Friday, December 4, 2009

Part Deux of Ez Bronz: Stephen Jerzak.


Currently the latest craze in music is that acoustic pop that makes little girls fall in love. Think NeverShoutNever, A Rocket To The Moon and OwlCity, but there is something special about Stephen Jerzak. In Stephen's music, there is the electro edge that really gives his music more oomph, and it allows him to fit in well and gain a new audience from the current tour he is on with electro punk favorites Breathe Carolina and Cash Cash. Maybe the little extra too is all the covers he does in companion to his original music. Sticking to only one or two in his live sets, he's covered favorites like Beauty in the Breakdown by The Scene Aesthetic, White horse by Taylor Swift and Party In The USA by Miley Cyrus, which even boys have grown to love so this boy has plenty of edges and ways to make a spot in every one's play list.

You could definitely see his fan base at the show we sat down and talked at in Worcester, MA during the tour. Every third girl was rocking a "Stephen Jerzak loves you" shirt and were even talking about how they had no clue who the other bands even were. It's not just the girls in line who are fans of Stephen though. In every interview I did that day with some of the other bands on the tour with Stephen, they all mentioned his name as one of their favorite artists and warned me not to miss a minute of his set.

The tour is out for about a week and a half more and afterwards later this month he will be doing some holiday shows with The Ready Set and NeverShoutNever, along with a trip on South by Southwest but for your temporary fix, read on where we talked about the person he'd most like to write songs with (we have an interview with that gentleman coming up next week!) to what 11/22 really did mean, you know if his computer didn't lie to him.

How did you start wanting to do music?
Um, well my father was in like eighties hair bands and stuff. He always had instruments just lying around the house so I just kind of decided to pick them up and start teaching myself. It rocketed from there.

Who are your major musical influences?
I honestly like everything. I love Taylor Swift, she has a lot of courage for someone her age and just really old bands like The Beach Boys. Stuff like that!
If asked, what would you cover for Punk goes Pop?
That's a good question. There's a lot of pop songs I like. I do a live cover of "Party In The USA" during my set so I'd probably record that one.

How would you describe your music to someone who's may be
never heard of you before?
Well, genre wise I think I'm like a mix between acoustic and pop. It's like full band but it's different. Just pop acoustic.

If you could choose any three acts to go on tour with, who would they be?
I would love to tour with Taylor Swift because she's done really well, and we're the same kind of style. I really enjoy touring with The Ready Set. I toured with them last month, they were really fun to hang out with. Probably like Selena Gomez because she's pretty hot. I think it would be fun to chill more with people my age. I'm seventeen so there are a lot of people.

How does this tour compare so far to other ones?
The bands are all super cool. We don't really have like hang out time. We just kind of like do drives that we have to do overnight. The drives have been super long, we don't have too much time to chill together but so far it's been great. Like when we have days off, we all hang out together. Compared to the last two tours, the last tours were super slow and easy going, not as busy so this one's definitely more busy, more hard work but still so much fun!





I know you've written songs with John O'Callaghan from The Maine. Who would be your dream collab?
If I had to choose someone in my genre to write with, I would love to write with Nick Santino (of A Rocket To The Moon). That would be cool, it could be fun because we have the same sort of vision. Maybe Cristofer Drew ( of nevershoutnever). That would be an interesting mix of ideas.

What's your favorite part of touring?
My favorite part of touring is probably after the show meeting the fans. I love performing, it's so much fun and hanging out with everybody in the bands. When you're driving eight hours every night, there's a lot of bonding, you create a lot of strong friendships. I think that's really important to have. So, I think that's my favorite part, just hanging out and having fun.

How do you go about the songwriting process?
Songwriting. For me, it really doesn't have a process. It just kind of happens. Sometimes, usually I just write the verse on guitar, and just play around. For the rest, I just write a melody over the guitar. I mean, it really depends.

What does 11/22 mean?
11/22 is the release date of my new EP called "Smile Happy Looks Good On You". I haven't been advertising it that much so I just thought it would be a big surprise. I have a backup plan because I uploaded the EP to itunes like a couple of days ago. It usually takes four to six days so the release date would be the 22nd but it might not be.
So you may change that?
If it's not up, I'll put up a new Christmas song that I have.

What else can we look forward to?
I have a little mini tour and I'm playing Unsilent Night 3 in Texas this year which is gonna be awesome then a three or four day tour after that with The Ready Set and Breathe Electric. That should be cool. I have a date with NeverShoutNever in Chicago on the 30th. We're working on a NYE party show too so that's pretty much that for this year and then next year can't really talk to much about that just yet.

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Thank you to Stephen Jerzak and his management for setting this up. It's been since released that Stephen will be playing South by Southwest this year and he is releasing a christmas EP tomorrow so that gives him plenty of material and things to promote next year so hope to see him out back on the road! Check out his music on his myspace!

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