A Conversation With Jo & The Average

Jo & The Average performing at the WECB Live! Valentine’s Day show, photographed by Kenny Wood.

By Karenna Umscheid

Jo & The Average, a band composed of Emerson and Berklee students, has blossomed into the local scene with a slate of performances recently, including an opening set (happening tomorrow, April 6!) for Sidney Gish, hosted by WECB Live!. Recently, I hopped on a Zoom call with them, and discussed their origins, the elements of their sound, and their inspirations. The band consists of Jo Malicdem (she/they) who does vocals and guitar, Gabe Perez (they/xe), who does drums/percussion, and Kale Townshend (they/them) playing bass, and Tony Batey (any pronouns) who plays guitar. 

What are the origins of Jo & The Average?

Jo: Well, it all comes back to when we became friends, back in July of 2021. We met through a mutual friend and the plan was to go to a little house show. And so, I came on down to the basement, which is where these three live, which is where we are right now. At that point, our mutual friends knew that I wanted to jam with people and Tony, Kale, and Gabe all go to Berklee and are phenomenal musicians. From then on, we just started jamming. I had a show coming up in August of that year, so we were seeing each other basically every day. I used to work at Georgetown Cupcake, and while you’re an employee there you’re allowed to take as many cupcakes as you want home, as long as you can carry them out. So every day after work I’d head on down from my job with a six pack of Georgetown cupcakes and I’d be like ‘Hi friends! This is my payment for your friendship and your musicianship!’ 

Tony: When we all met each other, even before we played music together, we understood each other personally and artistically very well off the bat. I remember talking to you the first day, and being like yeah, she really gets it. I think that’s why it worked. It just made sense. 

Where does the name ‘The Average’ come from?

Jo: It’s definitely very recent, we didn't have an official name for our band just because there have been a few rotating characters who have come in and jammed with me. There is Jalen, who is a part of their other band, TINO (also features Tony, Gabe and Kale), which we can talk about later, and they also live in the basement with these three. And they have rotated in and played some guitar. My friend Keely plays bass, and she’s come in and played shows with us, as well. But when we were preparing to play for the Valentine’s Day Show that WECB put on, Allie (Allison Hughes, she/they), who is the event coordinator, asked for our name. I was like ‘guys, what do we call ourselves?’ and Keely is in another band called Mediocre, so we thought it’d be funny for us to be called Jo and The Average.

What are some inspirations for the kind of music you do?

Jo: All of the songs are written by me, I’ve written them over the course of five, six years. Some of them are more recent than others. But I don't know, I've talked to Gabe about this a little bit beforehand just because I have a really hard time pinning down my inspirations, but I was a huge Dodie fan and she’s kind of my all time biggest inspiration for the work that I do because I started out on ukulele and just playing by ear. And I tried to translate that on the guitar, so I think a lot of my strumming patterns and chord configurations stem from the ukelele and Dodie’s music. But, apparently there's some musical theater inspiration there too. 

Kale: Yeah, I really like musical theater. 

Jo: I wasn’t a huge theater kid in high school but I did play in the band for our Grease production. 

Kale: Yeah, pit band!

Jo: Pit band!

Gabe: Are we all former pit band alums?

Kale: Yeah, 42nd Street! 

Gabe: Zombie Prom!

Jo: Oh my gosh, that’s so wild! But yeah, I’m a huge musical theater fan, I’d say. I’m really into ABBA, Mamma Mia!

Gabe: I can talk about inspirations for playing, like the stuff I reference when I’m playing. Beach Boys, very classic grooves, harmonies. Very fun, very upbeat. Some ABBA too. And a kind of slacker rock thing, kind of Shoegaze-y, sometimes I always feel like I’m playing that for everything. 

Tony: For me, playing guitar I’ve been so into Big Thief recently. And both of their guitarists, Adrianne Lenker and Buck Meek, I just love the way they think about playing guitar in the songs. It’s not what you’d normally go to when you think about playing guitar. You’re kind of just thinking about what the song is missing, what frequencies are missing, at least that’s what I hear. I really like that approach to it. Also, João Gilberto. He’s brilliant at filling out the empty spaces in songs. And any great Shoegaze bands, I think about that a lot. And whoever's in the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Those great, subtle riffs. 

Gabe: Yeah yeah yeah!

Kale: I don’t really know who my influences are. I usually say Merzbow and Paul McCartney. So I’m just gonna say that again. 

Tony: I think it comes out. 

Gabe: Yeah, the Paul definitely comes out I think.

How would you guys describe your band’s sound?

Kale: Like a cool, summer breeze. 

Tony: I feel like it's hard for me to say because I didn’t write the songs, but I think we’ve covered a decent amount of ground in between the different songs, which I think is fun. I love doing that. I feel like sometimes it's coming from, for me at least, more of an atmospheric place, but other times it's more perky and upbeat and has more gangliness to it. 

Gabe: I’d say Brazilian music, I don’t know why but I feel like it lines up with the way I play. Very classic songwriting but with a twist in terms of atmosphere, still very catchy, very pulp. 

Are there other kinds of art that any of you pursue?

