StrateJacket: ‘When people hear the album, I hope they feel a little nostalgic’

StrateJacket, the punky alt-rock trio from California’s Bay Area, have learned the hard way that good things come to those who wait, something they sum up neatly in their brilliantly energetic debut album Bad Start, out on 11 October.

The band’s singer-guitarist, Jackson Roemers, and bassist, Fabian Angel, went to the same school but didn’t form a band until after graduation. ‘Jack and I, we grew up in Sunnyvale, California, and we went to the same elementary, middle school and high school,’ Angel said.’ We both had an idea in high school. That’s when I started learning how to play guitar. He started in middle school but we never had the idea of connecting until after we graduated. We had a mutual friend who paired us together and I’ll never forget the first day I showed up, I knocked on his door and he looked not confused, more like relieved. He was like: “Wow, you actually came!”‘ Drummer Nate Mangold was originally in another band, Half Dead, and met the others at a venue called Catalyst in Santa Cruz, joining the band in 2020 and coming up with their band name.

Their self-deprecating album title reflects the humour on show in the album, which comprises 11 tracks: ‘We call it Bad Start because we had such a bad start,’ Roemers quipped. Songs like the shout-at-the-heavens anthem ‘Bad Start’, the ultra-melodic ‘Be My Drug’, and chant-ready fight song ‘End of Time’ contain skyscraper-high hooks, overflowing with dark humour and the sort of electric energy that has hyper-charged San Fransisco’s punk and alternative scenes for decades. ‘I hope we’re seen as a response to the overproduced music that’s coming out lately,’ Roemers said. ‘We want to sound raw and stripped-down.’

‘Every song has its own soul and personality but it’s still us’

Mangold jokingly describes the album as ‘a mess’: ‘I always refer to it sounding kind of like a mess but in the best way because all of the songs sound a little different,’ he said. ‘There’s not really one definite sound, it all is different feelings, different vibes and different grooves coming together but I think it still works cohesively.’ Angel agrees: ‘Every song has its own soul and personality but it’s still us,’ he said. ‘When people hear the album, I hope they feel a little nostalgic. Even though the music scene right now is dominated by pop, rock’n’ roll is still alive. I want our listeners to feel like kids with guitars and basses in their bedrooms and that they’re not alone. I want them to know that there are still little bands that want to be big bands.’

They started off with a guerrilla approach to gigging in 2019, driving all over San Francisco to play under bridges, on beaches, and in warehouses. Occasionally, passersby would stop in the street to listen to what the trio was doing, and some would even dance. This earned a devoted fanbase in the process, and caught the attention of EDGEOUT Records, which signed them in 2021.

One of the earliest songs they wrote back in 2020 was their title track ‘Bad Start’ when it felt like they’d had a raw deal compared to their friends’ bands. It grabs you from the opening “woo ooh’s”, melodic hooks, layered keyboards and big energy. Roemers describes it as a ‘kind of an homage to the Bay Area, a snotty, kind of angry song’, referring to bands like Green Day, Rancid, and AFI who were writing punk songs with big choruses around StrateJacket’s hometown years before they formed: “I wonder if I’ll be OK?”, Roemers asks himself. “Will I ever escape this place?” before segueing into a pile-driving chorus listing all the things he hopes to overcome: a small brain, a big heart, a shut mouth, a bad start.

‘It was a combination of loud, chanty vocals mixed with these layered keyboards and guitars and a message that pretty much says “I’m an idiot but I mean well”’

‘When we submitted it to everyone on our team and they really loved it, it became the template of our sound,’ Roemers said. ‘It was a combination of loud, chanty vocals mixed with these layered keyboards and guitars and a message that pretty much says “I’m an idiot but I mean well”. It was perfectly imperfect and over the years we’ve really learned to love it.’

However, incredibly, the song almost never made the cut, according to Mangold: ‘We had a set schedule to write songs and every week we’d have to turn in a song to the record label,’ he said. ‘One week we didn’t have a song to turn in (laughs).’ Angel weighs in: ”Bad Start’ was one of the ones that we had but we really weren’t sure about. It was like a throwaway song, you know? It was one of the first songs we all wrote together, we were just shaping our sound because we had quite a hard, strict routine on how to write songs and send songs.’ Mangold jumps in: ‘Originally, there was an extended intro and a bridge that was very different from the rest of the song. It sounded like something The Police would do!’

