| Zachary Blizzard: drums, percussion and vibra-tones
Robbie Halbert: guitar and moog
Stephen Joshua Martinez: vocals and bass
Lucky Phlip Rodrigues: guitar and vocals
Jenoah sprung up from the arid wastelands of California's San Bernadino County, and with their debut EP "Morning Is When Jenoah Wakes Up," this Drive-Thru Records quartet brings a blast of desert heat to modern rock.
"When I sing, sometimes I feel I'm scaring people," laughs lead singer/bassist Stephen Joshua Martinez. It's hard to figure, given Martinez' introspective manner off stage. But when it comes to their music, Jenoah drops the common courtesies and dials up the intensity level.
Though Martinez sites personal influences as diverse as Pink Floyd, Jawbreaker and Elliott Smith, Martinez and his bandmates strive to keep Jenoah's music unique. "I can honestly say that I don't think we sound like any bands out right now," he says. "I believe good musicians finds inspiration in something, then interpret the sound in their own true way."
Produced by Dave Swanson, the new EP is a headlong assault on conventional style. Robbie Halbert and Lucky Rodrigues' careening guitars provide perfect counterpoint to Martinez' fever-pitched vocals. "Our music will never make complete sense to anybody," adds Martinez, who co-wrote the EP with Rodrigues. "All our songs are just pure feeling."
It's hard to argue with that, considering tracks like the blazing "Wish for Alliance" and "Ex Suits," which deconstruct the rules of melody and rhythm. Others, like "Openly" and "Coughing Up Blood," heap scorn on a world gone mad. "We're all people watchers," says Stephen, "and we all have disgust for the majority of mankind."
Even "Jamie," by all appearances a catchy pop tune, becomes subversive material in the hands of Jenoah. "We don't talk about our lyrics together," says Martinez. "We write them on the spot. There's a secret conversation
going on between us." That conversation originated years ago when Martinez and Halbert first met as kids in their hometown Yucaipa, CA, which for them was no Garden of Eden. "It's the shithole of the world," says Martinez, "and we were trying to escape it our entire lives. It's disgusting and horrible, a giant tit that sucks the smog into it."
The two took solace in music. Halbert was big on classic rockers like Led Zeppelin and Queen, while Martinez went for bands like Braid, Promise Ring, and Jimmy Eat World. "It was a pretty bad music scene in Yucaipa," remembers Martinez. "But Rob and I had a lot of musical friends."
After putting together a few low-level local bands together, Martinez moved to Wyoming to live in the wide open spaces. They turned out to be too wide, and he returned to California, settling in "the cozy yet creepy college town
of Davis," as he describes the Sacramento suburb. Here he met drummer Zachary Blizzard.
At the time Blizzard and Rodrigues both had day jobs at Tower Records/Davis, and had become musical compadres. Once they connected with Martinez and Halbert, all four saw in each other kindred musical spirits. And in spring 2003 a band was born.
They called themselves Jenoah, named after a character from "The 2nd Lucid Life," a book of dreams written by Blizzard. "We spend a lot of time sharing our dreams with each other," notes Martinez.
As the band started writing and rehearsing, a resulting creative tension turned out to be a big help. "I wouldn't say we clicked so well at first," recalls Martinez. "It was one long stubborn argument. But the music sounded good." Drive-thru records agreed and signed the band late last year.
Now that the new EP is out, Jenoah is already working on their debut full-length CD and gearing up to tour everywhere. They want to be in fighting form when the world discovers the band. As the new EP proves, Jenoah has seized rock ‘n’ roll by the throat, and is more than ready to tighten their grip.
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