The Thousands

Jonny Rogoff is chill guy from New Jersey (here’s a video of him appreciating art). Three years ago Jonny was living in the Israeli desert on a kibbutz where he met a skinny English kid named Daniel Blumberg. At the time Daniel was in one of those heavily hyped British teenage it-bands called Cajun Dance Party with another skinny English kid named Max Bloom. Somewhere along the line Daniel and Max discovered fuzz pedals, started a new band called Yuck and asked Jonny to join. They all went to Max’s parent’s house and recorded an album that managed to sound like all the best guitar bands from the nineties (Dinosaur Jr, Teenage Fanclub, Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo et al). Because we all love stuff from the nineties and because Yuck are awesome at what they do, they’re now selling heaps of records and are taking over the summer festival circuit. I had a chat to Jonny about the kibbutz, dropping out of college and band t-shirts.

Sam West: What’s life like on a kibbutz?

Jonny Rogoff: It was amazing, really relaxing. The one I was on was in the middle of the desert and there was absolutely nothing around it except valleys and that’s about it. I had a really decent job too. No money involved, you just work for food and shelter. I just worked from like 9am until meal time. Just for a few hours then relaxed the entire day.

SW: That sounds like a sweet deal, what was your job?

JR:  I worked in the kitchen. I didn’t even wear a hair net but don’t tell anyone that.

SW: You’ve got a lot of hair.

JR: Ha yeah. It was awesome.

SW: I read you dropped out of college to join Yuck is that right?

JR: Yeah I only did about six weeks. Kind of embarrassing but I didn’t want to be there.

SW: Were your family pissed?

JR: I just wanted to play music as a career, then Daniel sent me a song that he and Max had come up with and I was still living in New Jersey and I ended up listening to it over and over. Then I got the call that they needed a drummer. But yeah it was less me convincing myself to go over and more me having to convince my parents to let me do it. I was 19 at the time.

SW: Hey, it seems to have paid off though.

JR: To be honest, now my dad is like the biggest Yuck fan and probably buys like ten CDs and t-shirts a week. Seriously, we organise the merchandise ourselves and I got a phone call from a woman who works with us and she said ‘I’m pretty sure we got ten orders from your address in New Jersey’ and I was like, ‘it’s okay that’s just my dad’.

SW: I just had a great image of an older version of you in a Yuck t-shirt flash into my head. Does your dad look like you?

JR: No, we look pretty different. I don’t want to be mean to him. He’ll probably end up reading this because he literally reads everything. Browses the internet everyday for Yuck stuff and reads all the magazines and everything. So I’m sure he’ll find this eventually. I hope he doesn’t get mad but he’s kind of short, has short straight hair. Sorry for calling you short dad.

SW: Nothing wrong with being short. I’m kind of short.

JR: Yeah, you can’t change that.

SW: So how’d you and Daniel end up friends in the first place? Did you know he was a bit of a big deal in England at the time?

JR: We had a mutual friend, so a friend of mine was telling us that they had a record deal and they’re quite successful and had done some touring before. But to be honest that never really affected my decision to join the band. I’d never really listened to them. I think I listened to two of their songs. They’re good. I like them. But yeah, Yuck was a completely different direction. When they sent me some songs and I really like them I just really wanted to do it for the love of the songs.

SW: It sounds like you two just vibed out on the kibbutz and took it from there.

JR: Yeah when we met we ended up talking about Silver Jews, not sure how it came up. I think Daniel asked me what music I was listening to at the time and they have some of my favourite records, so yeah.

SW: American Water is pretty amazing hey.

JR: American Water is amazing, so we just talked about that and stuff and then months later he contacted me.

SW: I love how that works, how you just talk about a band or wear a band t-shirt or something and it’s just like a friendship flag.

JR: That’s true, that’s why we wear band t-shirts in the first place; just to meet more friends.

SW: What bands are you into at the moment?

JR: I kind of haven’t been listening too much new stuff that’s been coming out. We did have the privilege of touring with Tame Impala. Their album is amazing. Then we toured with Unknown Mortal Orchestra and their album is amazing too. But to tell you the truth I’ve just been listening to a lot of metal lately.

SW: How’s the rise to fame been? Do you guys hate each other now?

JR: It’s been pretty good. We toured for about a year, but it’s all paid off, all the hard work. We just jumped the foot on the gas and kept touring. We just wanted to put ourselves in a good position for a second album. And I think we’ve accomplished that.

SW: Are you working on the follow up?

JR: Yeah definitely.

SW: What was the highlight of last year for you?

JR: Going to Japan was incredible, we were really lucky because a lot of times we play a show then we have to leave the next day, never really get a chance to hang out. But with Japan we got a lot of down time and really got to experience Tokyo. Mariko, the bassist, she’s from Hiroshima. And she has a lot of friends from Tokyo. She had friends who own bars who’d take us in and give us endless amounts of sake. Then we’d run around streets, do karaoke and have a really really good time. That was a blast.