Roemers and Angel agree that Mangold, who came up with the StrateJacket name, has opened up the trio’s sound, which is also exemplified by the changes ‘Bad Start’ has undergone: ‘It used to have a different lead guitar part than is in the actual song,’ Mangold said. ‘I remember the first time we were piecing it together was with the original riff we had and then we put the chords underneath it and started jamming over it. The lyrics came after that once we got the structure of the song.’

‘We all have similar influences but, at the same time, very different musical upbringings’

The album mixed up pop punk, rock and a tender ballad to close, suggesting just how diverse their influences are: ‘We all have similar influences but, at the same time, very different musical upbringings,’ Angel said. ‘Like me, for instance, I didn’t really get into punk music until later in my life. I think the influences I had were Gorillaz and Two Door Cinema Club. My cousin reminded me the other day, the first CD I ever bought was Dookie (by Green Day, 1994). And then he bought Nevermind by Nirvana. We would listen to that a lot! It wasn’t until Nate, Jack and I all formed in 2020 that I started to learn a bit more essentially punk bass but I was also very much more into playing for the song.’

Roemers, for his part, is a Beatles obsessive, hence the big vocal hooks, and he also loves Led Zeppelin, The Fratellis, and, he says, ‘obviously’ Green Day. Angel loves Elton John and alternative rock, especially Arctic Monkeys and The Black Keys but he has also started banging his head since Mangold, whose tastes span folk to dubstep, has been playing him metal songs. ‘Everything from Pinegrove, to Avicii, to Slipknot is on my radar,’ Mangold said. ‘As long as it’s catchy to me, it’s on my playlist!’

Gigging under bridges and in other makeshift locations has influenced how they wrote the songs for the record, persuading them to dial up the sound: ‘When we were playing all those weird gigs, it influenced and helped shape how we play live,’ Angel said. ‘Being surrounded by a bunch of great bands and a lot of metal and hardcore punk and thrash bands, we’re definitely softer compared to them (laughs). So we had to really try to put ourselves on equal footing. We had to do what it takes, play loud and really just be ourselves to the fullest so we can match their energy! It really helped and now I think when we play live, even with softer bands, we still bring a lot of energy!’

‘We wanted to have our own little Freddie Mercury “Ay-Oh” moment, and make it as fun as we can!’

It’s an experience that they’ve learned a lot from, according to Angel: ‘Not only is it a test of what you can do live, but it’s a test of how you can push yourself,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘I feel like that’s another thing too, trying to move around and just trying to be a little bit more free-flowing, which is hard because we are a three-piece and we all have to stand in our own place. But I feel, for me, I have a little bit more freedom to just move around and say hi to the crowd, which I love. I’m very huge on after and before the show talking to the crowd and just like saying: “What’s up?” I really feed off the crowd’s energy, we all do. We just try to be as intimate as we can all the time, too.’

And they’re not scared to have fun with it. Playing in front of audiences prompted the musicians to take their own solos – like The Who did on ‘My Generation’ – on ‘End of Time’ by adding “Hey! Hey! Hey” refrains to the song. ‘We wanted to have our own little Freddie Mercury “Ay-Oh” moment, and make it as fun as we can!,’ Angel said.

‘Being in love and being on drugs was a similar feeling to me and I really wanted a song that captured the feeling of those two things together’

‘Be My Drug’ is as addictive as the title, a coming-of-age pop punk anthem with a massive chorus about trusting the girl who’s into you. ‘It follows up the sound of ‘Bad Start’ but goes into a more character driven story,’ Roemers said. ‘I don’t think a song on the record better represents who we are better than ‘Be My Drug’ does. Being in love and being on drugs was a similar feeling to me and I really wanted a song that captured the feeling of those two things together. It’s a theme I look forward to exploring more in the future!’

