Jana Peri’s sassy pop rock and dynamic stage presence have been known to turn more than a few heads…and even bare a few butts.  Having raised a ruckus on her native New York City scene for the past five years Peri recently moved her rough and tumble show abroad for a round of gigs in England, including one where cops in riot gear had to subdue locals who were literally mooning the rock ruler in joyful reverence. 

Womanrock caught a moment in the calm with Peri who is currently working with Ramones/Misfits producer Daniel Rey on Go Ahead, the follow-up to her 1999 self-titled debut EP. 

 WOMANROCK:  

Tell us about your recent tour in England.

 JANA PERI:

 I am involved with International Pop Overthrow, which is an ongoing series of music festivals organized by music journalist David Bash…David asked me if I wanted to play at The Cavern Club in Liverpool—The birthplace of The Beatles. Hell, yeah!  So, I organized a mini UK tour around that show…I would have preferred to go with my band, but it didn’t work out, so I did a solo electric tour and it was great…A really funny thing happened when I played at The Cavern.  My friend was shooting footage of me for a music video for “The La La Song” and a bunch of drunken guys danced by in sort of a conga line and mooned the video camera.  I was only on my second song in the set and the club management made me stop while they threw them out.  I found out later that the hooligans really got into a scuffle with the bouncers and there was some bloodshed.  When the BBC reviewed the show, they didn’t mention my performance. They only mentioned that it was interrupted by a group of men displaying their bottoms.  I was upstaged by someone else’s ass! 

Apparently that sort of thing goes on often in England, so I guess I had better be prepared for the possibility that it may happen again. I am planning to go back to the UK with a full band in the fall of 2005 after the new CD is out.   

WOMANROCK: 

You're in the studio working on the new CD with Daniel Rey. What’s that experience been like?

 PERI:

 I love the idea of turning something intangible, such as a song, into something concrete and lasting that you can share with others.  It’s very satisfying. It’s a whole different animal than live performance, which is exhilarating, but the feeling is fleeting.  If you don’t make a recording of the performance and if no one takes pictures, sometimes afterward you wonder what the hell you just did!

Daniel Rey, my producer, is really great to work with because he’s so laid back and puts me at ease. He has a very hands-off producing style, which I like because I’m such a control freak that I could never totally turn my baby over to someone else. But he knows how to coax good performances out of musicians and has a very subtle way of getting you to do what he wants.  For example, I was at his apartment doing vocal tracks one day and my voice started to crap out on me.  I had already prepped my body with wonton soup and herbal throat spray before I went over, and I am never without a bottle of water in my hand when I’m singing, but after several takes, your voice is going to get tired.  Daniel kept asking me if I wanted some tea until I finally conceded.  After sitting down for a few minutes and sipping some tea and honey, my voice was totally restored and I was able to keep singing.  It seems like a really simple thing, but sometimes you already think you are doing everything right, but you’re not and you need someone to kick your ass.  The trick as a producer is to not let the musician know you are kicking his or her ass and let them think they came up with the idea on their own.  I imagine Daniel is a master at this after having done several albums with The Ramones who were not even speaking to each other at the time! 

WOMANROCK:

Can you tell us a little about the recording process?  Are there a lot of overdubs used, etc.?  

PERI:

We have been doing all our basic tracks at a recording studio in Hoboken, NJ called The Pigeon Club. Daniel has a recording studio in his apartment in Manhattan and that’s where we’ve been doing all the vocal tracks and most of the overdubs. The process is taking a little longer than I would like because Daniel is very busy doing simultaneous projects with other bands.

Basically what has been happening is that we’ve been doing all of the bass guitar, all the drums and all the core rhythm guitar tracks in Hoboken. We’ll record a song live with a scratch vocal as a guide and then go back and layer on additional bass and guitar tracks. All the drum tracks are totally live. Daniel likes a fat sound so I generally do three tracks of the same rhythm guitar part.  We’ll knock out the basics for four songs in one very long day.  Daniel is working with Pro Tools, so he’ll dump all the stuff we did in Hoboken onto his portable hard drive and then bring it home and do a rough mix on his home computer. I’ll come in and do all the lead vocals and maybe some additional guitar tracks.  The guys will come in and do all the backing vocals.  Then Daniel and I will talk about secondary guitar parts – solos and textural stuff, etc. Sometimes there is a really specific riff I want that is essential to the song, so I’ll sing it to Daniel and he’ll bang it out on guitar.  Other times it’s just, “Can we use a Les Paul, play a solo here and make it sound like Johnny Thunders?”  Basically, I’ll give him an idea of what I’m looking for and he’ll fill in the blanks. 

