J David Jones of Sterling Peirce A few words with J David Jones, provider of voice, guitar and various stringed instruments for NYC band, Sterling Peirce. Leicester Bangs: Tell us a little about yourself, and your band. J David Jones: Sterling Peirce is the reincarnation of an earlier band called Buffalo Bison, which still has an EP up on the BB MySpace page (link below - Ed.) The Bison was a joint project between myself and another singer, who has since parted ways with yours truly. Our object was to sound as much like Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris as possible while still sounding like ourselves. How did this work out for us? We received as many as two comparisons to Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, that's how... Sterling Peirce, on the other hand, attempts to sound like something else. What? I dunno. Like some version of Crazy Horse or Dylan's band on John Wesley Harding, but inevitably tainted by a great deal of listening to Sonic Youth and The Dirty Three. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but we keep trying to make some version of "21st Century Folk Rock," inevitably driven by both nostalgia and necessity. LB: How did you start out making music? JDJ: I grew up partly in a hole-in-the-wall Civil War town in Virginia. Most of my friends played guitar or wanted to play guitar. Problem was, all they could play and / or listen to was silly, theatrical 80s hair metal. I, on the other hand, listened to The Cure, REM, The Smiths, Bauhaus. Mostly in secret, mind you, except when I decided that I also needed to learn the guitar by coaxing my metalhead guitar teacher to teach me to play Cure songs. LB: Who did you grow up listening to and how do they influence what you’re doing now? JDJ: Apart from the aforementioned post-punk / new wave phase, I also listened to a great deal of hardcore punk, hip-hop, and electronic music. But I was raised by southern, ex-hippie, Christian convert parents, who fed me from birth a steady diet of folk, country, bluegrass, blues, 60s rock, and gospel and soul. These days, I hear all of it - all the music of my youth - at once. It's a disturbing, cacophonous sound that I try to distil, for my own mental health, into the music of Sterling Peirce. LB: Tell us about your latest release. JDJ: Our latest release, Memoirs, was recorded, mixed, and produced over a three-month period in my apartment in Manhattan. Yup, that's right, a drumkit in the living room. Kickass. The songs were written over a two-year period, some performed and recorded as rough demo versions whilst we still called ourselves Buffalo Bison, some never previously performed / recorded. The album's theme is, roughly, the dangerous attraction of nostalgia and the dark necessity of history. LB: Do you get out and play your music live, and if so, what can an audience expect at one of your shows? JDJ: We do get out and play locally in NYC. We haven't done so in a few months because of some line-up changes and a member's cancer treatment. If you see us play live, you can expect us to have a few drinks, play like we've just discovered our instruments and voices, rumble and ramble, rock hard and rock soft, and generally have at least as much fun as we hope you're having, but probably more. LB: What aspects of playing and recording music do you most enjoy? JDJ: Shit, all of it. LB: Where can people find (and buy) your music? JDJ: Memoirs, is available at CD Baby and the entire album can be streamed on our website. You can also find us on Myspace and Facebook. www.sterlingpeirce.com www.myspace.com/sterlingpeirce www.facebook.com/sterlingpeirce www.myspace.com/buffalobison