j solomon’s Jesse Moldovsky sits down for a track-by-track interview with Atwood Journal on his newest EP, ‘KILL THE ROCKSTAR,’ and an unique video premiere of the challenge’s second observe, “RUBBER BAND.”
Stream: “RUBBER BAND” – j solomon
When I consider the phrase rockstar, 1,000,000 pictures paint a feverish kaleidoscope of the greats in my thoughts’s eye.
Jim Morrison wandering the desert at nightfall, or staring off into Hollywood bungalows. Elvis Presley laying his profession on the road in all leather-based. A heat breeze slipping by means of Robert Plant’s outstretched fingers atop the Riot Home. To me, embodying a rockstar is toeing the road between shopping for into the joke and being it, balancing extremes with some degree of semblance and wit, and being an archetypal muse of mass proportions. A rockstar walks into the get together, and each different mild within the room appears to cower to the power of their glow.
If historical past has taught us something about rockstars, it’s that figuring out when to go away that get together is simply as essential as making a clean entrance into it. For Jesse Moldovsky, the brains behind j solomon, that exit has culminated in KILL THE ROCKSTAR, a six-song EP that places a frantic, ultimate stake within the coronary heart of his time as an indie rocker.
At present, Atwood Journal is proud to be premiering the music video for “RUBBER BAND” and share an unique interview with the musician as he prepares for a set of launch exhibits in New York Metropolis and Los Angeles.
“RUBBER BAND” enjoys the royal remedy in its visible counterpart, and showcases a few of Moldovsky’s best, only lyricism but. “By the point the smoke clears / Your twenties are midway handed,” he sings, tracing a young star-shaped wound throughout his chest as he heaves himself up and away from bed. It’s a bodily scar symbolizing a bigger, extra inner one, mirroring Pete Suski’s album artwork imagery and the EP’s total really feel. “I initially had this concept to color the quilt, only a canvas painted purple with messy paint strokes and thick texture,” he says, and the EP’s second observe matches that imagery to a T.
Give a little bit ‘til you get what you need
However you’re solely getting older til abruptly
Every thing you ever wished is out of your arms
Saving all of your cash simply to present all of it as much as the person
Really feel it falling by means of your fingers like a grain of sand
Are you able to maintain all of it collectively like a rubber band?
– “RUBBER BAND,” j solomon
Moldovsky bandages the star, presumably symbolizing his mild and hopes, in any other case representing a decaying of his rockstar persona, and will get prepared. Shortly, we’re left with an empty mattress and the digicam caught on his absence from the shot. “I ask if you happen to nonetheless love me such as you’re becoming bored / I swear there’s one thing burning on the ballroom flooring,” he sings, “burning” performing as an excellent double entendre for ardour and deterioration. “If a spark ignites / It’ll all burn down tonight,” he continues.
A collection of coast-to-coast strikes from Moldovsky’s residence state of Pennsylvania gave him a novel perspective, and KILL THE ROCKSTAR is each an homage to his time in every place, and the individual he was on the onset of every transition.
“I used to be raised in Bucks County, PA, finally moved into Philly after I was 18,” he says, “and in Philly was the place I first encountered indie rock music, which shook my complete world,” as he had been writing principally people songs up till that time. Out of the blue, an entire different world of storytelling opened up.
From there, he made the trek to New York Metropolis. “My time in NYC was all about neighborhood, assembly individuals who make cool artwork and having this collective life expertise,” he shares, and navigating pandemic occasions within the metropolis was a part of his inspiration for this newest assortment of tracks. A ultimate transfer to Los Angeles served as a time of introspection and self-discovery for the musician, and collectively, the three locations of residence started to seep into his writing and inventive id in their very own methods.
The final assortment j solomon launched was 2023’s Sleeping In The Backyard, and looking out again on these songs is already tinted with pleasure and nostalgia. “I wouldn’t change a factor [about it], truthfully,” he says, pinpointing “Sneakers” and “Gravity Management” as favourite tracks in hindsight. “I’m a kind of individuals who believes that every little thing occurs for a purpose, good or dangerous. Sleeping within the Backyard was such a particular time in my life; recording that challenge when, the place, and with whom I recorded it with all felt so good and so proper.” Transferring on to this new challenge needed to be totally different, however not for a scarcity of assuredness in what got here earlier than it.