Angel likens layering musical elements in ‘Be My Drug’ to painting: ‘Even in the second verse, when we come into the song, there’s a little part where it just trills out, it’s all these bells and whistles that we added into it. The way I look at it when we’re recording a song inside a studio, it’s like you have an idea of how you want a painting to look, and the producer adds trees, clouds, sunshine, little bugs, animals, these little things, and that’s how I look at it all the time. I’m like: “What else can we add to the painting that isn’t too much but adds more to it?”‘

The track is not about a particular girl but more an amalgamation of moments, according to Angel but it was in the studio that it really came to life: ‘The cool part is when we went to Armory Studios and worked with producer Brian Howes, and our sound engineer, Carl Decare, they both helped shape the song. They brought new things into it, which was so much fun. They’d say: “Let’s add this little idea, this shimmery delay effect on it.” It’s all little nuances that you can pick up more and more, after you listen to it 20 or 30 times.’

‘Armory Studios had one of John Paul Jones’ basses in their little vault and they brought it out for the session!’

The studio gave them a sprinkling of magic in more ways than one: ‘Armory Studios had one of John Paul Jones’ (Led Zeppelin) basses in their little vault and they brought it out for the session!,’ Angel said sounding clearly thrilled. ‘Almost every track I played with his bass, except for ‘Torch’, which I played with a vintage Hofner. Jack’s guitar part, that was a lot more intricate. The studio had Prince’s actual Stratocaster, Jack plays it for a lot of the album. After the chorus in ‘Torch’, he plays this little synth-sounding thing, which is actually really cool because that one’s a combination of synthesiser and guitar.’

Roemers calls ‘Torch’ the ‘black sheep of the record’ since it’s the most straightforward rock song, with the lyrics: “Sometimes, you gotta leave to come back home”: ‘It comes from my love for The Beatles,’ he said. Angel weighs in: ‘It doesn’t always have to be 1,000-mile-per-hour songs.’ ‘Torch’ has a lovely vintage, shimmery quality to it, with a huge singalong chorus: ‘I wanted ‘Torch’ to be a good old fashioned folk-rock song and that’s exactly what we ended up with,’ Roemers said. ‘It was grand, Brian had me sing every possible harmony in that chorus just because we could. The guitar solo (squealey) sound was a happy accident achieved by recording the guitar throw a vocal mic that was accidentally left on across the room!’ As Angel puts it: ‘Jack has always been a harmonies guy ever since I’ve known him at a young age and I’m pretty sure that’s due to The Beatles and other musical influences. When we went into the studio, he naturally just was able to knock out all those harmonies easy. And then even doing the gang vocals all collectively was such a fun time, too!’

‘Torch’ also turns out to be the oldest song in their collection, written by Roemers before the band existed: ‘We like the Beatles, but Jack, he truly LOVES the Beatles, which is awesome,’ Angel said enthusiastically. ‘We used to cover the song ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ and I would love playing Paul McCartney’s bass line! Even now, I’m re-listening to ‘Rubber Soul’ (1965) and I’m just like, look at these guys! We had a lot of fun making it in the studio. There’s a guitar solo in there that sounds a little psychedelic with some of the effects on it. I’m glad you mentioned that it sounded vintage because I agree it has all these nuances that I feel you can throw it in any decade. The bridge is a little longer than I think we normally do it and the outro has this really cool way how it ends and fades out. It’s one of those types of tracks where when we feel if it’s the right moment, we play it. We have songs like ‘Living a Lie’ and ‘Be My Drug’ which are hard rock but sometimes when we have a moment with the crowd when we can make it a little more intimate, we bring out ‘Torch’.’

‘We were trying to find another vocalist actually, Jack didn’t wanna do it!’

Incredibly, when Roemers and Angel started the band, Roemers didn’t want to take on lead vocal duties: ‘We were trying to find another vocalist actually, Jack didn’t wanna do it!,’ Angel said laughing. ‘He got a bit of help from a friend but I’m glad he decided to stick with it, it just naturally came together, that’s how bands are made.’

Mangold also wrote some personal lyrics for the album on the slashing ‘Cut the Cord’, which he jokingly calls ‘a high school heartbroken love story’ but admits it’s based on true experiences, and the tumultuous ‘Living a Lie’. ‘Sometimes I don’t see myself being fully myself sometimes around people, and I put on a façade,’ he said. ‘So it’s about letting that go and just saying, “Fuck it, just be yourself”.’

‘Just Like You’ is a beautiful closer, just featuring Roemers and an acoustic guitar. It’s a poignant, heart-on-your-sleeve track about struggling to move on from someone. ‘Wanting love and wanting to be loved was a pattern I noticed throughout the record after it was all written,’ he said. ‘I see ‘Just Like You’ as the final acceptance that this record isn’t what it set out to be and I realised that that’s not a bad thing.’

