Juno
from CP6 pages 38-45
Pen: Megan Seling
Lens: Jason Guyer, Megan Seling
Design: Lenki Design
Click image to download PDF of the Actual layout.
A statement couldn't hold more truth. Really. Arlie's e-mail continued; it continued for five more pages. Still, it didn't seem to be enough. Arlie, lead singer and one of three guitarists in Juno, was put to a difficult task. He had to sum up two years of life, eight months of songwriting, three weeks of recording and the seventy minutes of final product into one e-mail... while on tour in Europe. Hence, the seemingly inadequate five pages.
The fact Arlie is even put in the place to be given such a task is a miracle. As a band, Juno has been confronted with difficult times, but has fought though to overcome them, to turn them into something more positive. Perseverance can equal success. No pain, no gain. Juno is the poster-band for such life mottoes. Powerful, indeed.
As anyone familiar with Juno would expect, their second and latest full-length recording, A Future Lived In Past Tense, explodes with energy and passion. It's the music that proves to be the perfect accomplice as you drive seventy miles-per-hour down the highway at two a.m. for no other reason than to think. Juno doesn't pull any punches or sugarcoat calamity, they stare it straight in the face. Right before they give it a serious beating.
The latest addition to their catalog lyrically remembers, evaluates and confronts many of the desperate, broken people and times from Arlie's life. Though don't expect whiny utterances or cries for sympathy. Expect beauty; expect strength. Expect sincere, intelligent, chilling songs. You can also expect to be rocked. Due to Juno's completely democratic stance on songwriting, the album is as diverse, as bi-polar as a band could possibly conceive without appearing psychotic. It's been two years since the band released their first full-length album, This is the way it goes and goes and
goes, and as the stories behind and within this new album suggest, it's been a hell of a two years.
Juno has been a band since 1995. Before finally releasing their debut album in 1999, they had already attracted and continued to mesmerize fans with a handful of 7"s and occasional US tours. Anyone who had been following the band from the start or had jumped on the bandwagon long into their existence, was anxiously waiting to hear the results of their first full-length efforts. The album was set to arrive in March and it couldn't have come a day too soon. But in February, just one month prior to the album's intended release date, the unexpected happened. Arlie, also a pro-snowboarder, was victim of a fierce snowboarding accident. He suffered four broken vertebrae in his neck and the possibility of being paralyzed from the chin down.
Three weeks in the hospital, three months in bed, and three surgeries later, Arlie still has to continue physical therapy. The aftermath has left him with neurological and physical complications due to a bruise on his spinal chord (not to mention the nerve damage in his forearms and the titanium plates in his throat), but he can walk.
At the time, the future of Arlie's condition was unknown. Just as Juno's momentum was peaking, it was all forced to stop with a screeching halt. While most bands would be playing show after show in support of their new album, instead Juno's guitarists Jason Guyer and Gabe Carter, drummer Greg Ferguson, and then-bassist Travis Saunders sat waiting, hoping, and wanting only the best as their bandmate healed. The band had finally, after three years, finished this album, and it comes to this?
Sometimes what seems so meaningless and tragic at one time can later uncover something more outstanding. Granted, the possibility of the situation turning positive probably wasn't the most obvious while undergoing numerous surgeries and rigorous therapy, but now Arlie is able to recognize the part his accident played on a more grandeur scale.
" That things worked out like this was perfect in the lamest, most terrible way. It was awful. And at the same time, it was sort of marvelous and necessary, really. Like some big cosmic slap-down. An education from the Universe."
It was a hard-learned lesson. As Arlie fought to keep his health and spirits up, This is the way... was finally released on March 29th. Fans listened to the album. They fell in love with it, they got lost in it. Then after a slow, lengthy wait, Arlie felt well enough to perform live again. Juno's first show back was a benefit show in Seattle with Botch and the Tight Bros. From Way Back When.
" It was terrible. Because I have nerve damage from my elbows to my fingertips and numbness in my fingers, and because it was much more pronounced back then, it felt like I was being stabbed with an ice-pick, constantly."
Support and patience from friends and bandmates, paired with his own amazing and unremitting strength helped him persevere. Needless to say, the music scene also supported their return and welcomed them with arms wide open.
In the summer of 1999, the word about Juno's album and their exceptional live performance quickly spread around the Northwest. Within a month of Arlie being able to pick up his guitar, it seemed that every area newspaper had a magnifying glass on their return.
In a Seattle weekly newspaper, The Stranger, Barbara Mitchell wrote, "After what seems like an eternity, Juno have finally released a full-length album. And after what seems like a year, Juno are finally playing shows again. Fortunately, this is a band worth waiting for." [Up & Coming, June 24, 1999].
Even the more conservative daily papers were getting in on the action. "This is the way it goes and goes and goes is as good as it is gloomy- it's an inventive, intense album that marks Juno as one of Seattle's best indie rock bands." ["Club Watch: Real-life hard luck makes Juno's album good, gloomy," Tom Scanlon, Seattle Times, July 22, 1999.]
