“My best friend, who I learned how to play music with and who was always a massive advocate of the band and everything we’ve done, committed suicide last January,” says Frizon. “And that’s had a profound effect on everything I’ve done since that point. He was my best mate and my first friend in high school, so it’s been a difficult period and it still reverberates emotionally.”
There’s pain in Frizon’s voice as the singer speaks of no longer being able to phone his friend to share the band’s breakthroughs. “It definitely galvanised me into action, especially the note he left me which was pressuring me to work harder,” says Frizon. “It was a directive to try and achieve more with the time we’ve got and what we’re doing. So I’m spending more time throughout the day working on and developing the band and working on pathways for us to follow over the coming years.”
This drive to achieve is evident in Jack The Stripper’s upcoming touring schedule. The band will tour Australia in support of the single and music video for Nibiru, taken from their 2013 debut, Raw Nerve. They will then head to Europe in August to play a series of summer festivals, including Brutal Assault in the Czech Republic and Romania’s Rockstadt festival, before continuing onto Japan in September.
This will be the band’s first time touring Europe, and while they’ve managed to secure a spot with fellow Aussies Parkway Drive in Slovenia, Frizon says that the process of booking the tour has been a steep learning curve.
“It’s fumbling in the dark well and truly,” he says. “I don’t know anyone from those scenes so it takes a lot of chasing. We have a booking agent for Australia, Wild Thing Presents, and those guys have been helpful with getting further shows. But it’s still an independent effort.”
While a couple of new songs are prepped for the upcoming tour, the band are currently in the process of writing and tracking their second album, which is slated for release early next year. Given the circumstances, it’s unsurprising to learn the follow up to Raw Nerve will be a darker affair, with lyrics inspired by the harrowing real life events.
Fans can expect their signature groove laden metallic sludge and frenetic rhythms mixed with a greater sense of melody this time around. But Jack The Stripper aren’t rushing the process.
“We’re not really a band that can hop into a rehearsal studio and jam it out, like, I imagine, bands like The Bennies or King Gizzard can achieve,” says Frizon. “Ours has to be a little more precise and it takes a couple of extra steps of development just because the songs are so frenetic and tend to head in different directions.”
JTS have shared stages with the likes of The Dillinger Escape Plan, Fear Factory, King Parrot, Cancer Bats and Northlane, and have refined a live show that’s equal parts performance and controlled chaos. Though it’s always been about the music, there have been occasions where things have gone astray in a live setting.
“We had a roof collapse during our set at Wake Up festival in Taiwan,” says Frizon. “Parts of the roof were actually hitting members of the audience and one guy’s head split open. It was a bit traumatic finishing up our set and then looking down and there’s blood all over the floor. I did go to the hospital to check in on the guy and to make sure he was okay. The crazy part was that he got his stitches done, got his head sewn back together, then hopped in a taxi and went back to the festival and got in the mosh again. Taiwanese are tough people.”
Despite music that addresses some severe subject material, there’s also a light hearted side to JTS that comes out in their online presence. They’ll share the odd meme or have a laugh at themselves, because, at the end of the day, rock’n’roll should be fun.
“Sometimes we like to take the piss out of ourselves,” says Frizon. “We’re about the good times. We might not always seem like it, but we want people to enjoy themselves and have fun, so we always try and encourage that.”
BY JACK PILVEN
