The Juliana Theory Lives and Lets Love

With yet another release under their belt, the emo-rock quintet The Juliana Theory hits the road again. This new album, Love, being their third full length, has everything that you would expect from these Pennsylvania rockers. Intense, heartfelt vocals, with a powerful framework or melodic guitar, bass and drums to back it up. Recently changing to Epic records, The Juliana Theory set out on yet another line of tours for their new album. So, I decided to set up an interview for their next show in the area.

Driving down to Bogarts in Cincinnati, I showed up almost two hours early for their show with Further Seems Forever and the headlining band, the Ataris. Before the interview, I spent some time talking to J-Theory's tour manager. He told me how they've already had some big offers, even though they'd only been on the big label Epic for such a short time. He seemed stoked about possibilities that the band is going to have in the future.

Finally, I caught up with Brett Deter (singer), and asked him a few questions that had been on my mind. So there I stood, while Brett Deter snacked on his cheese sandwich and shared his thoughts on the record industry, current world events, and the art and inspiration of music in general.

Interview conducted in person by Mike Barajas

Name: Brett Deter (vocals)

Band: The Juliana Theory

BW: How do you think the band has changed the most over the years?

Brett Detar: It’s hard to say exactly but when the band started we were naive and innocent as far as music and business in music and things of that nature. I think basically, hopefully we’ve grown up a bit and our music reflects the fact that were not just listening to stuff like Jawbreaker anymore. Not that we always were, but you know at that point in time, early on we played stuff that was just post-punk and nothing else, we still love that kind of music, but we just wanna do different stuff.

BW: How does it feel to look back at your first release and see how far the band has come?

BD: Well, it’s hard to say because everything has its merits. There are things about the first record that were way better than the second one, and etc. We just look back, and I look back at everything as kind of like a still photograph of a time period.

BW: What was it like changing from a label like Tooth & Nail to Epic?

BD: It hasn’t been that drastic, because honestly we would have made the same record regardless of whatever label we’d have been on. We might have had a smaller budget but we would have attempted to make the same record, it wasn’t really a label issue. Our deal with Tooth & Nail was horrible, it was not a fair deal, it was not a good deal, it was not a just deal. I would question if it were even being a morally correct deal, like most of the deals on Tooth & Nail are awful and they do not favor the band, and I’m not saying the record deal that we have now is great, but it has substantially better terms as far as being favorable to the artist, and I don’t think there’s very many record labels that rip off artists more than Tooth & Nail. At least in that regard, we’re getting ripped off, but not as bad.

BW: What’s your opinion on the separation of Christian and Secular music scenes? Did that have anything to do with you switching to Epic?

BD: Not really. I really don’t know if there should be a separation, or if there should be any classification. Because in all honesty, where do you draw the line? With a band like U2 or Zwan and Smashing Pumpkins, Johnny Cash, people that have these kind of spiritual lyrics, but at the same time they’re not out there trying to evangelize to the world. I think it’s misleading to kids, and I think it’s a large ploy. If you look at Sony for instance, they just recently bought one of the biggest Christian record labels, because they’re like, “Well, the Christian record industry is growing so much, how can we not get involved with the profit.” That’s all it is. It’s a big money making game, and if you get a bunch of naïve kids who think a band is Christian, and think that certain lyrics are Christian, or certain people believe something they might not even believe, or quit believing by the time it’s three years later. Then there are these kids where their parents only buy stuff in Christian book stores or whatever. But parents need to check out music for themselves and kids need to as well. I don’t know how I really feel about the industry as a whole.

BW: On this past album, did you feel that you had to repeat the success of Emotion is Dead?

BD: I didn’t feel like we had to repeat anything, cause we just kind of wanted to write songs.

BW: On Emotion is Dead it seemed like there was a lot more of a techno sound integrated into it. Was that your idea or who came up with that idea?

BD: On Love we tried to be less electronic. I mean, if you look at “Emotion is Dead Part 1” or “Emotion is Dead Part 2,” “This Is Your Life,” and a couple other songs, I think we tried to scale down the use of drum machines and stuff like that.

BW: When I listened to Music From Another Room it didn’t seem like it had any techno on it.

BD: Well, if you listen to “Liability,” the beginning of the song is the most disco sounding thing of anything really.

BW: Do you guys follow reviews that critics make, or do they not faze you?

BD: We don’t let them bother us, because I think as an artist, I don’t think you should listen to your press, because if you’re a band like The Strokes or whatever and you listen to what the press says, you’re gonna think you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread, and then at some point you’re gonna realize that you’re not. If you’re a band like us who notoriously gets bad press, if we sat there and read everything the people said about us all the time, we’d probably lose some of our confidence, or I don’t know. You have to be able to believe in what you’re doing, and believe in your own vision. I think if I sat and read everything that was written about the band, and got upset about it, it would just be worthless. Because honestly, no offense, what’s a journalist really? I mean you sit there and, not you guys in particular, people that are paid to listen to a record one time or two times and they have a stack of record, and they’re paid to listen to it to say, to criticize. I mean, why don’t they go out there and make a record. It’s like, we put our heart in to what we do and we know people aren’t gonna like it, we’ve never been a cool band, and I very highly doubt we ever will be. But, we don’t worry about that at this point. We’re very glad that we have fans that appreciate what we do, and we play for them.

BW: What do you think the message that you try to portray to your fans is in this album, or in past albums?

