JJ Koczan From Maegashira - A doom entrepreneur

Hello, thanks for the interview. How things been in the Maegashira camp lately?

Things have been busy in and around the band lately. The response to the album has been really good for the most part, so that was cool, and there’s been a ton of personal, real-life stuff going on as well. Our guitarist, George Pierro, just got married, and in between that, we’ve got two – almost three – new songs written, all of which I think are pushing and progressing what we started with The Stark Arctic. It’s a really great time to be in this band. We’re all having a lot of fun writing songs and jamming on what we already have.

2.Tell us about when and how the band originally came together ?

George started it. Blame George. He and our bassist, John Eager, were jamming late 2004, and as I recall it I came aboard early 2005. My dates could be off; I’d have to go back and check the extensive Maegashira Archives. In any case, we mark March 2005 as the start because that’s when we got together with Steve Moraghan on drums. I’m pretty sure George got in touch with him online somehow. The magic of technology and so forth. There isn’t really a grand story to it; George wanted a band and he got one. I wish I could say it involved some sort of Mayan adventure or something like that, but it, like us, was really just a case of being lucky enough to find people on the same page.


3.The band seems to be under appreciated in the doom scene or that just me.

Personally I think the whole doom scene is under-appreciated, never mind Maegashira. Given the fact that we’re not and probably won’t ever be a full touring band on the road however many months of the year, I think the reception we’ve been given has been pretty good. I don’t know how many records we’ve sold off the top of my head, but more importantly, we feel positive about what we’re doing and what we’ve already done. Just getting the album out was huge for us, let alone anything after. If we’re under-appreciated, that’s cool by me. I like underground bands, and I like people who like underground bands. If someone happens upon us on MySpace or wherever and digs it and is one of however few people in the world who’ve heard of us, our music is that much more likely to mean something to him or her (though knowing what I do about doom demographics, it’s probably him more than her). I don’t think any of the four of us have grand commercial aspirations for the band, we’re just four guys having playing heavy music. If you can get down with that, great. If it’s overlooked, so be it. Considering we’re a relatively new band to most people, I’m cool with anyone who takes the time to check us out.


4.What sub genre of doom what you put the band in and do you get sick of all these new tags that keep popping up ?

I actually don’t mind the sub-genre thing. Contrary to what a lot of bands say, I think it’s actually a good thing for the scene at large, because if you’re taking the time to classify something in one subgenre or another – be it doom or any kind of metal or any kind of music, really – then you’re actually pausing to think about what it is you’re listening to, and that’s never a bad thing. And if you then maybe take that energy and do something creative with it, all the better, but even if not, at least you’ve given real consideration to what goes in your head. As for where Maegashira stands subgenre-wise, I know it’s doom and I know there’s a lot of stoner rock in it, so I’d say we’re aggressive stoner doom or something like that. We’ve used everything from “NJ evil doom” to “angry doom” and a ton of other stuff in between. We’re not ultra-complicated technically, but there are a lot of varying influences in our music. If someone hears one thing or one band and someone else hears another, that certainly works for me.



5.Was being a singer always a goal of yours?

I guess. I don’t really know. I always loved music and I always wanted to be in a band and I suppose lacking the coordination to actually play an instrument, it’s just where I ended up. By no means do I consider myself vocalist of the year. I think of my voice and my approach as a constant work in progress and as long as I can push myself creatively and in terms of trying new things, then I’m happy to keep going with it. What I can say is that Maegashira is the band I always wanted to be in. We’re not perfect, but growing as players and as a unit is one of the things I most enjoy about it.


6.Tell us about the bands recording history ?

We did a four-song demo in November 2005 that we self-released called The Inner Workings Of Block Time and in September 2006, went into the studio to record three songs for a split with Sow Belly and OSSM that only as recently as January came to fruition via Shifty Records. We recorded a cover of “Useless” for that Buzzov*en tribute that may or may not ever come out and an early version of “Baggage Claim/Skin Slip” from The Stark Arctic was used on the Fumes From A Dead Scene compilation put together by our good friend Ryan Lynch from the awesome band 12 Eyes. The record itself we did from January to March, 2008, and we spent most of last year just trying to get it all out. We hope to get back in the studio sometime over the summer to record a couple new songs for splits and stuff like that and be good to go with enough material for a new album probably by spring of next year, barring any of the catastrophes which have a perpetual habit of springing up.


7.What part of the doom scene do you find the most frustrating ?

The lack of finances, ha ha!


8.A lot of doom acts have a copy cat approach to songwriting. How do you guys keep it fresh ?

