Jump, Little Children Climb Toward The Heights With Vertigo

originally published October 17, 2001

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"I think these songs almost required more orchestration and a fuller sound," says Matt Bivins, 29, a founding JLC member who sings and plays harmonica, accordion and tin whistle. "For what we were writing about at the time, the album turned out to be a bit more moody and intimate."

Named in honor of a song by bluesmen Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, the band originally came together at the North Carolina School Of The Arts in Winston-Salem, where the founding members - guitarist Jay Clifford, cellist-guitarist Ward William, multi-instrumentalist Matt Bivins and drummer Evan Bivins - were originally studying classical music. They began playing traditional Irish folk music in their spare time, increasingly drawing influences from blues and pop as well. Eventually, the group quit school to focus on performing full-time. After a brief stint in Ireland in 1992, JLC returned to the States and settled in Boston, where the members began writing and "busking" original material. In 1994, JLC relocated to Charleston, where the Bivins' father was restoring historic buildings (the whole band worked for him). Upright bassist Jonathan Gray joined the lineup at this point.

Working in and around the somewhat narrow Charleston music scene, the band eventually earned the support of the commercial rock station 96 WAVF and a developed a major following. JLC began touring heavily through the Southeast in support of two independently released albums - The Licorice Tea Demos and Buzz - and eventually established itself as one of the South's most popular live rock acts.

In 1999, the band released an unusually guitar-heavy album titled Magazine on the Breaking/Atlantic label partnership and seemed ready to go for the "alternative" big time.

"The first album was our attempt to break away from being simply an Irish band, although you can hear a lot of folk and Celtic elements in it," remembers Bivins. "By the time we did Magazine, we had lived through the whole touring experience alongside other rock bands with all the hecklers and noise in the audiences. That album was our attempt to be a rock band with the electric instruments and big choruses and all that. I think some of our fans were put off by it at the time, but it was exactly what we wanted."

Earlier this year, just as Vertigo was about hit the streets, Atlantic Records dropped the Columbia, S.C.-based Breaking Records (founded by members of Hootie & The Blowfish) and the release of Vertigo went into limbo. Breaking Records stalled and wanted to hang onto the finished album. Jump, Little Children spent months kicking and screaming to gain control of the album and (luckily) finally bought it back and released it last month on its own imprint, EZ Chief Records (named after one of Jonathan's uncles).

Vertigo finally hit the street on September 25. Jump, Little Children plans to tour the United States until December before returning to Charleston for its annual three-night stint at the historic Dock Street Theater.

"In some ways we made some mistakes and maybe rested on our laurels a little bit, but in other ways we were very careful and very ready," states Bivins. "After that, we decided to concentrate on writing very honest songs. We wrote about very personal experiences like my brother and I dealing with our father's recent death, and my falling in love with someone. We weren't trying to mask anything. We kind of made a vow not to do anything that wasn't blatantly honest. That's how Vertigo came about."

The songs on the new album - produced by Brad Wood and frontman Jay Clifford - are emotionally complex and densely textured with strings, electric and acoustic guitars, accordion and keys. Clifford's drowsy lyrics, lilting vibrato and on-and-off falsetto moves carefully through and around highly dynamic moments, many of which were surely inspired by the likes of Radiohead, Coldplay, late-era R.E.M. and Daniel Lanois.

"I can't put my finger on why some people are reacting to these songs so positively, but I think they're connecting with the honesty in the songs. As far as the shows on this tour goes... I don't know whether it's because of what's happening in our personal lives, or we're better friends, or we just like this album a lot... the shows are just so much more exciting and fun to play. They're more emotional than they've been in years. The new material fits in really well with the older material and it just seems to be going really great. We've had some amazing shows this month that I'm very proud of as an artist. It's been a while since I've been able to say that."