A. Jay Popoff (LIT)
(Q)- Your name, where your were born and age please.
(A)- Ok. A. Jay Popoff I’m from Orange County California and I age twenty-eight years old (Born September 19, 1973 in Palm Springs, CA.).
(Q)- How long has LIT been together as a band?
(A)- Over twelve years.
(Q)- What do you expect from your upcoming international tours in Europe and the UK?
(A)- We’re going back to Europe because we wouldn’t be going there if we didn’t think that we had something to establish in Europe. We have been there before and we had a great time. We made fans and w know that being a band from America that has been together for ten years and playing for that long, we’re still really going to have to work for it and let the people in Europe know who we are whenever we go there. Especially in Europe, we’re going to have to work for their respect when we go there. We excited about Europe and we’re going to keep going back and playing until people know who the fuck we are. The confidence is here and even though we are confident, we don’t expect just because we went there once and that we’re successful in America that we’re going to win them over with just showing up. We know that the word has to spread and with our band the more people who see us live, then the more that our fan base will grow. After all we’re a live rock and sometime it takes coming out to see us play before you become a diehard fan of LIT. that’s the best way I think to build a fan base. Having the media on your side and having your music video on TV and your song on radio definitely helps to build the momentum and to get the ball rolling. But, when it all actually come down to the hard cold facts, touring and going out on-stage, interacting with the fans, that’s what is going to establish you as a band in Europe and then keep you around for a while. In his business we’re come to learn that there is nothing like the loyalty from a fan. Nothing. Loyalty from radio and TV, that just doesn’t exist. So, if you are a band like LIT, then if you remain true to yourselves and make music that is honest, then if all we ever do for the rest of our careers is tour the world, playing serious rock every night, then we’ll make it and be happy guys.
(Q)- Why has LIT managed to stay together for so long?
(A)- It’s weird. I don’t know if it’s mutual respect or it’s just that we’re something cosmic (he laughs.) who just happened to find the perfect band and then work together. We do get along extremely well. I think we’re actually such huge fans of each other. By that I mean when we’re on-stage we refuel one another and so as a band, we have a self sufficient machine that fuels itself. It won’t just go away. That’s the only thing that I can come up with. I feel the same way about our road crew. We call our band and crew Martini Brothers, that’s the name of our corporation. When we’re on the road and we go out to dinner it’s the band, the crew and our tour manager. It’s a family. I’ve know our tour manager since we were in grade school together. We’ve built our empire with friendship. It’s a very tight camp. Absolutely. And the same goes for anybody we work with. I mean we’ve started out own record label dirty martini records and I don’t think we’d ever sign a band that didn’t fit into that ‘family” work ethic.
(Q)- Have you gone through the sex, drugs and rock and roll lifestyle or simply avoided that aspect of the music business all together.s
(Q)- Do you plan step by step the next step that LIT will make based on what you have learned in the past twelve years that the band has been together?
(A)- That’s kind of a complex.
(Q)- Has life on the road, influenced your music?
(A)- I get what you’re asking. When we come back into the recording studio after a tour and it’s time to make a new album, I don’t think we sit around in meetings all day and sort of map out our next move. More or less, in the past years after a long tour, we absorb everything we’ve experienced on that tour first and then we need to get back home and get into a sort of normal existence for a little while before we start trying to get creative again in the studio. We were never inspired by road stories or life on tour buses and living like a gypsy. That ahs never inspired us to rite songs before.
(Q)- What does inspire your music?
(A)- I that after being on the road, after we get back to our normal existence and we hang out with family and friends, then we want to write songs once again. And, with the more experience we have under our belt and the more songs that we write, we just want to get better as songwriters. We get better at getting our point across at just trying to fill people in on the way that we live.
(Q)- What to you, is LIT about lyrically?
(A)- Pretty common, everyday experiences. That’s why I guess if we continue to stay grounded and down to earth whenever we’re home, then we’ll always be able relate to our fans. We’ve become better and better at our craft. After a long tour, we need to get into a sort of normal existence for a little while before we actually get out and then exactly plan out our next move, by the time
(Q)- Musically, LIT has an interesting mix of punk attitude and arena rock. There is a punk attitude within many of LIT’s songs which many of the Seventies and eighties arena rock “gods”, did not possess as an integral part of their public image. Why?
(A)- The school we come from in LIT is definitely unique. It’s cool that is being noticed. LIT is all of those influences sort of packaged into one band.
(Q)- What are some of your musical influences?