Daniel’s a really great guitarist.  I don’t know if people realize how versatile he is.  Most people think of him as a punk rock guy, but he can play just about anything.  The chicken pickin’ stuff he did on my country song, “I’ll Be Gone,” kicks ass. Carl Perkins would approve. And he did some really wonderful mid-period Beatles, George Harrison-esque stuff on “Catching Flies With Vinegar.”  After all of the guitar stuff is done, then we’ll talk about what’s missing.  Do we want to add any more instrumentation or do we just need a little percussion? 

 WOMANROCK:

As far as the songwriting process goes, is it words or music first?  It seems as if you write a lot from personal experience.  How did "Dating Sucks" come about?

 PERI:

I don’t have an official process.  I tend to write the initial music and words for the hook simultaneously.  Other times, I’ll just spill my guts on paper and see if I can pull something out of that for a song.  I’m not as prolific as I wish I were.  I wish I could say I was writing all the time, but I’m not. When I was nine or ten years old, I churned out lots of songs effortlessly, but it’s not like that anymore.  I have to wear so many hats regarding the band and my music that my head is very often in a business mode, rather than a creative mode.  That’s what I love about being in the studio or being onstage because it is purely creative and I don’t have to think about anything but playing.  Sometimes writing feels like work, but there is something very magical about that feeling you get when a song is coming to life for the first time. 

Yeah, I do tend to write from personal experience.  I am usually inspired to write because I have something I want to get off my chest. I tend to be motivated by anger or a puzzle I’m trying to solve. “Dating Sucks” started out as a song about something else entirely.  I put it away for a few months and then one day I was talking to some guy about dating and he said, “Dating sucks.” It was a “eureka” moment for me.  I pulled the song out again, made that the title and wrote all the lyrics around it.  The song is not autobiographical per se, but there are elements of my personal experience in there. I cast myself in the role of a woman who feels she’s been victimized by all her relationships and put a funny spin on it.

Musically, I think I was thinking about Eddie Cochran and Elvis Presley when I was writing that one. The pre-chorus is a spin on “Don’t Be Cruel.”  It’s amazing what a little subconscious musical cue can do for a song if you either allow yourself to be a vessel in order to channel it or know how to consciously incorporate it. I believe that there is a collective musical unconscious. I don’t want to get too Jungian here, but I think you know what I mean. If I want to write a song in a particular musical style, I’ll listen to certain CDs in that vein over and over in order to brainwash myself. When I was writing “The La La Song,” I just inundated myself with The Who, The Monkees, The Beatles and Oasis.

WOMANROCK:

What gear do you use?

PERI:

My primary axe these days is a Fender Highway One Telecaster that I bought last April right before I started recording.  I love it!  I’m really picky about guitars. I’m a Fender kind of gal (my first electric guitar was a Fender Lead III) and knew I wanted a Tele, but it took a really long time before I found one that felt right in my hands.  It’s fairly light and the neck is nice. I have small hands so sometimes it’s tough to find a neck that feels good.  I also have a sparkly Danelectro DC-3.  It’s very light and comfortable to play, and it looks great onstage, but it goes out of tune a lot so I don’t play it as often anymore. 

When I do gigs, if an amp isn’t already provided, I bring my Fender Stage 100, but it’s very noisy.  If I were going to go out and buy a big amp for touring now, I would get a Marshall.  I love playing through Marshall half stacks when clubs have those. 

In the studio, I’ve mainly been using my Tele, but I’ve also done some tracks with Daniel’s guitars.  He’s a collector and has some really great vintage stuff.  I borrowed his Les Paul and wah wah pedal for some overdubs on “Cab Driver.” I needed a guitar with a toggle switch so I could make some noises. I was doing my best Pete Townshend impression.  Sadly, I don’t get to do that stuff onstage because I’m too busy holding down the rhythm to fuck around. I also used a ’67 Gibson ES 330 they had lying around in the studio to do some overdubs on “New York Proud” because I needed a guitar with a whammy bar to get the sound I wanted on that song.  I’d never owned or played a guitar with tremolo before so Daniel had to give me a quick lesson, but it was easy and I love the sound I got. 

