Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Elana Stone

Elana Stone is an award-winning jazz vocalist, leader of the Elana Stone Band (who are a bit jazz-rock, only not in the lame way you're imagining), winner of the Rockwiz trivia competition and member of Jackson Jackson's backing choir, the Jackson Jackson 5. She’s also sister to Jake Stone from the band Bluejuice, who is about as disgustingly talented as she is.

Do you come from a musical family?

ELANA STONE: Not any more than anyone else I don’t think. Like, our parents, they’ve both got normal jobs. My dad’s pretty eccentric.

Eccentric?

ES: He’s sort of like, I dunno, just a bit European. He’s a bit passionate, sort of like an old Yiddish grandma. He used to burst into tears when we’d do things well, like put a bike into a car efficiently... He introduced us to music he loved, which wasn’t so left-of-centre. It was the Beatles and Police, Paul Simon, so it was like pretty much just ’80s music – pop music. As kids we did a lot of performing at home. My sister’s an actress and we used to make radio shows and write songs and we had a little kiddie band, but we only played La Bamba and I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Jake played drums in that and I sang and my sister played tambo or something. We definitely like do a lot of performing, but probably the same amount as any other family. But yeah, we kind of developed more interest in it later when we were in high school and Jake really suddenly got seriously into music, ’cause he was always a writer and a standup comedian. He just suddenly became a rock star and I’ve been doing it forever. It was quite a shock to me, I was like, ‘Oh shit!’

Did you have some sibling jealousy?

ES: God yeah. Like, I mean, it’s quite confronting – Jake’s brilliant, he’s a smart guy, unstoppably charismatic, he’s probably my favourite live performer, like I just I think that energy he creates on stage is so incredible and that’s just him. He’s not doing anything unnatural. He’s just a little bit manic and I think I’m a little bit more even keel. I think his live energy is a lot to do with why the band is so great and also ’cause, you know, Vitriol and the videos that they’ve made and stuff like that. I’ve come from a more sort of weird purist angle from studying jazz and really studying music. I think we’ve taught each other a lot. He’s taught me a lot about writing pop songs and thinking about things in a more succinct way.

No comments:

Post a Comment