Jukebox the Ghost seems to be under so many influences that it should have a designated driver. Just two years after the band’s accomplished debut, Let Live and Let Ghosts, the Philadelphia trio’s sophomore album, Everything Under the Sun, was easily one of the most surprising albums of 2010.
A work of incredible maturity and diversity, Everything Under the Sun perfectly framed JTG’s melodic gifts with shades of Sparks’ hyper-caffeinated quirk, the Prog/Pop majesty of Jellyfish and The Grays and Ben Folds’ piano Pop sophistication, while remaining grounded in the foundational architecture of the individual and collective Beatles and the bombastic cathedral paintings of Queen. However, as vocalist/keyboardist Ben Thornewill explains, sonic familiarity doesn’t necessarily reflect influences.
“I like Jellyfish and Sparks, especially, but they’ve never been a reference point,” Thornewill says. “We may have even discovered them after people said, ‘Hey, you sound like …’ Influence is a hard thing; I don’t think we ever hear a band or sound and say, ‘I want our band to sound like that.’ The only band we all agree on is The Beatles. It’s more like 10 seconds of a song one of us will privately pick from something, but there’s no overarching band reference point for our music.”
Jukebox the Ghost performs Tuesday at Covington’s Mad Hatter with Wakey!Wakey! and Pretty & Nice. Go here to read Brian Baker’s full interview.
This article appears in Apr 13-19, 2011.
