Jaded just put out their fourth disc, Higher, and it couldn’t be better named. Jaded is higher than they have ever been. After touring the world and opening for big names, the four women hard rock band have found their own sound.
The band self-produced the five song disc with an engineer. The band didn’t really listen to anyone else’s opinion this time around. “It’s more raw Jaded than a collaborative effort,” Hillary Blaze said.
The live show, though, is where Jaded most comes alive. “Our band had a lot of energy,” Britt Lightning said. “A lot of visual energy as well as musical energy. It’s hard to get that across on a CD, especially a regular studio CD. We’ve talked about doing a live CD to try to put that across.”
“A big part of what we’re about is the high energy and the excitement of rock and roll,” drummer Hillary Blaze said. “I think we all really get off on the energy and connection with our fans. When you’re playing away and you make eye contact with someone and you can tell they’re on the same wavelength as you and it’s exciting.”
New singer Katy Reign is a natural on stage, moving around like a flexible willow in the breeze. “She’s just natural all around, “ Brit said. “She wasn’t really trained. She didn’t really take lessons. She can just really belt it out and it’s never forced. When we auditioned her, we were like, ’Wow! This is what somebody has when they’ve really got it. I can’t even picture her doing anything else.”
“She has a very powerful voice and she has a great ear for staying in tune, in pitch,” Hillary Blaze said. “When we auditioned her, it was New Year’s Day. Everybody was tired from being out New Year’s Eve and it was freezing. It was like 14 degrees. She came in and she just let loose and we were like, ’Oh my God.’ It was pretty obvious right off the bat she was the one. We auditioned quite a few girls, but as soon as she opened her mouth, we were like, ’Wow!’ Plus, she’s the sweetest, nicest person too, very easy going. Has a great time on stage. She definitely matches the energy.”
Hillary Blaze can be seen on YouTube playing one of her monster drum solos. Jaded feature her drum solo and Britt Lightning’s guitar solo. “It’s part of our show, all the time,” Blaze said. “It gives a chance to feature the individual players a little bit and show the audience what we can do outside of the song, and it brings in the arena rock experience, like you’re going to a stadium to see a huge rock band. We dig that as fans going to see bands, so we put it in the show and our fans respond to it.”
Jaded rehearse twice a week to get their live show down pat. The excited response from their audience gets them more motivated, especially all ages shows.
“That’s always fun,” Britt Lightning said. At a Kiss expo Jaded opened for there were diehard Kiss fans who loved that live show aspect. “They would all flip out, and that was always just awesome. It’s a big adrenaline rush.”
Clearly, Jaded is more of a concert experience than a club band. They have lost count of the numerous name bands they have opened for at arenas and stadiums over the years. An experience in Belfast, Ireland opening for Wasp at Spring And Air Brake stadium stands out in their minds.
“The crowd was insane,” Hillary Blaze said. “I remember that night in particular because they were very rowdy. They were really having a good time. Unfortunately, quite a few people ended up getting thrown out of the venue. I’ve never seen so many people escorted out of a venue in my life. It was at the tipping point, but I never felt in danger or anything. But the fans were really crazy there.” Jaded still receive e-mails from Belfast fans requesting them to come back there.
The four piece band has been through a few personnel changes since their 2004 inception. For their first bass player, they tapped Britt Lightning’s sister, Audrey. Younger sister, Audrey, was a drummer who Britt taught to play the bass notes to all of the songs on their set list. Music wasn’t the sister’s biggest passion, so when the opportunity came they replaced her with bassist Laurel Wolff.
“We found Laurel playing in another band. Her band opened for our band so we connected that way,” Britt Lightning said. “That just really helped us because she was just a more real serious bass player, and she had more experience playing bass. She also had some back up vocals, and a great stage presence. She does the windmill. Everybody knows her for it. She flips her head around and looks like the Exorcist, sort of.”
