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The timing is right for Nervous Jerks’ sound
By JOHN BENSON
Considering the Pixies reunited earlier last decade, Pavement is on a reunion tour and rumor has it Superchunk has a new album and tour planned, Boardman native Matthew Leicht is starting to think it might be the right time for his indie, lo-fi sound.
“When I started, I was very contemporary,” said Leicht, a 1992 Boardman High School graduate. “I’ve been recording on my own just down in my basement playing all of the instruments for about 18 years. And now I’m grabbing on to all of the nostalgia, so I guess it’s kind of a throwback that may be coming back around. I think we probably sound a lot like mid-’80s underground rock, something like Dinosaur Jr.’s first couple of records. I was always really influenced by the SST records by Sonic Youth and earlier Pavement and Super-chunk from the ’90s.”
Though he spent a good decade and a half recording and releasing albums on cassettes under the name Rona, Leicht decided three years ago to put a band together to play his songs. The outfit is called Nervous Jerks and features Leicht, Devon Carr (bass), Dan Frankland (guitar) and Ed Villabona (drums). The quartet will be at Cedars on Friday.
Leicht released the CD “Under the Rainbow” earlier this summer.
So how serious does Leicht view the Nervous Jerks?
“I don’t know how serious it is,” Leicht said. “We all have jobs and lives. It’s fun to do and I really love how the band has come together. I think it sounds really good. I really like the people in it, and to tell you the truth, I never thought there would be a time I’d be on a stage playing my own songs. So it’s one step at a time as far as seriousness. I guess if people really like it, we’ll play more. And if people really like the disc, I’ll have more made, but as far as taking the show on the road or something like that, that’s not really part of the plan right now.”
Perhaps even more fitting would be if one of the aforementioned influential indie acts pegged the Nervous Jerks as an opener on one of their tours.
“That would be nice,” Leicht said. “I think in that case, I would probably re- arrange a few things to make that happen.”