Iconic ska-rockers Less Than Jake have been putting out music, touring the world and amassing fans since the mid-90s. When their Hello Rockview anniversary tour came through LA, we had the great honor of sitting down with lead singer and guitarist Chris DeMakes and saxophonist Peter "JR" Wasilewski. We reflected on early shows, sketchy venues, Fall Out Boy, being the band who had played Warped Tour the MOST and more. Transcript highlights below, but to really get the full effect of their history and personalities, you have to watch the episode:
Early shows
Chris: I'm amazed how accurate some of these are because I'm kind of the historian of the band and I've went ahead and kept journals and logs of stuff. Yes, I'm that anal retentive. Club Velvet in Gainesville. That was our first show ever. It was a building that was just concrete. I don't even know if there was toilets in there. It was in downtown Gainesville. The bar was cinder blocks with plywood.
Here's where we played the cockpit in Leeds, England. So around, '99, 2000, we started going to other countries and that's what's crazy. This isn't just United States centric. This is every show that you've played.
Oh man, remember the Crocodile Rock in Allentown? How could we forget? - Gosh. - That place is now closed. We've blacklisted it. There's a couple of those we have where we told our agent, "Never again."
JR: The promoter asked our agent "What would the band suggest that we do with the venue so we could get them back here?" And we said, "Gallon of gas and a match.
These kids called Fall Out Boy
JR: November 30th and December 1st, 2003. And on that particular tour, we had this little band from Chicago called Fall Out Boy opening for us. Nobody really knew who they were at the time. The bass player used to scare the shit out of me because he would like, jump off his bass amp and then I'd watch the guitar player spin around and I was afraid he was gonna take out the singer.
Chris: Yeah and Joe was only 17 then. He wasn't even 18 yet.
JR: They were kids.
Warped Tour Champions
Chris: We did, to date, 441 shows on the Warped Tour. That's just shows. So that is already a year and a half of my life spent in a parking lot in fields using Porta-Johns.
There was nothing ever around the world like it. It basically was a middle of the country town of 1300 people that was moving 600 miles every night to the next spot and setting up. You'd wake up at 10 in the morning and it would be set up again.
JR: Yeah, logistically it should not have worked.
Chris: It shouldn't have been able to work- - ...but it did
JR: To be fair, if it wasn't for the Warped Tour, I am 100% certain that Less than Jake would not be where they are right now.
Chris: For us to get up in front of a new group of 13 and 14-year-olds every two years, it was the perfect storm.
JR: I mean, towards the end of the tour too, it's parents bringing their kids. That's how it perpetuates.
Mohawks in minutes
JR: So 2014 we get on to Warped Tour and we are it from our generation. It is Less Than Jake and all of these bands that are 10 years younger than us at least. So we're like, "How do we make an impact?" And I said, "Well, I think we could shave a mohawk in three minutes." Funny story, we played Warped Tour again in 2016, and some kid came up to us in Pomona. He goes, "I just wanna talk to you guys for a minute. 2014 I came up on your stage. And you shaved a mohawk into my head." And he's like, "I didn't have a lot of friends, and wasn't really confident, but after you guys shaved the mohawk, people came up to me after the set, we made friends and I met a girl. And now I have a girlfriend. And I just want to thank you guys. You changed my life." And I was like, "That's awesome."
Chris: We still do so many festivals and we're still out playing. Our career has just been this... We'll play Greenfield Festival main stage in Switzerland to 60,000 people and next day we're in Italy playing to 800 people in a punk club. So if we were the kind of band that could go out and play a stadium for two hours every night, then we'd play all those weird songs. But you go out there and kill 'em for an hour and get to go home, it's nice."
Less Than Jake are playing The Fest in Gainesville today (October 27). They have an LA date on January 6 and a UK tour that kicks off February 15. Keep an eye on their official site for more dates and details.
