The following interview was conducted late 2004 at the old Bottom Lounge in Chicago. It was the first time I experienced the onslaught of CONVERGE live and I haven't experienced anything like it since.
This is by no means the "definitive" Jake Bannon interview but it should provide a little historic insight into what was goin on in his head at the time of writing, recording, and touring out what I consider to be the greatest Converge record to date - YOU FAIL ME.
This interview appeared as the ninth in the series of the Layers Magazine Pocket Books.
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BRIAN JAMES: What was your state of mind during the writing and recording of the new record (YOU FAIL ME)?
JACOB BANNON: I was at a point in my life where I was battling my depression and really trying to get to the core of what my personal anger and issues were. After we did the last record (JANE DOE) I thought I had come to peace with most of the stuff I was going through and I hadn't. I realized that I had a lot of issues that were still un-addresses and alot deeper and that I thought and so I just continued the process of working on them. I took a good hard look at the people around me. I looked at the failures in my life and the failure in my friends and loved ones and I tried to take responsibility for what I could in order to start healing and start becoming a better person.
BJ: How do you deal with all the common pressures of life?
JACOB: This whole punk and hardcore community and what we do is all about survival and thats what we do. We just survive.
BJ: Where'd you grow up and what was your childhood like?
JACOB: I went to middle school and highschool in Andover, Massachusetts. Its a little suburb about a 1/2 hour from Boston. And I spent my weekends in East Boston with my father. My childhood was a typical lower middle class childhood complete with all the hardships of divorce, family life, and other issues that we all face in some form or another.
BJ: Talk a little about your art and print work.
JACOB: I do a lot of design work. It's basically what I do for a day job. It's what I do to pay my rent. I do a lot of design work for independent labels and clients and bands and I just try to create interesting art for people who want and need it.
BJ: What's the process of writing a song in Converge?
JACOB: It's always different. Sometimes someone will bring a song to the table musically and we'll define it individually from that point on and then come together with what we've got. Other times we work on stuff collectively as a band and share the process completely from beginning to end.
BJ: What role, if any, do social issues or politics play in your work both musically and artistically?
JACOB: I try not to involve political issues in anything that I do. I have more personal demons that I've got to face in life than worrying about politics. I think that everyone should be hyper aware of what's goin on around them but we just don't use Converge as an outlet for political expression.
BJ: Talk a little bit about Supermachiner.
JACOB: Supermachiner was a project I did for a few years. They were songs I wrote between 1994 and 1998 and at the time that stuff was fairly "avant garde" and it was really hard to get people to be able to play and do that kind of music. It took a lot of musical growth to be able to put it together. It took a while and I had some time off from Converge and I managed to get into the studio with all those old four-track demos and we re-recorded some stuff and and we just put the thing together.
BJ: How did Deathwish Inc. come to be?
JACOB: We just wanted to create a label that was ethically responsible and that promoted quality music. That was our goal pure and simple.
BJ: Talk about Dear Lover.
JACOB: Much like Supermachiner, Dear Lover is also my solo project. But it's more refined and with the invention of programs like Protools it's a lot easier to create a more polished, final product.
BJ: When can we expect a release of some of that Dear Lover material?
JACOB: Hopefully by the middle of 2005.
BJ: Is there anything in life that you haven't yet accomplished that you still plan on doing?
JACOB: I just want to continue with a forward movement. I don't look back on anything and I've never set out to accomplish anything. I just wanna play music and create art and have a positive impact doing it.
BJ: What kind of legacy would you like to leave if any at all?
JACOB: No legacy. I'm not interested. All I'm interested in is being relevant to myself and others and creating heartfelt material.
BJ: Are you familiar with the BOSTON BEATDOWN DVD's and what's your opinion about the material contained on it?
JACOB: Alot of those kids are my friends that I've grown up with who are involved with that stuff and I think that maybe it's a bit extreme...
BJ: ...I just watched it so it's fresh in my head. Do you think that it portrays the hardcore scene in a negative light?
JACOB: I don't think that it's a negative thing. Friendship and community is not a negative thing. But what I think happens when you see a video like that is that people who don't know anything about the scene think those friendships and those bands are all built around violence and there's alot more to it than that. Just like any aspect of this community, kids go to shows for a variety of reasons, but more often than not, those kids call this community their homes because a lot of them feel like they have nothing else in life. They hold their scene very dearly and very close to their hearts. I also find it really ironic that that kind of behavior and activity is "championed" and/ or condoned in other more mainstream cultures and the media has the nerve to condemn and criticize it in ours. A kid can listen to an EMINEM record or a DMX record that blatantly promotes violence and it's totally accepted. It's just a part of life. And I'm not condoning it but I do understand it and I understand the history and the culture and the reasons why it exists.
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