BD: There’s not like an essential message or anything, but we definitely try to be a band that tries to be optimistic. I guess if you look at a song like “Congratulations,” it’s really a song about hope and it might not always appear that way, but most of our stuff usually rounds the corner by the end of each song, to offering some type of way out of a situation or something like that, along those lines.

BW: Besides from other music, or other bands, where do you personally, or as a band get your inspiration from?

BD: It’s hard to say, I think we just try to write music.

MB: Where do you stand as a band, or as a person concerning religious beliefs?

BD: Well, first off, the band has never had any religious agenda. Never. From day one we never have, and that’s been some what of a misconception from time to time because of Tooth & Nail. I’m a believer but the whole band isn’t. We have people in the band that are Jewish, and we have people in the band that are agnostic, and there’s people in the band that I don’t know exactly what they believe. We set out to make music and that’s what we’ve done since day one. Everybody’s tolerant of everybody else’s beliefs, and it’s never really come in to play that much.

BW: Where do you stand on the whole war with Iraq issue?

BD: I think we needed to, as a country, I really felt that we owed it to the rest of the world to try every means necessary to solve the problem peacefully before we went to war, and I don’t think really believe that we’ve done that. I do believe that George W. Bush thinks he’s right and he’s following what he truly believes and so I respect him for that, but I’m not necessarily saying that I agree that he is right, because it kinda seems to me like we spent a year and a half trying to hunt down Osama Bin Laden, couldn’t find him so we try on the same face now and now he’s like, “Well there’s this other well known trouble maker to America, Saddam Hussein, so now were gonna go get him.” It’s just come out, just recently, that there was an attempted assassination from Hussein, on his father’s life, so I question if there’s a personal vendetta, and honestly I feel that it slapped the United Nations in the face, because the U.N. is the only forum that the world powers have to come together and agree or disagree on issues. I’m not saying that the U.N. is perfect and that they haven’t made mistakes, but I think it’s very arrogant to automatically assume that we are right. Having been in a band that has toured and we were in Canada when all this was going on, and we’ve been over seas. My problem with the American culture and the leadership in America is that we kind of seem to have an attitude that we’re always right, and that we can basically go and be the world’s police, or we can go do what we want because we’re justified because we’re always right or God is on our side. I think that it’s a very arrogant attitude and I think that people really need to just think about the rest of the world. We need to go out and see other places and talk to other people and realize that there is a whole other world out there and that America has made plenty of mistakes and that there’s a lot of things our government hasn’t told us, and there’s a lot of lies that we’ve been fed our entire lives and everything is not as it seems. So, I support our troops and I definitely have some serious issues Saddam’s regime and his tactics, but I’m not really a supporter of war in general.

BW: Kind of switching gears, how do you think this tour has gone so far?

BD : This tour with The Ataris? Well, it started yesterday. Technically, we consider it that we haven’t stopped touring, because we were out with Something Corporate and Vendetta Red for seven weeks, and then we went straight to Canada with Hopesfall and Snapcase for two more weeks and that ended four days before this tour. So, we’re still on tour, this is the same tour and it has been great, it has all been great

BW: What has been the best or worst experience of this tour, or past tours?

BD: The best experience was the fact that we haven’t gone to Canada really, I mean we played Toronto, but we never toured Canada exhaustively, and that was definitely the best thing. The worst thing was that I got really, really sick on this tour, the sickest I’ve ever been on the road, and we had to go home for like four days and my voice is still getting better from it.

BW: Is there any band that the band, or you dream of touring with one day?

BD: I don’t know. That’s really hard to say, because the bands that I like the most, I wouldn’t wanna play with, because I love them so much. I mean how could you possibly open for Radiohead, or how could you possibly open for The Who or something like that? So, it’s kinda hard to say.

BW: Are there any up and coming bands that you think others need to know about?

BD: People definitely need to check out Recover, if they haven’t. They’re an awesome band from Austin, Texas. Obviously you guys are hip to Cave In, so I don’t need to say anything about that. River City High is making a record right now in Toronto, and they’re super good friends of ours, I think it’s definitely gonna be their best stuff.

BW: What’s the newest CD in your collection?

BD: The newest CD in my collection is, let me think, what did I just buy? I just bought something the other day. O yeah, it actually is that Cave In record.

BW: What’s the most embarrassing CD in your collection?

BD: Probably all the old Pensive records I played on back in the day, my first band.

BW: Other than being in Juliana Theory, what other hobbies do you have?

BD: Hockey. Ice Hockey.

BW: If your house flooded, what five things would you grab before escaping?

BD: My mom, dad, and brother. That’s three. The only pets we have are fish, so they would be fine. Hmm, let me think. My personally autographed Mario Lemieux hockey stick actually would be one of them. Um. Well. Oh, I forgot my great grandma lives with us now so, and my great grandma. I forgot, she hasn’t been there that long. So, everybody in the family, and my Mario Lemieux autographed hockey stick that he used in a game. Game used, very exciting.

BW: Any good books you’ve read lately?

BD: I read a really good book recently called “The Gospel According to Tony Soprano.” I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite book, but it’s a really good book. You should check it out. It kinda offers spiritual insight to The Sopranos if you can imagine that, it’s a weird concept, but it’s kinda cool.

BW: What are some of your favorite movies that never get old?

BD: “The Godfather: Part 1,” “Goodfellas,” “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” ”The Ten Commandments.”

BW: Nice talking to you, thanks again.

BD: No problem. Thanks.