Oct. 31: Jimkata putting on a Halloween Dance Party at The Stone Church

NEWMARKET, NH – There’s going to be a lot of fun stuff going on around New Hampshire for Halloween. Along with the obvious Trick-or-Treating, there are some vibrant parties and plenty of live music happening around the Granite State to ring in “All Hallow’s Eve.” One example of this is what’s going down at the Stone Church in Newmarket. Based out of both Ithaca, New York and Los Angeles, electro-jam band Jimkata are going to be throwing a party with the Hartford, Connecticut, apocalyptic organ duo Px3 opening up the evening. It all starts at 8 p.m. and whoever attends is encouraged to put on their favorite costume.

I had a talk with Evan Friedell from Jimkata about a new album the band has out, thoughts on the upcoming look and blending the new songs with older material.

IF YOU GO

The Stone Church – Craft Beer. Live Music

5 Granite St, Newmarket, NH 03857

CLICK for Tickets | Jimkata w/s/g P(x3) – Halloween Show

Rob Duguay: Jimkata just released a new album titled “Running in Place”, and from my knowledge, this was your first record as a quartet after being a trio, so what was the experience like making it with this current lineup?

Evan Friedell: I feel like the album captures the transition in a way from us being a three piece to now being a four piece. Over the period of time that we made the record, we brought in Cooper Casterline on bass. It started with some demos, things that I had made myself or a couple singles that were done with some producers. We then played some shows with Cooper in the band and it made us want to get right into the studio to finish this record after we were able to get a vibe going with the four of us. I’d say for about half the record we included some real live tracks and there are also a few songs that we worked on together in the studio in between touring and our own lives at home.

RD: Where was the album recorded? Did you guys handle all the producing yourselves or did you work with someone in that capacity?

EF: I work with a friend of mine named Will Kubley, who plays bass in a band called Passafire along with his own projects that he does with various artists. He’s out in L.A. and prior to COVID, we had shared a studio space out there. We ended up finishing the record back home in a studio we’ve recorded all of our albums in, which is Capture.Studio in Syracuse, New York with the producer Jason Randall, who also goes by the name “Jocko”. The album is kind of a mix of various parts of our lives really.

RD: When it comes to the songwriting structure and arrangements, is there anything that makes “Running in Place” stand out from Jimkata’s previous releases? We’ve talked about it being the band’s first record as a quartet, but outside of that, is there anything else that makes this album stand out?

EF: One for sure is that this is the first time we’ve ever put out live tracks on a studio release. It was a way for us to capture the full experience of Jimkata. We started out as a live band playing bars, house parties and various places while writing things together in a room, playing the songs live and then refining them over time. Maybe we’d go into the studio, or maybe some songs would just disappear from our catalog, but then we became more obsessed with recording and refining our songwriting process. We were studying the music that we listened to, we enjoyed how it was produced and we had always been obsessed with that. Then with this record, I think since we’ve brought Cooper into the band to make us a four-piece, we’ve been able to expand the way we play live a bit more and kind of get back to our roots a little bit.

We’ve been able to encompass the whole Jimkata experience with a refined studio sound that we’ve honed over the years along with the live side, so we’ve been able to combine both qualities. For example, in the middle of “Off The Rails” off of the album, there’s a live section that we tracked live that came from us just fooling around in the studio. We wanted to capture the energy of that while reflecting back to what our fans have been saying to us for years about the live show. I feel like there’s been a need to show people what it’s like because they’re two different things.

RD: It’s always a common goal a lot of bands have with recording where they want to echo their live performance, so I totally get where you’re coming from with that.

EF: Yeah, absolutely.

RD: What are your thoughts on performing at the Stone Church on Halloween? Do you guys plan on wearing costumes?

EF: We’re definitely going to throw a costume party, so anybody who is coming should come prepared. We’ve been working on our musical themes and figuring out what we’re going to wear, but it’s going to be a Halloween costume extravaganza party for the ages at the Stone Church.

RD: It sounds like it’s going to be a blast. In terms of crafting a setlist, how has it been integrating the music from the new album with your older material?

EF: That’s what we’ve been focusing on since becoming a four piece. When we were a trio, there were certain limitations of what we could do musically based on our own brain capacities. Having a fourth member who is pretty nimble and versatile helps to give us a little more potential for getting back into some old favorites that people tend to request. It’s been quite a lot of fun because we’ll take a fan request from social media or something and while figuring out a setlist for a show, one of us will ask “Hey, what about this song?” and if it works then we’ll throw it right in. At the same time, we have these new songs that we’re really excited about and we’re looking forward to playing.

I think what we’re finding through all of it and through our instrumentation is a really cohesive modern sound that even the old songs are being presented through this current version of the band that we’re all really excited about. We’ve had a number of shows where we’ve left the stage feeling pretty cool. It keeps getting better and we’re pretty psyched about it.