Jo: I’m a writer, I’m a journalism major. I am trying to do a lot more prose, but a lot of my work is inspired by a stream of introspection, things that are messy. I love human interest stories and things like that. Hard news is not my thing, which is probably why I’m a musician also. I do little doodles sometimes, I did art for WECB and some other publications. I sometimes do film photography, but that’s more for fun. It’s because I got a film camera at a thrift store for 20 bucks!

Gabe: I do other stuff, I do poetry, I draw. I do all sorts of music things too, but I do other stuff besides playing drums. I’m inspired by a lot of stuff, a lot of poetry and impressionist art and paintings. 

Kale: I mainly do sound design at this point, which I know is audio based but that’s not music. So I'm gonna stick to my guns. And I’m trying to get into game design and stuff like that. I'm inspired by a lot of Merzbow, but mainly sci-fi stuff. 

Tony: I do a bit of poetry as well, I’ve been getting into drawing very recently. Historically I am not a visual artist in that way, but I’m trying and having fun with it. And I love fashion, too. I think that’s a form of expression that speaks to me, secondary to music.

What’s the songwriting process like, and what’s it like when you bring those songs to the band?

Jo: It’s definitely scary. Growing up, when I started writing my own music, it was very much for myself and sometimes I'd record them and put them on youtube. It was definitely for myself. And then, being in various musical atmospheres and environments that weren’t super welcoming discouraged me from seeking out collaboration and sharing my music with other people in general. When I met Gabe, Tony, and Kale I was so nervous! I was like ‘Oh my gosh! They’re music students!’ And I don’t even read music, I don’t have a theory background. I know how to read drum notation, but that’s like the least helpful form of musical notation. One of our first times hanging out Kale was about to get trained for their job so they weren’t around. But, Tony and Gabe and I did a little lyric share, like a show and tell sort of thing. And that made me feel a little more comfortable. Because music isn't my main focus right now, because I am in school for writing and journalism, I haven't quite been able to work on a brand new song and then bring it to the band. Everything that's on our setlist has already been done, already been developed, I've already worked on it. I’m just like ‘Okay, add what you’d like to the songs, and make it sound good!’ And they do! They do the job, it’s so cool. It’s like a magic spell. Meeting them was like a magic spell. 

Gabe: On my end in terms of plugging into the songs, a big thing, also in terms of what the music sounds like, is that Jo’s a drummer, and I think the songs have a strong rhythm section component. Either a stronger bass line and really defined rhythms and strumming on the guitar. And the rest of it is really easy to build around that. At least as a rhythm section, versus some other songwriters I know start at a very different place. It’s really easy to plug into as a drummer. 

What would you guys hope to achieve through your music? Not necessarily a quantitative goal, but just in performing for people. 

Jo: I’m kinda just hoping to have fun with my friends onstage! I’m a part of a lot of orgs on campus, and a lot of the work that we do is so heavy, so being able to perform at Emerson is gonna be really sweet. Just to have people pull up and not have to worry about really big things for once, and just get to see their friend up on stage. I think that’s a really special experience. A lot of my music is very personal. I could go on and on about each of them. It’s really exciting to share different chapters of my life by playing them with a bunch of people who I've met in a new chapter of my life, and a very healing one. 

Kale: For me, it’s Jo’s music, so I just want to do the best I can to realize that in the way she wants it to be realized. In a more general sense and in anything I do with music, especially with performance I want there to be a sense of comradery and community that just kind of happens. There’s kind of an alchemy to it. That’s something that has always been kind of exciting to me about music and being able to play music. 

What are you guys excited about for the upcoming WECB show?

Gabe: It’s sick, I like Sid Gish! I’m excited to be opening for her, that’s really cool. 

Kale: It’s always really cool, as I've done more stuff musically over the years, to be able to interact with more people who have inspired me to be a musician, which is really cool. Sid Gish was really formative in me starting to write music, so it's cool to be able to open for her. And to play music again, in a venue, because - elephant in the room - Coronavirus! Yeah, it's not cute. I'm glad that it's safe enough to be able to do something like this and to be able to share music again with people. 

Jo: WECB was the first org that I joined when I came to Emerson. In the fall of my freshman year, I was like ‘I want to be a music journalist!’ and I thought it was gonna be my passion for the rest of my life, and it didn't necessarily turn out that way. But then I discovered that WECB has so many different avenues within the radio. So I expanded a little more, I started hosting my own radio show, called the Cherry Poppers and I did that for like three or four semesters straight. And that was a fantastic experience. I was able to do my show in studio before the pandemic hit. And now Cherry Poppers isn't running but I’m doing ASIA Radio Hour for Asian Students In Alliance. It's great to see the studio back up and running again. And I got to be a part of the managerial team at WECB too last fall as programming director. Being able to see so many different sides of WECB, it's been so special and it's been an honor to be a part of it. It feels very full circle to be able to play at a WECB show that's so big. I remember all of the seniors on Milk Crate my freshman year being so into Sidney Gish and I was like ‘who's this person?’ And the first person I ever interviewed at Emerson, James Ammirato, he was a part of a band named Snoozer, and was friends with Sidney and would rave about her. I wanted to be like the cool senior kids who are music journalists and also musicians who know Sidney Gish and play cool music! And now I’m a senior and I get to open for her, so that’s pretty sick.