by-Michael Rennie

What do Pink Floyd, Bob Seger, Anne Murray and the Beatles have in common?
Before Christmas, they will all be label-mates with Gainesville's punk-ska
band Less Than Jake.
For three years, LTJ have carved out a niche of ska-flavored punk that has
found a strong following among local high school students and the Hardback
Cafe's punk scene.
LTJ frontman Chris Neil started the band with drummer Vinnie Balzano (the
band members offer pseudonyms in place of their surnames), modeling
themselves after an English punk band named Snuff.
 Neil and Balzano came to UF in 1991 and '92, respectively, and toyed with
various line-ups until spring 1993 when they added Roger Sixx on bass and a
horn section comprised of Jessica Horner (saxophone) and Buddy Lee
(trombone). LTJ have recently added Baritone Sax player Derron Mars from the
Orlando band, the Holsteins.
"The whole reason for adding the horns was just to do something different,"
 Neil says. "We continued everyday to hear more and more bands that sounded a
lot like us. Three-chord pop-punk-there's only so much you can do with it."
But Less Than Jake have managed to accomplish a great deal with three-chord
pop-punk.
In two year's time, the band has gone from being voted Runner Up
Gainesville's Worst Band in a MOON Magazine readers' poll to one of the
town's biggest draws. Now, after releasing a handful of seven-inch singles
and a 19-song CD, and touring Florida and the eastern US, Less Than Jake
stand to do what only one Gainesville band has recently done to date: land a
major label recording contract.
Earlier this year, the band's Better Class of Losers demo tape ended up on
the desk of Craig Aaronson, a Capitol Records' A&R executive and former
member of School of Fish.
"The guy had heard us out of nowhere," Sixx says. "He'd heard a demo tape and
said, 'I gotta' see you.'"
So Aaronson came to watch the band's June 23 show at the Hardback Cafe, a
show which began a summer tour that took the band as far north as Connecticut
and as far west as Texas.
"They were completely left of center," says Aaronson. "It was the first thing
I'd heard with horns in a long time, but horns with an edge. It was really,
really original. You get so much pop-punk coming in, but these guys had
something original. And more importantly, they had good, old-fashioned
songwriting."
Aaronson, who signs only one or two acts a year, visited the band at shows
along the tour. By the end of the summer, LTJ had an offer from Capitol.
For Gainesville's music scene, Jake's record deal couldn't have come at a
better time. 
The Sept. 8 automobile accident that took the lives of For Squirrels' members
Jack Vigliatura IV and Bill White, and road manager Tim Bender was a tragedy
in its own right.
But in addition to ending a promising band's too-short career, the accident
robbed Gainesville's music scene of its long-standing wish for  major label
recognition. This puts Jake in the precarious position of shouldering the
hopes of a scene which has sometimes turned a fickle eye toward the band.
"We're nobody's great white hope, for damn sure," Balzano says, voicing the
band's shared skepticism about success with "a major."
Sixx agrees. "We know that the minute we stop making money for the label,
we're out of there. It's just that we don't care, and things are rolling our
way and we're just rolling with it, like, 'Okay, we'll do this.'"
"I consider (the record deal) both a stroke of good luck and being damn
fortunate," adds  Neil. "Because we didn't send out the press kit with the
bio and the glossy picture and the CD.
What the band did do was stay close to its DIY ethic: recording vinyl seven
inches, playing inexpensive, all-ages shows, participating in ska and punk
compilations, and honing an amazingly consistent live show.
Hardback Cafe owner Alan Bushnell has probably seen more Less Than Jake
performances than anyone outside the band.
"They have a unique sound for Gainesville. It's a lot of fun, and they keep
everyone's spirits up," says Bushnell, who has hosted approximately 15 LTJ
shows per year since the band formed. "When they first started up, they
weren't that big, but they stuck it out and evolved into their sound."
It's a sound that has earned the band three consecutive performances at the