So it was written. With as much strength as ever, Juno had returned. And slowly, show after show, Jason, Gabe, Travis, Greg and Arlie forced their way back into the Seattle music scene, and really, no one was standing in their way.
It appeared things were flowing smoothly into the year 2000. A European tour was planned and the album was continuing to be a success. Then, bassist Travis Saunders decided to leave the band.
" He's a wonderful man, but his focus was turning to other things," said Arlie. "He made the hard decision to quit the band, because he just felt like, 'I need to do other things,' which is totally noble and fantastic."
Such a situation could be a gigantic blow to any band's dynamic.
" We could have pulled our hair out and been broken hearted, but that forced us to ask ourselves, 'Do we want to continue being a band?' Which, of course, the answer is yes."
The European tour was canceled. At the same time, Arlie was forced to return to the hospital due to a serious bout with exhaustion. Before things were able to continue, the band had to take a long hard into their futures. Just as Arlie has impressed cynical professionals with his slow but constant recovery, Juno would impress the music scene with some collective healing and changing of their own. Almost immediately after Travis' departure, the four remaining began to venture into the songwriting process.
Before submerging themselves into more involved and serious process, the band needed to recoup. While Greg stayed in Washington, Jason traveled to Thailand, Arlie visited New York, and Gabe drove down the West Coast with his girlfriend. Later that summer, Juno, now a foursome, congregated back in Seattle. After the mind-clearing vacation-time, they were feeling as determined as ever; there wasn't going to be any way that they weren't going to make this follow-up record.
Their adamant determination, although valuable and necessary, still didn't change the number of challenges standing up strong against them. The pressing issue of not having a steady bass player could have been a big concern, but instead of scattering about to find the perfect permanent low-end before locking themselves in Seattle's London Bridge Studios, the band tried something different. They recruited two friends of theirs to fill out their sound. Unbeknownst to them at the time, that decision couldn't have been more perfect.
Nate Mendel and Nick Harmer were the chosen ones. Nate Mendel, a long time friend of Arlie's, used the time off from his "day job" as bassist for The Foo Fighters to fill in the bass duties at a Juno show in the late summer of 2000. He then took the opportunity to also work on some new material with the band.
" Juno is hilarious in how meticulous their songwriting process is," said Nate. "They record every single thing- literally- and have huge pads of paper stuck to the wall with the song arrangements diagrammed on them. With all the documentation, it's a wonder they get anything done."
But they did get it done. The result is beyond impressive. Bringing in the new bassists brought a new sense of energy, a much-needed positive energy that had since been lacking.
As Gabe explained, "There was a lot of enthusiasm, and momentum that they (Nick and Nate) were able to give our band that we couldn't manifest on our own anymore. Having new blood and enthusiastic blood in the room with us... well really, we used them."
As far as Nick was concerned, he was happy to be "used." Another wonderful Seattle band and Nick's full-time project, Death Cab For Cutie, has played shows with Juno in the past. While Nick was working at a local record store, Arlie mentioned that Juno was still looking for a replacement bass player. Nick offered his services and soon after, Juno took him up on that offer.
" You should have seen me at the first rehearsal with Juno, I was so nervous," Nick recalls. "I kept looking up while we were playing and saying to myself, 'That's Arlie! That's Gabe! Shit, Jason! And Greg!' We were playing "All You're Friends Are Comedians." I felt like a twelve-year-old girl at a boy-band show. It was incredible."
It was incredible, but not only for Nick. Juno completely appreciated his presence as well.
" I remember him giving us pep talks," said Gabe. "He's like, 'You guys, you know, you're sittin' in here, stewin' in your own juices... it's not that any of the these songs are bad, it's just, you gotta get with it. You gotta make it work, you gotta do it right.' It was really funny."
Arlie added, "The guy came correct day after day after day. He showed up and was like, 'Let's fuckin' write a song, man. Let's just do it!' Those guys being around just really made it exciting again."
So with some new material in mind, new bassists in tow, and friend/producer Kip Beelman on hand to co-produce, engineer, and mix the album, Juno, to much delight of their fans, went back into the studio. Once the first foot entered the room, the clock started ticking and the money started drizzling down the drain.
The recording process wasn't easy. Surely one could imagine, considering the hard-to-swallow topics their lyrics touch on. Humor was a necessity for survival.
" Just because you're writing really sad songs and because you've gotta try and bury yourself in the studio and create this thing and have it exude all the things you want it to, you can't spend every second that you're in the studio being a miserable prick," Arlie said. "In order to get through the process of making this music, you've gotta work with people who make you laugh."
Kip Beelman makes Juno laugh.
