The Perks of quarantine

Written and Photographed by Rick Perez

The Southern California band, Joynoise, talk about how much they love their fans, how not playing shows sparked their creativity, and the rise of local artists post-quarantine.

Huntington Beach, California, USA

Sitting at a picnic table under a grove of trees in the middle of a garden, I caught up with the Orange County, California band Joynoise. The members Koch, Mason, and Darren just finished rehearsal and I wanted to know everything about their lives during the pandemic.

It’s coming close to 3 months under quarantine, how are you guys doing?

Mason: I’ve been able to work this whole time, so the only way it’s effected me is the band. All I do is play shows so to not have that is a huge hit.

Darren: My life is completely based around music, everything I do contributes to music. Not being able to play shows makes me re-think my approach to that; since we can’t play shows, our approach is writing new material.

Koch: It’s been better since we’ve started practicing this past week, before that it was pretty horrible

After all this time, why did you guys decide to practice now?

Koch: When the two month mark passed, I figured out a way to practice safely at FTG Warehouse. They schedule bands every 3 days, so it gives time to sanitize everything and it’s a big space so we don’t touch, either. We’re starting to write new material so we wanted to get on that. Since there’s no shows, we have to find creative ways to keep busy or we would fade out of relevance.

Focusing on new material is what is saving the band, they go on to explain.

Koch: Not playing shows has also helped us progress a lot more. Instead of thinking, “We have a show this Saturday, so we have to go over the set,” our current rehearsals are going over new material. Today, we spent two hours on two songs and one song for majority of those hours. We were able to do that without stressing about a show. It’s a blessing in disguise because it helps us think about the songs more intently and perfect them.

Darren: It’s good for the writing process because it helps us reflect.

When this first started, what were thoughts and feelings? Were you guys scared? Or did you think it was bullshit?

Darren: Everyone had a different opinion. Half the people were like, “This is bullshit,” and the other half were like, “I’m never going outside ever again.”

Koch: And a lot of people were in-between, like a swinging pendulum.

Darren: I think there was a lot of confusion on my part because I didn’t know what to believe. It’s taken some time to formulate an opinion on the whole crisis and how serious it is-and it’s pretty serious.

Koch: In the beginning I would make jokes about it and then it became more serious and became more in in our backyard, then our front yard. I kind of went along with it, thinking, “Welp, I guess this is happening now,” and tried not to stress about it emotionally. Don’t be a fucking idiot, be safe, stay inside; if you hang out with your friends, make sure it’s a small, few people who you know have been safe so you don’t risk getting you or your family sick. It’s all about being smart.

What has the band been doing to stay relevant? Before, it was playing shows and promoting shows. Now, what do you do and what have found successful?

Koch: I annoyingly post on our Instagram, for no reason, all the time. If I don’t have a reason to post, then I just promote our merchandise, do giveaways. We recently got featured by Renaissance Art Community which was really cool. One thing I did was make a music video of fans singing our song, “Pearl Mountain,” and it was probably the greatest idea I’ve had.

What kind of new music is coming out? What have you been working on and been inspired by?

Koch: The quarantine has given us time to build up a lot of tension and listen to a lot music, because what else is there to do another then expand your musical tastes?

As a band, this quarantine has allowed them to experiment more in their writing and take chances. They no longer take influences from other bands, but rather put their own individual influences in.

Koch: It sounds like Joynoise now.

Darren: We have definitely developed our sound throughout this. It’s hard to compare the new music to any other band.

Koch: We are evolving into our own through this; it’s a blessing in disguise. Especially since we are such a small band, we couldn’t afford to take two months off of shows to focus on new music. This gave us that time and chance to grow into our own. If shows were still going on, we wouldn’t be progressing as much on these songs.

Darren: We still would have developed our own sound, but it would have taken a lot longer.

Koch: It would have been a longer journey. I’m bummed about the loss of shows but I think it’s benefiting us creatively.

Darren: What Covid-19 is doing for bands is making us do our chores. We gotta do the things that want to benefit us but don’t want to do.

We went on talk about their fanbase and how much they appreciate their fans and enjoy interacting with them.

Mason: We’ve had a couple DMs and comments about our fan interaction. This person actually told us that we are one of the few bands that actually respond to them.

Koch: We pride ourselves in the fact that we interact with all of our fans.

Darren: It took us so long to get them, it was hard work getting to where we are today. When someone messages us to tell us how much our music inspires them, fuck yeah we will respond.

After all of this is over, what do you think will change about the music industry? What do you think will change about shows?

Koch: The bigger acts won’t be able to play these big stadiums so I hope that the focus turns to more underground bands and local scenes because thats where the shows will be happening. I’m hoping that after this, more opportunities will be given to local artists and allow them to get bigger in 2021. Who knows, everything is unpredictable but it’s plausible it will happen.

To Find Out More About Joynoise, Follow Their Instagram @joynoiseband