammy Rubin: We’ve had a really awesome 2008 so far. We started it out with South by Southwest, it was our first time there, which was very exciting. We played a bunch of shows down there, although out best show was our showcase, which every band hopes for. After that we started working on a collaboration EP. We wanted it to come out around the same time as the movie we’re going to be in, but whatever, it’s still going to come out at some point so that’s cool. We’ve got a movie coming out in October and we’ve got this European tour in two weeks so it’s been a pretty awesome year.

CJ: Every track seems like something new on the new album, was this planned out or was it something that came about when you guys were in the studio?

Sammy Rubin: I don’t think that we ever set up to say, “Hey let’s do this thing. What haven’t we done?” or anything like that. You start making a beat and all of the sudden it turns into a thing.

Jeremy Haines: We don’t really plan on doing anything as far as the songs are concerned, we just do things that we like and what sounds cool to us, and if it sounds cool to everyone else, that is really an added bonus.

Sammy Rubin: We do try to shy away from repeating ourselves, but that might just be something natural that might happens as a result.

CJ: How did you guys get together?

Jeremy Haines: We met each other in college and had some mutual friends in college. I went to SUNY New Falls, Ruben went to University of Rochester. A bunch of my friends from high school ended up living with him so I met him at one of their house parties. But when we graduated and we went our separate ways.

Sammy Rubin: When we were both in NY, we started hanging out a little bit, chilling and going to see some music. We took a trip to Amsterdam to visit one of our friends and that is when the idea for the band really solidified itself. We have mutual taste in music and we have mutual ideas of what this could be like.

CJ: What are your respective musical influences?

Sammy Rubin: I don’t know, everything. When we first started we were really influenced by Talking Heads and Depeche Mode and The Streets and MIA’s first album which came out right around the time we were starting to become a band and then everything else on top of that from noise rock, We really like The Pixies and their song structure and then electronic stuff like Ladytron. Pretty much all across the board.

CJ: How would describe your sound to someone who’s never heard of Project Jenny Project Jan.

Jeremy Haines: Electronic pop.

Sammy Rubin: I call it electronic dance rock. That’s what I usually say to people.

Jeremy Haines: Like, indie electronic dance rock.

CJ: How did the name come about?

Jeremy Haines: A lot of drinking. (laughs) We thought it sounded a lot better than Project Jeremy Project Sammy.

Sammy Rubin: We were written about in the Vanity Fair blog for this show that we played in Philly and they really liked us but they did say that we have the, what was it Jeremy?

Jeremy Haines: Was it “the worst band name in Brooklyn?”

Sammy Rubin: They said, “despite having the worst band name in Brooklyn these guys fucking kick ass” or something along those lines.

CJ: Can you guys talk about your involvement in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, how did that come about?

Sammy Rubin: Peter, the director, was looking for real live Brooklyn bands to have in the movie. Somebody directed him to us and he ended up becoming a fan. Outside of performing as a band, the lead singer is a character in the movie, so the director asked Jeremy if he could audition for the part. I don’t know if he had given us a read when we first met but he came to a show we played at Bowery Ballroom and after that they were like, “Oh yea, definitely come by and do a read.” I think he saw that I was comfortable on stage and performing so he gave Jeremy the opportunity to do that.

CJ: Could you guys go into the collaboration record you’re working on right now?

Jeremy Haines: For some reason we decided to do it before doing a second LP. I’m not sure why, but it just kind of started and we kept going with it. We were thinking about doing a collaboration in between every album. That might be interesting. Every song on the EP is going to be with a different band. So far we’ve got five and I think we’re going for six. Fuji & Miyagi is going to do one with us, Mixel Pixel is too, and we already finished one with So Percussion.

CJ: The track that you guys just did with So Percussion, do you see yourself doing any tracks like that in the future?

Sammy Rubin: It’s a little slower than what we’re normally used to doing and when we’re playing live we like to keep the party going. But like we said before, we never want to pigeonhole ourselves and do the same thing twice. That track worked out real well. Maybe we’ll do something like that again but it’s nothing we’re going to plan for.

CJ: It is more difficult to get noticed in Brooklyn as a band or is it easier?

Jeremy Haines: There’s a lot of opportunities to play but there’s a lot of competition. It’s a big pond and there is more opportunity to become a big fish. We’re not there yet but hopefully we will be. When we leave New York and we go and play other places, sometimes we’re stigmatized, but other people are like, “Cool man that’s great.” There’s a little bit of good and a little bit of bad in it but I’d say mostly good.

CJ: How do you guys feel about the term "indie" and how it’s used in the media?

Sammy Rubin: It’s like when Nirvana came out and they called it “Alternative Rock,” It’s the same thing, I think it’s awesome. Indie now is different than indie 10 years ago, now I think it describes going about things by not being on a record label and doing it by yourself a little bit.

CJ: What music is appealing to you guys right now?

Sammy Rubin: I’ve been obsessed with Lykke Li. I’m going to see her on Thursday which I’m really psyched about.

Jeremy Haines: Yea man she rules. My summer album has been Girl Talk, the last one. It’s been a great summer album.

CJ: You guys are on your way to Europe soon. Have you guys played over there or no?

Sammy Rubin: Nope, never, it’s really exciting. I’m looking forward to seeing how the crowd is going to respond.

Jeremy Haines: Yea everyone has been saying “You got to go to Europe, everyone is going to flip out and do back-flips and their ties are going to roll up and down and stuff.” I’m looking forward to seeing if that really happens or if people are going to be like “Oh yea, these guys are alright.”

CJ: Are you going to be doing a little bit more touring over here?

Sammy Rubin: We are hoping that people are going to scoop us up and put us on their tour. We can’t really headline a tour successfully right now, so that’s pretty much it.

CJ: What do you have planned after Europe?

Jeremy Haines: I want to play Conan O’Brien. Since we are going to be in this movie and everything it’ll be good press for the movie and obviously good press for us if we’re playing Conan or Jimmy Kimmel or something, that’s my own personal dream though.

Sammy Rubin: The movie will be coming out a couple of days after we get back from tour, so we’re trying to get as many people as we can get to the same movie theater so they can heckle the screen.

CJ: Is there going to be an opening for that?

Sammy Rubin: It’s opening at the Toronto film festival next weekend, so that’s pretty cool. It’s pretty cool that it’s selected but we weren’t invited to that. (laughs)

Jeremy Haines: We can go to that, anyone can go to that.

Sammy Rubin: Oh yea?

Jeremy Haines: Yea.

CJ: When are you guys going to get cracking on the next album?

Jeremy Haines: Once we are finished with the collaboration we are going to start working on our own stuff. We’ll probably do a new album in early 2009.

Sammy Rubin: Probably summer of 2009 mid to early 2009 count on that.

Click here to hear more from Project Jenny, Project Jan.