{"id":7433,"date":"2012-09-24T00:54:10","date_gmt":"2012-09-24T07:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=7433"},"modified":"2012-09-24T00:54:10","modified_gmt":"2012-09-24T07:54:10","slug":"jjamz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2012\/09\/jjamz\/","title":{"rendered":"JJAMZ"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Alex Greenwald, Michael Runion, Z Berg, James Valentine, Jason Boesel<\/p><\/div>\n

JJAMZ<\/h1>\n

Five successful artists go from musical friendship to supergroup\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

It\u2019s a steamy summer afternoon, and Elizabeth \u201cZ\u201d Berg is in a van with the rest of the newly formed band JJAMZ, ready to embark on a 24-hour trip from Austin, Texas, to Billings, Mont. \u201cWell, I\u2019ll get a book read. That\u2019s a positive,\u201d Berg chuckles. \u201cSomehow I am built for tours, which is good because I can\u2019t do anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not that she\u2019s ever needed to try. As a teen, the daughter of former Geffen A&R executive\/record producer Tony Berg formed the Like with two friends. After three EPs, three albums, a contract with Geffen and tours with Phantom Planet and \u00a0Kings of Leon, the trio went on hiatus in 2011. \u201cThe thing with JJAMZ is there\u2019s a bit of magic in it in my mind,\u201d says Berg, who formed the group with buddies Jason Boesel (Rilo Kiley, Bright Eyes), James Valentine (Maroon 5), Alex Greenwald (Phantom Planet) and solo artist Michael Runion. \u201cAll our other bands broke up or went on hiatus at the same time and allowed us\u00a0to make it a real band.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not that the five, who recently released their debut album Suicide Pact<\/em>, had planned a group when they hung out together. \u201cI have known these people for so long and been a fan of their projects since I was a kid,\u201d says Berg. \u201cThey\u2019re pretty much my four best friends. We never did anything productive until we finally said, \u2018Hey, we have the makings of a band! Let\u2019s do something besides drinking beer and singing karaoke.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The result is 10 power-pop songs with Berg\u2019s lilting lyrics leading the way. JJAMZ\u2019s sound isn\u2019t satin-smooth\u2013there are alt-rock accents throughout\u2013but it\u2019s no New Wave revival ala the Killers or Metric, either. Imagine putting the sounds of all the members\u2019 former bands into a mixer and hitting puree\u2014the result fits together neatly even though the songs were written at various times, sometimes after a night of partying. \u201cAll the songs were written in such different ways,\u201d says Berg, \u201cbut they were all collaborative and organic,\u00a0which makes it so fun.<\/p>\n

\u201cI read this great review the other day that said the name JJAMZ sounds like a discount shoe from the \u201990s, and it does!\u201d she continues. (The name is taken from the bandmates\u2019 first initials.) \u201cWe said it almost as a joke, but it captured the spirit of fun and spontaneity. It\u2019s representative of not taking ourselves too seriously or being too self-important. Letting things happen naturally and having fun is the\u00a0only way to make music.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Nancy Dunham<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JJAMZ Five successful artists go from musical friendship to supergroup\u00a0 It\u2019s a steamy summer afternoon, and Elizabeth \u201cZ\u201d Berg is in a van with the rest of the newly formed band JJAMZ, ready to embark on a 24-hour trip from Austin, Texas, to Billings, Mont. \u201cWell, I\u2019ll get a book read. That\u2019s a positive,\u201d Berg […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[4882,2396,4876,4881,4879,4538,4878,2303,4884,2451,4880,10156,4883,4877,4885],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7435,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7433\/revisions\/7435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}