KILL THE ROCKSTAR opens on “LYING AROUND,” and the EP’s introductory lyrics are a literal and figurative massacre. “I took a shot on the motorcade / Hopped over the barricade / Aimed proper for the Justice of the Peace / And I took him down,” Moldovosky sings, bass accompanying him by means of the fictional confession. “[It’s] one of many few non-autobiographical songs I’ve launched,” he jokes. “I grew up taking part in a variety of FIFA with my brothers, and I actually wished to jot down a track that felt prefer it belonged on the soundtrack of that sport.”
“LYING AROUND” finds its make or break second in its refrain harmonies. Right here, the guitars and vocals attain a surprising highpoint, made stronger by how complementary the principle melody is to Moldovsky’s pure cadence and tone. When he returns to the primary verse proper afterwards, this time with a military of electrical guitars backing him, the phrases tackle a brand new which means. The importance of the time period “mendacity round” quintuples, and in probably the most horrifying, hilarious manner.
And I can’t assist however lose it
I’m dropping all the sensation in my fingers
After I say that I can’t do that
After I take into consideration
the place you’ve been mendacity round
Cease with all the justifications
Each time I say that I don’t doubt you
I simply find yourself feeling ineffective
After I take into consideration
the place you’ve been mendacity round
– “LYING AROUND,” j solomon
As we delve additional into the mindset of the EP’s important character, “GLASS” gives a have a look at the frailty of desires within the face of economic struggles. The idea of starvation is used gorgeously: “Working out of money or an urge for food for dinner / Getting actual skinny / However you don’t seem like a quitter to me,” he sings. So simple as that lyric is, it summarizes the challenge’s important themes completely – being damaged down, and studying to both take the hit or ship it again twice as arduous. “GLASS” is the transition from flight to struggle: “Metropolis life, it actually did a quantity on you / Turned you from a runner right into a preventing machine.”
“‘GLASS’ is among the tracks from the EP that I began again on the east coast, with Erik Kase Romero at his studio close to Asbury Park, New Jersey,” Moldovsky shares. “Lyrically, the track tells the story of a teenager shifting to the town to make it massive, I suppose impressed by my very own expertise and the experiences of the folks round me at the moment. After I moved to Los Angeles, ‘GLASS’ was nonetheless unfinished, however Garrett Corridor and I obtained it to the end line at his storage studio in Van Nuys.” Sonically, it’s deceptively pleased, however one may argue that’s the entire level.
As one in all KILL THE ROCKSTAR’s singles, “DAMN RAT BASTARDS” was an preliminary glimpse into the world Moldovsky was concurrently constructing and burning down. The track is akin to that, switching recklessly between self-deprecation and critique of these in energy. “[It] initially got here out across the time of the final election, so it should’ve struck a chord with people,” he says, but the EP’s rollout was natural: “I used to be sort of deciding what to launch based mostly off what was prepared, and I feel I obtained fortunate that all of it is sensible.”
Properly, total I’ve been a large number
A self-reflective retroflexion,
reflection of my previous
I’d sooner drive throughout the nation
than go backwards in direction of that hole
Swore I used to be anarchist,
then I came upon what that meant
– “DAMN RAT BASTARDS,” j solomon
On “FISHBOWL,” Moldovsky’s transfer to Los Angeles comes entrance and heart. “I truly wrote the refrain earlier than shifting, however I suppose I used to be already within the transitory headspace the place nothing felt stable,” he says, and that lack of foundational certainty is a lyrical centerpiece: “Now I’m a model of myself within the glass / Shaved my head once more, child / Tried to relive my previous / And I discovered the arduous manner / There’s some belongings you simply can’t get again.”
Round halfway by means of “FISHBOWL,” it turns into clear that KILL THE ROCKSTAR just isn’t the story of a pure demise – it’s a burial alive. It’s the demise of an overgrown previous self, of a botched Pet Sematary rebirth, of the elements of ourselves that develop arduous like calluses to guard us from hurt, and in flip numb us to pleasure. It is extremely a lot a rock track, however the guitars are in service of the story, quite than being the story, little question a product of Moldovsky’s penchant for singer-songwriters and people artists. Because the EP begins to brace for its finish, our rockstar stumbles into the bargaining stage: “I’d come again 100 occasions if you happen to’d have me once more / Oh, I attempted my greatest to see if I may claw my manner again in.”
