Arlie: 'Cause it's the fucking Who!

Gabe: It is! It's like the sound of a drunken idiot in the crowd ready to rock the jam session.

Arlie: Seriously! The intro to that song is wearing a half-shirt! It's like The Who meets Guided by Voices.

Gabe: That song's my baby, and Arlie and the rest of the band definitely got behind it. It's like a proper rock song, like "Kick Out the Jams," or "Search and Destroy," or "Baba O'Reilly." Those songs never stop being good, and I wanted to write a song that felt that way.

It has one of the best lines I've ever heard: "Put on your punk belts and rock it for all the square cools."

Gabe: That's exactly what I'm talking about!

Arlie: That song is about me growing up being a kid, and is for the City of Seattle and kids today. You've got this crazy city government that's trying to keep kids from going to all-ages shows; you've got these crazy newspapers that commit lip service and say they're behind the all-ages scene, but aren't super commited to really promoting it; and then you've got these incredibly hip kids who have their ear to the ground and yet act so affected and cool that they alienate other kids who need to hear music that makes them feel that, no matter what they're going through, they're going to make it.

You were quoted once as saying: "There have been times when we have played songs where I'm so shocked that I'm busting out and saying this shit, I will just slap my hand over my mouth. That is ridiculous that I'm gonna address that topic right now in front of these people. But you know, you have to. I have to."

The content of your lyrics is very personal, very real. But at the same time there's enough ambiguity to the words that it's easy for people to acquire them and place them in context with their own lives. Does it scare you to be onstage opening up and sharing such a large part of your emotional privacy? And do you have people come up afterwards that say, "I can completely relate to that. That's me you're singing about."

Arlie: After we play shows I have a tendency to...

Gabe: [Laughing] Hide...

Arlie: To vanish totally. The funny thing is you've got 20-some years of being influenced musically that goes into your writing. You stand onstage and you take all the energy you put into writing these songs, and all the band practices that you've had, and you get onstage and you become exactly what it is that you've always wanted to be since you were a 12-year-old. You know what I mean? Even in your own mind you become a more idealized version of your own self--an iconic reflection of yourself--and you think that this is what I love and this is what I most want to do with my life.

That comes through to people in different ways, and they're either entertained by it or they're compelled by it. And then sometimes they take it one step further and want to explore you as a person, and they'll chase you down wanting to know more.

When I'm up there playing these songs, those stories are very real; they're about real people, real politics, real histories... I have a difficult enough time just trying to convey the words.

I have this very vivid image from the close of your set at Bumbershoot 2000 [click here to read eP's coverage of Bumbershoot 2000. --ed.] where, at the end of "January Arms," you're on your knees clutching your guitar, with sweat pouring down your face and your eyes clenched shut, appearing to be in some kind of manic absolution. You stayed unmoving in that position, consumed for several minutes after the house lights came up.

Where is the levity in the band? You must have some need to bring a sense of humor, some sense of balance into the mix, either on or offstage.

[Both Arlie and Gabe laugh]

Gabe: If someone was to hang out with us for awhile, go for a drive with us or seomthing, they'd realize very quickly that the only time we're serious is when we're writing or playing music. Pretty much most of the time that's properly exorcised out of our system. The music itself is a giant relief valve. Most of our time spent together is pretty funny...and most of it is not fit for print.

[Arlie laughs]

Pretty much we're just enormous kids who will say some of the worst things. We definitely laugh more than we might let on in the music.

Before I broke my neck I used to think that life was tension and misery with these occassional moments of grace. You break your neck and you lay down long enough, you realize that you didn't die and you're not paralyzed. Every day gives you more reason to be a joyful person. I like funny people, and those who are not can get the fuck out. I'm dead serious about being funny.

So, as a band, we exorcise the wrongs and the injustices of the world through our music, but otherwise we're trying to inspire one another to be a fucking goof!

What direction do you see the band evolving in?

Gabe: We have no idea. We're like Alcoholics Anonymous, just trying to take it one day at a time. We wake up every day and ask each other, "Are you still in the band?" "Yup, are you?" We could bust up tomorrow or we could stay together a long time. I think right now we're all focusing on staying a band, staying afloat, and trying to figure out how to survive. You can only wash so many dishes, or pour so many cups of coffee, before you realize that you need to demand a lot more from life than just being in a band...because it is difficult. Even doing it at the glacial pace that we do, it still takes quite a bit of effort.

By the time this interview goes to print you will have just returned from a five week tour of Europe. It's the first time Juno has toured abroad and, I believe, the first time most of the members have been to Europe. What do you hope to accomplish?

Arlie: Just going places, seeing people, and hopefully people like what we do enough to ask us to come back.

Gabe: In some, small, strange way this is another one of those moments that hopefully is a payoff. One of the nice things about being in a band is that you get to travel. Otherwise, I really don't know I ever would have gone. I mean, anyone can charge tickets on a credit card and go to Europe, but being in this band is sort of allowing me to go on holiday, and it's something that not everyone in a band--even in a successful band--is able to do.

Arlie: It's the difference between saying what you want to do with your life and actually doing something with your life. And in order to say that this is what you want to do with your life, you have to have some fundamental things in place that will allow you access to the world you most want to live in. It's not that I want to be in a band and this is what I want from life--I am in a band and this is my life. We write songs and record them, and making a record gives us the opportunity to go and do things that we might otherwise be allowed to do. It gives us an opportunity to experience something in a whole other way, outside of being just a tourist.

Or passing through life like a ghost.

On the web:
Juno (Official site)

Inside Earpollution:
This Is the Way It Goes and Goes and Goes album review
Live review (24 February 2001, Seattle, WA)
Live review (10 March 2001, Hamburg, Germany)