‘When he played that song, there were moments where I had flashbacks of previous relationships’

For Angel, ‘Just Like You’, is one of the most beautiful songs on the album: ‘I remember when Jack showed me that song, I looked at him and I was like: “Dude, that was beautiful”. You know, it was very intimate. I think it’s one of those songs that anyone that’s been in a relationship, whether it was boyfriend or girlfriend, even a friendship, it’s like anyone can relate to it, for sure. When he played that song, there were moments where I had flashbacks of previous relationships and friendships. Some songs feel very joyous, some songs feel very rock ‘n’ roll but that one’s a little bit more intimate. I think it was an intimate song for Jack but I don’t know if it’s based off a particular person. I’m glad we had an acoustic track like that because it’s also showing everyone that it doesn’t have to be just bass drums and electric guitar. In the end, music writing is a lot more intimate when you’re doing it with just your own soul and an acoustic guitar.’

Tracking it ended up being slightly nail biting, though: ‘The mic was placed on top of Jack’s head, somewhere there,’ Angel recounted laughing. ‘As he was singing, the mic started falling, falling, falling. And our engineer was like: “This is terrible, that was a great take” but then we looked back into the studio and for some reason, I don’t know what divine being made it happen, it was perfect. It sounded like nothing happened, like there was no movement. It was a very funny moment!’

I love the tone of Roemers’ guitar on the track and ask if they remember what the guitar was: ‘I’m pretty sure it was a Gibson,’ Angel said. ‘I don’t know which model it was but it was a beautiful guitar. It was one of those types of guitars where if I dropped this, I’m so many thousands of dollars short out of my pocket right now (laughs).’

‘He’s so funny and charismatic and I love him as a drummer’

There’s an upcoming track that’s not on their debut album that Angel can’t wait to release: ‘We had this recent play inside a studio and I hope that one comes out soon because I love it, I decided to add little slides, they’re a little different, a first step into this new world of music.’ Roemers weighs in: ‘The most recent song we wrote in the studio is this upbeat optimistic song about fighting the devil (laughs). Sonically, I think it covers some new ground for us. It was recorded in two days in LA. I believe we were one of the first bands to record a song live in Atmos, which was a pretty wild experience because it allowed us to really hone in on sounds. We walked in and I got to record everything on the guitar that I tour with which was special. We even had friends from around the area do gang vocals with us.’

If he could put together his dream line up for the night, Mangold picks The Strokes, Third Eye Blind, Foo Fighters and Blink-182: ‘Not in that order but that would be legendary for me, personally.’ They’ve had some funny moments on tour, as he recounts: ‘The funniest moment as a band would probably be us camping in Utah while we were on tour, for me. I was kinda freaking out from the spiders I was seeing! Luckily, a little Tito’s vodka helped calm some of the nerves! It was us three in a tent, just big enough. We’re all buzzed and sweaty watching the last episode of ‘The Boys’ (an American satirical superhero television series) on Jack’s phone. Good times!’

If he could go for a pint with anyone, Mangold picks Stewart Copeland, drummer of The Police: ‘How he interacts with anyone he meets like he’s known them for years is always a heartwarming way to see someone act,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘Just an all-around humble person who also happens to be in The Police. The way he transcends through different genres while playing, I always have loved. His style of playing is just one of the coolest out there and I think a lot of drummers would agree with me.’ Angel is trying to decide who to pick: ‘I think I’d love to have a drink with Elton John,’ he said. ‘He’s a huge inspiration to me. I love that he struggled to find his way; as a musician you have to find that journey on your own.’ We get chatting about his autobiography ‘Me: Elton John’, which Angel has read and ‘Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton and Me’ by his writing partner, Bernie Taupin, which I loved. ‘He’s very open in his book, he’s not scared of telling his truth,’ he said. ‘He’s accomplished so much. I’d be so starstruck if I met him (laughs), I’d be: “It’s you, it’s you, it’s you!”‘

(Top photo from left to right: Nate, Jackson and Fabian. Photo credit: Ashutosh Gupta/838 Media Group. Live photo credits: Austin Murray @villegasvisuals and Sirena Salazar.)