" Kip Beelman. That guys is hilarious. Every day. Even when we're driving him crazy he finds a way to make it funny," said Arlie. "Did you ever see the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day? Every morning Kip and I'd still be at the recording studio at about four or five a.m., delirious. We'd be just exhausted, our ears destroyed. Every night/morning it was the same thing, 'Okay, see you in five hours.' It was so harsh, like being trapped in the forever-loop. All we could do was laugh and sigh and laugh like a bunch of lunatics. It was ridiculous. My God, I haven't laughed so much in my whole life as when we're with Kip working on projects."
Here's just one reason why: Kip remembered one of the funniest moments he experienced while in the studio, "(It was) a sonic collage that I made of Arlie's most humbling moments while in the vocal booth. It was comprised of coughs, burps, expletives, moans, cries, ramblings, and nonsensical outbursts all laden with a goofy echo and looped through the studio's speakers at top volume while we choked on our own tears from laughter."
Sorry to say, no samples of such goofiness appear on the record. You also won't find evidence of Nick's relentless mocking of Seattle's "Grunge Kings," Gabe and Arlie's "do-rag" fashion à la Axl Rose, or answering machine messages left by a friend while in attendance at a Scorpions concert. No worries, you won't even notice they're missing.
What you will notice is a lengthy ride of beautiful, intense rock. A Future Lived In Past Tense is exhausting to listen to, much like a long car ride is exhausting. At the end you sit, weak. A mind so swirling with thoughts it almost feels empty, you don't even know where to start when beginning to sort them.
Unlike with the last record, Juno didn't walk into the studio to record songs they had already been playing for three years. In this case, every song was still fresh, in some cases even yet to be written.
" The songs were so new to us all, that recording them meant discovering a lot about them," stated Greg. "We had to let go of our work in the studio rather than make endless revisions and get all neurotic about things."
Which could prove to be a difficult thing to do. Especially for a band whose past recording experience was recording songs with which they were completely comfortable.
" The hardest thing to do was to resist the urge to do everything one more time," said Greg. "Sometimes you had a realization about how a part could sound and you wanted to try to make it happen, but you couldn't, because you didn't have time. We were always behind schedule and over budget."
There was a level of uncertainty that came along with the new songs. Thank goodness for Nick Harmer's pep talks, because there were times when the habit of second-guessing themselves got the best of them.
" I invested a lot of money and time before even going in to the studio into getting good sounds out of my equipment," said Gabe. "But when you put sound under the microscope of a studio and ask yourself, 'Is this what you want to contribute to the permanent record?,' you really start to get precious about it."
Looking at your work so closely could be definite cause of negative repercussions or feelings of failure and defeat. Another difficult factor is having to relive some of the moments that inspired that work.
" When I get upset in the recording studio and can't deal with something, it's not because I'm pitching a fit because I'm a pain in the ass," Arlie explained. "I'm freaking out because I'm actually freaking out. Some things are just really hard to relive."
A long listen of the new album could easily support that statement. Lyrically, the songs could be listed as sad.
In "Help Is On The Way" Arlie sings, "A ghost hiding in every fiber/Under a surface so clean/A ghost passing from your throat each time you scream/too much light/too much heat/so many years with so much need."
Visiting the past was hard. Understandably.
" The whole thing?" answered Arlie to a question that inquired about his most difficult time in the studio. "I'd have to say that it (the most difficult moment, from a lyrical standpoint) was singing the lyrics to the song "Help Is On The Way." Kip had never seen a grown man cry. It happened before I knew what was happening, I just lost it and couldn't stop. But then I did seventy-five push-ups and drank a glass of protein powder, guzzled six raw eggs and played a game of D&D. After that, everything was totally killer again."
Indeed humor is a necessity for survival, and humor is something of which the band has plenty. A list of the trials could continue, but Juno aren't men who dwell on the past. They simply move past it.
" Difficulty- I'm just trying to put all that behind me right now," wrote Gabe in an email, just days prior to leaving for their Spring 2001 European tour.
He's exactly right in doing so. Because it is over. The album was recorded, despite the obstacles, and Juno has once again given what could've been a negative situation, a serious beating.
" A Future Lived In Past Tense is not all about breaking my neck," wrote Arlie. "But making the new album was the thing I needed to focus on in the aftermath- it gave me a sense of hope, and what I really needed for a long while after I got hurt was hope."
Through the sad, fierce, pissed off moments on the album, small signs of hope can be heard. To end the song "Help Is On The Way," Arlie sings "Holding hands through hard times and happiness/These years and every year should be your best/Trying to take care of yourself and those you love/The survey of your surroundings is never done."
" I used to fight with music a lot more," continued Arlie's five-page email. "I used to try to understand how and why it worked and where it fit into my life. Now I don't. It's just here with me and in me. The words and sounds I hear in my head that I'm not hearing already out in the world, I try to bring into the world. In the end that's all that matters."
A statement couldn't hold more truth.