It’s been an amazing February for me, I’ll be sad to see it go. But this February I found a great new band…Young & Divine. These guys have been together for two years now (and pointed out on February 18th when I did the interview that it was their anniversary) and the band consists of JP Clark, 23 (vocals/bass), Jake Mai, 23 (guitar/vocals) and Joe Bortscheller, 22 (drums). Their debut full length album from RCA comes out this summer but their EP comes out on March 23rd. I got a chance to talk to these guys on the phone the other day and I have to tell you that it was a lot of fun.  They for sure make you feel at ease and are very easy to talk to. Now I talked to the three of them all at the same time and I found it really hard sometimes to figure out whose voice was whose so I apologize in advance if the wrong person is quoted.

Here is my interview with them. Edited out are the laughs and the many ehs sprinkled throughout.

On if people make assumptions about them because they have a lot of tattoos:
Joe: I feel like maybe a few years ago things were a little different but I think a lot of people have them now and it’s not taboo anymore. I’m not weirded out when I walk down the street see a guy with face tattoos, like I’ve see you before.

Jake: Except if you’re playing, if you walk into a venue and your playing with a bunch of hardcore bands and you walk in and you are all tatted up people are going to think you are like, “Oh they are hardcore band!” But then when we rock the stage when we are just a straight rock band sometimes people get fooled by that.

On how they became Young & Divine:
JP: Joe and I met in college and afterwards we took the plunge and recorded a record which right afterwards our guitar player quit the band and that point we went online trying to find a guitar player and we found Jake.

Jake: I was living in Dallas, Texas and I like throwing up some songs on myspace.com, my solo project or whatever, and I got a random friend request from Young & Divine. I just so happened to listen to the songs, and I thought they were great, so I said, “Hey guys, great song that’s cool there is still good bands trying to get their music out and I’m happy I listened to it.” JP sent a message back, “Hey dude, I really like your stuff. I like your voice.” And it just really worked out. He listened to the songs and I talked to them both on the phone and I had such faith in their music and with these two people. I quit my job and I broke the lease in my apartment and moved to New York.

On how they came up with the name:
JP: It was actually the name of the song [that] I wrote in another band a long time ago and when we started this band I stole that as the name and named [the other song] Kings. By steal I mean I stole it from myself. …So I didn’t press charges.

On how they would describe their upcoming album: Honest, Rocking and Infectious

Also in the interview we touched upon a lot of random facts. So here are some for your reading pleasure.

1. JP is half Canadian. His dad played on the Toronto Maple Leafs. (I know the answer do you?)

2. Joe loves to punch the air. He feels it relieves tension.

3. JP says clowns freak him. (They freak me out too!)

4. Jake is single and an Aquarius. (The rest of the guys agreed with his random fact.)

The guys were awesome to interview. I really hope that I have the pleasure of talking to them again soon. In the meantime check out their Myspace, Twitter or Facebook.

You know I used to think that Dave Navarro was cool. He was cool in that rebel rockstar with tats all over,  kind of cool. But now he honestly scares the heck out of me. In Touch showed a preview of Dave’s apartment and had the hot interior designer, Doug Wilson, to weigh in on Dave’s style. But little did Dave know that he had a painting from a killer on his wall. You have it right, Dave likes to collect artwork from that guy that used to dress up as a clown and kill people. No wonder I hate clowns…and Dave now!

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