Interview by Julio D. Anta
What’s your name and what do you do in the band?
Jake Schultz: My name is Jake Schultz and I play bass.
How’s the tour with Underoath and Maylene been going?
JS: It was awesome, I mean this was the last show. It was ten days I think and we’ve known basically everyone on this tour for years, so it’s been a really big hangout. A bro-fest if you will.
How long have you been in the band?
JS: Pretty much, I joined right after the first record came out. The other guy quit right before the record came out so they had a fill in guy for like a month. So, I joined after that.
What does Norma Jean mean?
JS: Well, it’s just a cool name. You know, it’s Marilyn Monroe’s real name. A while after it was picked though we found out it mean “patters of grace and mercy” which was cool. But thats not why we chose the name, it was kind of an extra bonus.
You guys have a very distinct sound, can you describe it to me?
JS: Noisy and straightforward would be a good way to describe our music even though those are totally opposite ends. If not, I think our genre should simply be really good.
How is “Redeemer” different from your older albums?
JS: It’s definitely easier to listen to than our other records. It’s more straightforward, it’s a really natural sounding record. Also, very raw and passionate.
How do you think Christianity affects your music?
JS: Well, Christianity only affects the lyrical content of our music. I don’t really believe it affects out music at all.
What’s your opinion on labels who market their bands only to Christians as opposed to everyone else?
JS: I don’t like it, but then again the bands that are marketed only to the Christian market are the really Christian bands.
Like worship music?
JS: Yeah, either that or just really cheesy music. But you totally limit yourself when you do that, when you say we’re gonna make only this kind of music for this audience only. You really limit yourself, but our label has never tried to do that with us. Our label, Solid State pretty much let’s us do whatever we want which is awesome. We would never limit ourselves to a certain demographic.
Any tours planned after this?
JS: We’re off for like a week and a half after this and then we go to Australia with Everytime I Die for two weeks. The next tour we’re doing in the states is like a week of Warped Tour, but thats all we have booked for now.
Do you plan on continuing to tour “Redeemer” or going back into the studio to record?
JS: I guess we’re gonna find that out in the fall since we’re booked till September. So when all of that’s said and done we’ll find out if we’re gonna tour more or sit down and write a new record.
Have any song’s written yet?
JS: No. I mean, everyone’s got stuff on their own stuff, but we never start writing until we set aside time to write. You know, everyone’s got their own stuff and then we just put it all together when we decide to write.
So now, the last and most important question. What your most anticipated album of 2007?
JS: Well, it already came out and it was the Maylene record. It’s awesome. I’m sure there’ll be another record coming out that I’ll really like, but so far thats it.
Any last thoughts?
JS: BBQ rules!
Special thanks to Brian Rocha (publicist) and Jess McBride (manager) for setting up this interview for me. This is my first interview here so constructive criticism would be great! I’d love to hear from all of you!