Britt Lightning and Hillary Blaze also have high praise for Jaded’s latest singer, Katy Reign. “Katy just really enhanced it because she is by far the best singer we’ve ever had,” Britt Lightning said.
“And Katy brought more of a raw rock sort of vocal to our style,” Hillary Blaze said. “Her voice is so powerful. Sometimes she can get a little bit raspy but not going over to Cookie Monster type vocals. It’s a very unique type of voice, very strong, much more raw, and much more rock and roll, I think, than any of our past singers had. She brings a power to the band that was missing from the vocal line.”
Katy Reign co-wrote some of the new songs on the new CD. They were looking for a songwriter as well as a vocalist. “We were hoping that the vocalist would be able to give some creative input,” Hillary Blaze said.
“Our previous singers didn’t contribute too much which was difficult. We’re not vocalists,” Britt Lightning said.
“We can both write vocal melodies, but it’s nice to have a singer’s perspective adding into that,” Hillary Blaze added. Most of the new material, though, was written by guitarist Britt Lightning.
“I usually come up with riffs, and I write lyrics, and I write melody lines too,” Britt Lightning said. Usually, I’ll have a guitar part and melody in mind or lyrics and I’ll just give Katy the lyrics, and she’s great with vocal melodies, especially, which is something that we lacked before. That was never my forte. You can just give her anything and she’ll come up with a really cool melody in no time, so that was awesome.”
Britt Lightning bases her song lyrics on her real life experiences. Her new song “Missing You In Boston” is based on a previous relationship. “That was about meeting somebody that I had fallen in love with that was not near me at all. We were on tour, and coming back home to Boston and that was just how I felt. I was missing the person and I wished I wasn’t home.”
Her other new tune, “Gear In The Machine” is about not wanting to be another cog in the wheel. “That was just about being yourself and not having to conform to whatever other people think you should do. It’s about not being afraid of being different and being an individual and following your own dreams and living your life for you, not for somebody else.”
Jaded’s new title track, “Higher” is simply about Britt Lightning’s fascination with music. “It’s about being addicted to music and the feeling you get. It takes you higher. It’s just something nothing else can do for you. It’s almost like a drug.”
The sonic polish on the CD is incredible. Britt Lighting and Hillary Blaze both credit Richard Marr of Galaxy Park studios in Allston. “He did an amazing job of pulling out different amps and using different methods,” Hillary Blaze said. “He knew the style we wanted. He made it powerful.”
As musicians Hillary Blaze and Britt Lightning have a wide variety of musical influences. Blaze always followed technically good drummers like Neil Peart and Scott Rockenfield and Vinnie Appice, and Vinnie Colaiuta, as well as the showmanship of Tommy Lee and Eric Carr. She also likes non-rock drummers like Dennis Chambers. Chambers started out in Parliament Funkadelic. “He can sit there and play a 2/4 backbeat groove that is just awesome,” the drummer said.
Britt Lightning named Eddie Van Halen, saying he is the reason she picked up the guitar. Lightning loves all of Ozzy Osbourne’s guitarists as well as guitarists from Megadeth and Metallica, and Yngve Malmsteen. She also likes Stevie Ray Vaughn, blues, slide guitar, and bluesy rock like Joe Perry, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Foghat. She also listens to ambient guitarist like David Gilmour from Pink Floyd and she thinks Robbie Krieger from The Doors is underrated.
As for the future of Jaded, Britt Lightning sounds like any girl next door after seeing her favorite band on MTV: “I would like to see Jaded have a music video on TV and just be all over. Have a billboard in Times Square and be doing commercials and touring the world and playing arenas and reaching audiences world wide and selling lots of records and having a very successful career.”
“Yeah, I would say that about sums it up,” Hillary Blaze said. “I would love to see us playing stadiums all across the world. I would love doing the secret show for rabid fans at like a smaller venue where they can get an intimate setting.”
Jaded will play the Mammoth Road Club in Dracut, Massachusetts February 26th. Doors open 6:00 p.m.