That one I lay at the feet of George, who is our principal songwriter as far as the music goes and seems to have a natural kind of ability for pushing himself in writing while still maintaining a discernible structure to the songs. It’s innate with him. He’ll show up at practice with these killer riffs and ideas and my mind is continuously blown. He’s the kind of player who makes you want to be better than you are.


9.Has there been any shows that you played that stand out above the rest ?

Pretty much anything we’ve done outside of our home area is special to me, and not just because of some “band on the road” romanticism, but also because I really enjoy the time in the car with the other three dudes in the band. Since we all have jobs and wives and various really important concerns outside the band, I genuinely value any time we can get together just the four of us, whether it’s at practice or, even more so, getting in the truck and heading out somewhere for a show. I don’t think we’ve had a road trip yet that hasn’t resulted in some long-running inside joke. It’s always a lot of fun when we’re forced into tight quarters like that.



10.You were also very involved in writing and working for Metal Maniacs and now other sites. Can you give us a rundown on all the stuff you have done ?

I started out as an intern for The Aquarian Weekly in New Jersey and became the editor there in July 2004. I was still in college at the time, just finishing up, and pretty green as far as the “industry” was concerned. In June 2007, I started as the Associate Editor of Metal Maniacs under the amazingly talented and dedicated Liz Ciavarella. Working for her was easily the best part of that job. Earlier this year, when the tanking US economy claimed Maniacs as one of its victims, I started my own website called The Obelisk (www.theobelisk.net), which is basically just a review and interview playground for me. I get to chase down and talk to whoever I want without word count restrictions or anything like that. At some point I’ll probably try to take on another print outlet or two, but to be perfectly honest, the whole Maniacs thing and the blatant mismanagement on the part of the company who owned the title really turned me off to print media. I mean, think about it: here’s this magazine that thrived for 19 years covering basically underground bands that no one in the mainstream has heard of or gives a crap about; two years of Zenbu Media ownership later and it’s gone. Hmm. Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly thankful for the opportunity I had working there, but the environment in the office (which we shared with three other magazines, each of which was a higher priority for the company than we were) was crap and it’s just like every story told by the underground band who signs the major label deal and lives to regret it – minus that whole “living to regret it” part.


11.Is writing/blogging about music something you really enjoy and is it a kind of therapy ?

I don’t know if I’d call it therapeutic – sometimes, as I’m sure you know, it can be pretty damn frustrating – but I do get tremendous satisfaction out of it and I do enjoy the process of reviewing an album probably more than I should. The truth is, I just love music. I love listening to it, I love thinking about it, and if I can spend my days now writing about it on my own terms like I can with The Obelisk, that’s incredibly refreshing to me coming out of the whole Maniacs situation.


12.When i was much much younger i used to fantasize about writing for Kerrang or Metal Hammer or someone like that. Did you always have those same ambitions ?

Actually, I kind of fell into the whole thing. I worked at my college’s radio station and went to one of the CMJ conferences in New York one year and at a panel called “How To Get A Job In The Music Industry,” all I gleaned was that I needed an internship. The Aquarian was local and looking and I’d always been a decent enough writer, so I thought I’d give it a shot. I guess I never really believed such a thing as a job where you can write about music all the time was possible. It seemed too good to be true, and in a lot of ways, it was.


13.Do you think music blogging has a impact on the scene ?

Probably, but it depends on who’s reading, who’s writing and what the blog is. I’m a tremendous admirer of Metal Sucks and the work those guys do over there, and I think they’ve definitely affected the metal scene in general. There are sites out there that have revolutionized the way criticism on the internet is perceived, but like anything on the internet, there’s also a lot of crap.


14.So what is the future for you and the band for the next year ?

Hopefully more writing all around. I was accepted recently into the Master of Fine Arts program at Rutgers University for fiction writing, so I’m going to be starting that this fall and I’m very excited about it. The band will hopefully be involved in at least one more split before we make our next record, so sometime in the summer we’ll look to record for that, and in the meantime, we’re just plugging away and doing shows where and when we can. We’re going to be a part of the Stoner Hands Of Doom festival in Maryland in September, which I’m really looking forward to. That will probably be the highlight of our year this year, as well as mine personally.


15.Thanks for the interview, any last words?

Just thank you Ed for taking the time out to listen to The Stark Arctic and for thinking enough of it to want to do this interview in the first place. We really appreciate the support and hope that anyone who sees this piece who checks us out likes what they hear. If anyone wants to get in touch, our MySpace page (www.myspace.com/maegashira) gets checked pretty religiously.