As far as acoustic guitar is concerned, onstage I play a Takamine EF 341 C that sounds awesome and is a warhorse. I’ve seen Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi use it too.  It’s a really bright, ballsy guitar and it travels very well. I used that guitar for recording my old EP (it’s the guitar in the cover photo), but this time, I used Daniel’s acoustic guitar at his insistence.

Most of the guitar overdubs have been done in Daniel’s apartment where I’m going direct into the board, but in the studio in Hoboken, I’ve been doing all the basic guitar tracks through an old Magnatone amp that they have there.  It’s all natural distortion whereas I always use a distortion pedal onstage.  All my pedals are Boss and I use a Mojogear Nomad pedal board.  I am one of the first people to ever have this thing because I saw it in a magazine and ordered one. I love it because it’s shaped like a boomerang, it’s thin, the pedals attach to it with Velcro, and it hooks onto the base of the mic stand. 

As far as strings are concerned, I use DR strings exclusively. I use Tite Fit 10s on my electric guitars and “Rare” Phosphor Bronze 11s on my Takamine. Endorsement anyone?

WOMANROCK: 

Do you have any advice for musicians trying to break into the New York City club scene?

PERI:

Network, network, network!  I think the best way to go is to either go through a promoter or to try to team up with another band or bands of a similar genre and do a show with them.  If you don’t know anybody in New York City, your best bet would be to join an online community like MySpace.com and meet bands there.  You would be surprised how helpful and nice some people are.  You just need to reach out.  For example, I met a band from Philadelphia on MySpace, thought of them when I was putting together a show at a club here called Continental, and asked them to come and play with us.  I’ve met so many interesting musicians from around the world via the Internet. 

In regards to playing in New York or anywhere, you’ve got to do your research before you approach a club. You should figure out if it’s an appropriate venue for your band before you try to get a gig there. Check out their website if they’ve got one and try to ask other musicians for feedback.  A good thing to do if you’re planning a tour on your own is to find a band that is similar in style to yours and look at all the clubs at which they’ve played.

WOMANROCK:

Influences?

PERI:

I have so many influences, but I always say The Beatles and The Who first.  I’ve always been a huge Beatles freak and they are one of my earliest influences. There’s a tremendous 60’s British Invasion influence in my music, but I also grew up, listening to my mom’s old records like Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis.  A little later, I got really into Blondie.  I have very vivid memories of listening to Eat To The Beat over and over while I cleaned my room. I hold Debbie Harry responsible for a lot of what I do. I just love her. Soon after, I got really into the whole 80’s new wave thing and started listening to more punk rock. I also got really into The Stray Cats for a while. I love rockabilly.  I’ve always loved The Pretenders and Chrissie Hynde is a huge inspiration – more in attitude and spirit than musically.

I like some of the bands that came out of the 90s, but none of that Seattle stuff really influenced me at all – the whole grunge thing, etc. It bugs me when I hear these girl bands now that sound like they never listened to anything that existed before Hole. If you want to learn how to play the guitar properly, you’d better learn your rock history and get yourself a better role model.  I got really into Tori Amos and Alanis Morrissette for a while, but then I sort of lost interest.  Those are two women who really need a strong-armed producer to reel them back in when they start going off the deep end.  I’m all for self-expression, stream of consciousness writing and emoting all over the place, but if you want to write a good pop song, you need to know how to edit yourself. 

For more on Jana check out her website at www.JanaPeri.com

Rock photojournalist/writer Glyn Emmerson has been dodging thrown beer bottles and in the pit and moshing fans, notepad in hand, for the likes of the Aquarian Weekly and the Long Island Press.  Check out his website at www.ROKPIX.com and blog at http://oysterman9.blogspot.com/ Like the musicians he covers, he’s a globe trotting backpacker as well.  You can check out an account of his recent trip to Nepal and Tibet where he barely got out of the place alive at http://rokpix.com/Tibet.htm.