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Jitters Interview

On Friday, September 21st, CIMN Program Director Bruce Davison, interviewed Blair Packham, the lead singer of the Toronto band the Jitters.

CIMN- How would you describe the kind of music the Jitters make.

Jitters- If I had to come up with. a quick phrase, itd be "thinking man’s rock and roll.". You know it's party music and its fun, but it’s also - there’s some depth to it,, the lyrics are kind of thought-provoking.

CIMN- How has your music changed from your first self-titled album to your second album. Louder Than Words? A lot of people seem to agree there’s a more serious sound, do you agree?

Jitters- Yeah, I would agree, but I think there’s a distinciton that should be made between the band live and the as we appear on record out our first album only presented the real party band side to us...There’s a lot more to us than that and we wanted to get that across.

CIMN-. Getting into the history of the band, did you think all along that you’d make it big? Jitters- Yeah, actually. I think anyone that tells you that they are just doing it for fun isn’t really telling you the whole story. We were doing it for fun but part of the fun is seeing how far you can take it, how many people you can reach...it’s really exciting to play in a place you've never played before and see people singing along with your songs, the song that you wrote in your bedroom 6 months ago. I think we always did think that, but it was never a forgone conclusion. I remember reading a story about the Beatles-how when they first started, to make themselves feel better,

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encourage themselves, John Lenon would say,

"Where are we going fellas?’ And the rest of the

Beatles would chant out "To the toppermost or the

poppermost"...If they had that vision of themselves,

I think its fair to say that we do too. ee we

have not turned into the Beatles.

CIMN- Not yet,. but its coming though, right?

Jitters- Well, maybe...At this point I’m pretty happy

to making a living making music.

CIMN- Actually that leads into my next question,

at what point did you actually start making a living

doing this?

Jitters- Probably about 1985 just before the first

record came out, although I wouldn’t call it a very

luxurious living. That’s when we decided we were

all going to do this fulltime.

CIMN- What is your song writing process like? Do. all members of the band contribute? Do you write

about real or fictitious events. Do you write on the

road? Jitters- All of the above..:Often it’s a case of putting yourself in a situation and judging how you'd react. One of the first songs I wrote was

about a girl who | was with, after we broke up, she

killed herself... That didn’t happen. ; CIMN- (God, I hope not) What about your videos

- do you get alot of creative input when they're

made?

Jitters- Yeah we do, that’s why we've go a very ~ strong video (the Jitter’s latest video "When the Fever Breaks") "The Last of the Red Hot Fools" was another one we were very pleased with "Closer Everyday" was one that we weren't so pleased with, that was the one that we had the least input on, no that we're geniuses or anything...

October 4, 1990

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