Alachua Music Harvest, and if this year's Harvest line-up had been determined
by the shear energy of the bands, Less Than Jake would've headlined one of
the evenings.
As it happened, LTJ played their Harvest set as they have the last two years:
well-before sundown in front of the weekend's most manic mosh-pit. The show
was an exercise in perpetual motion, a sadistically-paced dance marathon with
barely a pause to shout "1-2-3-4" before launching into a three-minute sprint
of blaring horns and upstroke guitar.
If Jake's youthful following have earned the band a cool eye from
Gainesville's "serious" musicians, it is because one needs a 16-year-old's
energy to keep up with the band.
"I pretty much paid $10 just to see them," says Jill M., a 16-year-old
Gainesville High School student who wished to remain anonymous because her
parents believed she was at the library during the Harvest. Gesturing to a
stage-full of Less Than Jake and the crowd that has formed to watch them, she
says, "I came the last two years, and it just gets wilder."
Meanwhile, the band encouraged the moshing mob to hoist their 70-year-old
neighbor, Howie, above the crowd, and the elderly gent rode the human wave,
shirtless, smiling and safe.
Grain bassist Rob Dark watched the show from the front of the stage: "They
were the best band there. They're true entertainers and great musicians. Some
bands are good at one or the other, but those guys are great at both. If
anyone can represent Gainesville on the national scene, it'd be them."
Soon they will have the chance. 
Less Than Jake has signed a letter of intent with Capitol Records, a formal
way of saying that the band is not pursuing other offers. The letter will
allow Capitol to begin funding projects while the band cleans up its own back
yard.
"Basically, the label needed something with our signature on it so they could
advance money to-not us-but our recording costs," explains  Neil. "This way
we have time to deal with incorporating the band and all that legal crap."
Yet, despite a record contract that seems to have landed in their laps, the
band remains skeptical.
"Everyone's talking about how the label will do this and the label will do
that. The label could do squat," Balzano says. "If we make an album the label
doesn't like, they probably won't release it. We're gonna' start keeping a
calendar of 'How Many Days We Have Left on Capitol. I say we're off the label
in two years."
So the band doesn't anticipate large-scale success? 
"No way," Sixx laughs, "We're one-hit wonders and we know it."
 "Liquor Store," "Big" or any number of songs from the band's Pezcore CD
might make radio-friendly singles. Each has equal parts crunch and melody,
with "Liquor Store" embodying the band's ska-punk blend. But the band laughs
at the suggestion of a hit single.
"No way. Imagine hearing 'Liquor Store' on Rock 104," Balzano says.
"After Tom Petty,"  Neil laughs.
"Right before Get the Led Out," Sixx says, referring to WRUF's nightly Led
Zepplin tribute.
"That would be so weird that-put this on tape-if we ever had a song on the
radio that was popular," Balzano says, "I will take a running, fucking leap
from Waldo Road to 34th Street naked. I'll walk it. We'll all walk it."
"It'll be the Less Than Jake Naked Run-a-Thon," Sixx agrees. 
With so much resignation to their own demise, one wonders what the band will
do after their anticipated ousting from the label.
"Go back to school," Sixx says.
"I'd like to get a job in the music industry,"  Neil says.
"I'll be running naked around 34th street," Balzano says.



Discography:

Less Than Jake:
Smoke Spot, 7", 5 songs, No Idea Records, Jan. '93
Better Class of Losers, cassette, 6 songs, Fueled by Ramen Records, June '94
Unglued, 7", 3 songs, No Idea Records, March '95
Pez Kings, 7", 4 songs, Toybox Records, April '95
10 Song Sampler, Dill Records, May '95
Pezcore, CD/Tape, 19 songs, Dill Records, July '95

Compilations:
3-way Split 7", Toybox Records, June '93
No Idea fanzine 11, CD, No Idea Records, August '94
Six Pack to Go, CD, Stiff Pole Records, Jan. '95
Songs About Drinking, Double LP, Too Many Records, Feb. '95
Attaining the Supreme, CD, Whirled Records, April '95
Misfits of Ska, CD, Dill Records, June '95
Punk TV, LP plus 7", Red Dawg, July '95
Generic Skaca, Stiff Dog, Aug. '95