(A)- As far as our influences, as far as what group’s influenced us whenever we began going to shows, it was definitely the early metal, Eighties metal with big arena rock shows. Iron Maiden, Metallica. Seeing those groups live inspired us as individuals to want to start a band and play rock show ourselves. Yet along the way, as we grew up, we were not only listening to metal but to pop radio as well. My and Jeremy’s (Popoff) dad was a radio disc jockey, so we were fortunate in that we were always around great music pop/rock groups. So that definitely influenced us. My dad (Father’s name Allen.) was constantly bringing home albums from work. Our living room was just this huge vinyl album collection. The first couple of records that I just went into the living room and picked up and went and listened to was Foreigner, Queen and Black Sabbath. I was really young. We were always exposed to classic rock music. I was exposed to music that maybe some other kids my age weren’t really listening to. Just having parents who were liberal and more cutting edge, Jeremy and I were in a way I guess fortunate to get turned on to and experience that kind of music. Then as I grew up and got a little bit older, we started getting into music that we called our own and developed a taste for music which was all our own. We started getting a little more into the metal rock, that’s were Iron Maiden came in.
(Q)- What was the first rock concert you two went to?
(A)- Iron Maiden was the first rock concert that my brother and I went to. I was eight years old. That was when they were opening up for UFO. That’s hwne we got into the “Big Rock” sound. While as a kid, you don’t want to get into what you’re parents are getting into, we actually liked what our parents were getting into. I mean we liked the music that our parents were getting into! Even though we were listening to heavy metal, that’s what my dad was bringing home, heavy metal albums. My mom was bringing home like Boz Scaggs and albums by The Eagles albums and my dad was bringing home heavy metal albums.
(Q)- What did your parents teach you from that?
(A)- We always thought a good song is a good song. Regardless of the genre. And keep an open mind. I mean for a while I even got into break dancing. I still listen to heavy metal music. I opened my mind and I never really felt that I had to listen to only one kind of music. I think heavy metal or rock music in general is the only thing that made me want t get on stage though. It was the only music that made me want to get on-stage and force real energy into music.
(Q)- What made you want to get on-stage and perform A. Jay?
(A)- Early, I mean early on when we first started this band I was only fourteen. My motives were more party oriented. Rock and roll was where the chicks were. Rock and roll was where the party was. You know? At hat time in my eyes I felt if I started then, I’d have all of hose things. I never ever even thought about money. That was the last thing on my mind. It was like chicks and party and that was the only was I thought it would make me cool. It was intriguing way to get into more of the nightlife side of things.
(Q)- Are you saying that you were not with the “in crowd’ in high school?
(A)- No we weren’t. We weren’t athletic, we didn’t play sports and we weren’t that involved in that whenever we were in school. So starting a band was our way of having fun and our way of, I don’t want to say acceptance because heavy metal wasn’t the cool music in our high school at that time. Heavy metal was the alternative music in our high school when we were there, you know?
(Q)- In what way?
(A)- We have always been were open minded about everything as far as what is modern sounding music and we sort of grew with the times. But yet, we were always staying true to where it all started with big guitar sounds and that big live arena rock feel to our music. So when we recorded our own music, we wanted to capture those sounds onto our disc.
(Q)- There is that working class ethic of punk within the lyrics to many of the songs LIT performs, yet within any real negativity that many punk acts have. There’s more of a celebration of life then a sick of it all attitude. Almost like Queen.
(A)- I agree with that. With our lyrics, the fans can relate to it, yet the sound is still big enough to the point that, as a fan, you want to go and se the big show. It’s all sort of on a bigger scale. So there is sort of a, “We Are The Champions”, sort of vibe to us. We definitely feel that between the fans and the band, on-stage whenever we’re playing.
(Q)- There is a belief that, because of your image as California natives, life within the group Lit, is one big party. Yet, your on a constant tour of promoting and performing. How accurate is that?
(A)- We still like to party in there, it’s mostly in-between the lines. For the most part it’s tough to call it work. It’s hard to call it work, because the only time I like to call doing this work, is when I get up too early in the morning to do something. As far as whenever we’re on tour, we play the show every night and then go out and mingle and talk with the fans. Then later on, we talk about what went on that night on-stage and work out how to improve the live show. For me, that’s like a pass time and thank god, I get to just do that and nothing else (He laughs.).
(Q)- What was the atmosphere like in the recording studio whenever you guys recorded your latest album “Atomic”?
(A)- We knew that we wanted to make a raw, spontaneous sounding album of classic rock. And we wanted it to be our modern sense of what is going on today. Our modern, classic rock album if you will. But we wanted to keep those elements of heavy metal like those classic AC/DC albums and the classic punk albums of the Clash in the mix of our music. We tried to keep all of the instruments very organic. Loud guitar and we focused on getting each individual instrument sounding real good and then we just turned them all the way up to ten. We did bring in some strings for the song, “Happy in the Meantime”. But not too much. We really just wanted to let the listener feel like, when they put the album on, they were capturing us right on the spot as we were whenever we recorded the songs in the studio. Spontaneous and raw whole at the same time powerful.