Simply give me a purpose
I’m sick of all this ready round
Let me dig my tooth into one thing
I can maintain
Yeah, one thing actual
I’m uninterested in all this nothing
I’m uninterested in being drained
I’m unsleeping
Pinch me if I’m dreaming
Dreaming
Dreaming
Hit me arduous, I like that feeling
– “FISHBOWL,” j solomon
“I can maintain / Yeah, one thing actual,” he sings, a lyric that involves outline the EP as an entire. Over the course of the six songs, the idea of a rockstar begins to symbolize smoke and mirrors, illusions, and grand visions. Right here, there’s a spark of chance – one thing tangible can develop from that one line. One thing actual can come from the very act of believing it may. There’s a bittersweetness to the position of “FISHBOWL” within the EP, nonetheless, as a result of this optimism occurs like a determined prayer within the eleventh hour.
“‘SPARK’ is a full cathartic launch after a reasonably arduous hitting and heavy challenge,” Moldovsky says of the EP’s ultimate, climatic installment. “It felt like the last word ender, but in addition leaves on a considerably incomplete be aware, kind of just like ‘High quality Management’ off Sleeping within the Backyard.” The lyrics learn as a collection of sleepless ideas on an infinite replay, a hazy but deafeningly loud carousel of ‘what if’ and back-and-forth theories on whether or not it’s too late to begin once more.
These are the times of our lives
You whispered, too embarrassed to talk
Too weak to will it into existence
Too caught up with it to sleep
Too late to return and alter it
Too mild to name it the night time
Too lengthy to behave prefer it by no means even occurred
Too brief to name it a life
– “SPARK,” j solomon
For followers seeking to expertise KILL THE ROCKSTAR dwell, there are two upcoming j solomon exhibits on every coast: June twenty seventh at Stone Circle Theatre in NY, and July seventeenth at The Goldfish in LA. Together with dwell performances, Moldovsky will likely be premiering an accompanying brief movie to higher immerse listeners in his world. “The brief movie makes use of the EP as a soundtrack to inform the fictionalized story of the demise of the area of interest indie rockstar. Creating it was superior– again in April, Pete Suski, Chloe Ma, and I spent 4 sleepless days filming the entire thing,” he says. “It was painful and exhausting and irritating, and it was an unimaginable expertise. On the time of this interview, the movie is in Pete’s arms, however belief me that it will likely be a extremely particular viewing expertise by the point you see it.”
In the end, KILL THE ROCKSTAR served as a stress check for the ages.
“As a completely impartial artist, it actually put to the check what I’m able to, not simply from a musical perspective, however when it comes to enterprise, advertising and marketing, planning, coordination… all of the boring stuff you don’t see within the ultimate product,” he continues. “I undoubtedly discovered what I’m good at, and what features I wouldn’t thoughts delegating to others sooner or later.”
“The solar left the window’s glass / Turning shadows to creatures on the ceiling,” he sings on “SPARK,” “And like splintered wooden of a cut up guitar / A voice spoke, “I’m the night time / I killed the star.” The casket is kicked closed, mending grief with a lingering sense of unease and eventual ahead movement. His guitar is damaged, ideas are nonetheless raging like the hearth it’s about to be thrown into, however there’s a heat to the ending that means one thing larger and higher on the opposite aspect. In spite of everything, Moldovsky says, creating the challenge was “the required ultimate challenge for [him] as this indie rocker character, if you’ll.”
“I feel this complete EP course of has revitalized my love for the artwork, and makes me so excited for what’s to return,” he concludes, calling KILL THE ROCKSTAR “a labor of affection, and a ache within the ass.” It introduced him “nearer to quitting” than he’d ever been earlier than, however popping out the opposite finish with one thing cohesive was all of the reward he wanted: “It feels particular, and I’ve obtained butterflies occupied with the way it belongs to you now.”
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Stream: “RUBBER BAND” – j solomon
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