If true, this might be the best compliment I've ever heard paid to a band:
Japhies singer Reed Wilkerson -- who has raised quite a ruckus of late with his wild, Iggy-fied stage antics -- jumped off the bar at Cause Spirits & Soundbar one night last fall and scraped a young, female audience member bad enough for an ambulance to be called. Instead of suing, the girl allegedly told the band afterward, "That was awesome!"
"I told her she can get into our shows free for the rest of her life," said an astonished Wilkerson. "But she has to stand more toward the back."
The rare act to be played on local shows at both 93X and 89.3 the Current -- a testament to their classic rawwwk sound and punky attitude -- the Japhies have built a reputation on action-packed live sets, including a Zombie Pub Crawl party where the crowd-surfing Wilkerson got thrown over the bar at Palmer's.
The quartet's members are quite proud of their notoriety, even when it has drawn ire and skepticism. That said, they are hoping to jump into new territory as quickly as possible.
Last week, the Japhies started recording at Flowers Studio with producer Ed Ackerson (Polara, BNLX) for a full-length debut they hope to have out by late spring. A sign of how serious they are, the band that sometimes played two gigs a week last year hasn't performed for two months. Instead, they've hunkered down to write.
"We love playing live, but until now we haven't quite figured out the right way to capture that energy in the studio," Wilkerson explained. "So our philosophy was to stop playing and really try not to think about the live performances at all, and just try to make the best songs possible, period."
Their new batch of 20 songs reflects a tumultuous year in their personal lives. The singer saw a couple friends die, and he and another member each broke up with longtime girlfriends -- splits that he said were "all about choosing between the band and the relationship."
