The name Jascha may be familiar on the local music scene, but the band’s lineup might not be. After years of solo work, singer/songwriter Jascha Updike finally brought his brother, Jordan, into the fold, along with three others, to create the outfit generating great Indy buzz.
The band hopes to take that momentum to other Midwestern cities when the new year unfolds. For now, though, they’re content with a new album (“There’s Nothing Like Love For Making You Miserable”) to help continue the slow build. In an interview with Metromix, Jordan talks about the band’s beginnings and plans for the future.
The name’s familiar, but Jascha is a relatively new act, right?
The band as a whole has been together since the end of March. Jascha has been in the Indianapolis scene for the last five or six years, doing the singer/songwriter thing. I’m his brother and so I’ve been playing with him on and off all this time. But when we asked Lauren Moore to come and sing with us for a MOKB (www.myoldkentuckyblog.com) show with The Bowerbirds, we all kind of hit it off and we thought we should make it work here in Indianapolis.
Tell us about your new disc.
Our album is called “There’s Nothing Like Love For Making You Miserable” and it came out on Oct. 2 at Radio Radio for the release party. It was the end of what we wanted to accomplish here in Indianapolis.
What do you mean by that?
Well, we had a business plan for how we wanted to develop as a band. We went through the process of playing a lot of shitty shows at the start so we could get our name out there, so we could improve on the quality of the places we’re playing and the quality of our own live show. We want to be enough in the scene that we’re playing shows at Radio Radio and we have another at the Vogue in December.
So many people are listed as former band members or having something to do with the band. Was it a real shaking-out process to arrive at the final five?
Jascha’s always looked at this as a community project. You used to not even know who was going to play. There’d be nine people on stage and all kinds of different instruments and it was just a matter of who was invited to play music that night and whoever showed up. Members of Margot used to play and Christian Taylor would come up and play. We’re pretty loose with who we play with.
What are the hopes for 2010 then?
We are planning a Midwest tour for sure. We want to take the business plan of what we did in Indianapolis and implement that in Louisville, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis and start to find out who the scenemakers are in those cities and get in front of them. If it works out, it works out. If it doesn’t, we’re still playing music that we love.
MORE info: www.myspace.com/iamjascha.
