From: Matt Kosokoff Jellyfish: Taking their place in the big parade. [published in Fender Frontline, Vol. 10 (Summer 1993)] Watching Pablo Picasso sketch, Michael Jordan drive unstoppably toward the basket, or Michael Jackson execute impossibly fluid dance moves is often somewhat unsettling, leaving the viewer with a vague, unexplainable feeling of disappointment. It's not that we don't recognize these talented individuals as masters of their respective crafts, it's just that we feel that such feats should appear as difficult as we know they must be to perform. That's the problem with experiencing a Jellyfish show. You see four guys on stage with only two hands two feet, and one throat each, equipped with ordinary instruments like drums, guitars, etc. And yet your brain and ears are assuring you that there must be more to it. "Ah," you sneer, knowingly, "they must be using prerecorded instruments and vocal tracks." They're not. "Well," you amend, haughtily, "they have backup musicians secreted offstage, filling in extra parts." They don't. What's left? Smoke and mirrors? Mass hypnosis? Holograms? How are they pulling this off? Jellyfish is, arguably, if not the best, certainly one of the top few live bands you'll ever see. But this kind of polish doesn't come easy no matter how talented the musicians, a fact to which new members guitarist Eric Dover and bassist Tim Smith (both of whom were also lead singers in previous bands) can attest. "When we came back to San Francisco [for the second leg of rehearsals] I had developed a nervous twitch. We were working so hard we never left the rehearsal studio!" Tim says. "Everyone is very talented, yet putting four musicians together-with harmonies so blocked it's almost like you're singing barbershop stuff-has been extremely challenging. Even [something as simple as] working the microphone is crucial." Eric, along with the vocal demands, has the responsibility of covering a wide range of guitar tracks recorded-by Lyle Workman (ex-Bourgeois Tagg) and other top-notch players-before he joined the band. "It's totally kicking my butt! All of it! I've played guitar for a long time, and have been classically trained, but this is making me a much better player." Both Tim and Eric were familiar with Jellyfish before they ever became members. Tim's connection began when "The band's sound man came to a party at my house," he explains. "I had seen the original lineup of Jellyfish perform several times, and I accused the guy of using sampled vocals on stage." Soon after that fortuitous meeting, Tim sent an audition tape to the band, and was in L.A. a week later recording the second album, Spilt Milk. While the first record, Bellybutton, introduced (among other things) the "intelligent pop" songwriting and arrangement skills of lead singer/drummer Andy Sturmer and keyboardist Roger Manning, the sophomore effort finds the duo stretching the boundaries of the genre. From the opening lullaby featuring lush harmonies reminiscent of Queen's most prolific period, to the discordant angst of the initially-released Ghost at number one, to the hypnotic strains of Russian Hill, Jellyfish has created a refreshingly innovative package, as well as what one journalist dubbed "one of the most meticulously recorded albums" he'd ever heard. Reproducing that kind of music live takes just as much effort as recording it. "Tim has learned after hours and hours of painstaking rehearsals that it just requires a lot of practice," observes Sturmer. "Now he wishes [those harmonies} were samples!" Manning, who masterminds most of the band's arrangements, agrees. "It's just practice, and lots of trial and error. I've spent time dissecting my favorite groups-you know, why do certain songs affect me 'that' way-and a lot of it is vocal placement." "Exactly," seconds Sturmer. "You find out what kind of voice is what. It's actually kind of exciting now, because we have new members in the band, and the vocals are so much better than they were." The band was born years ago, when Sturmer and Manning met in their San Francisco area high school. Manning, who had originally resisted piano lessons foisted on him by eager parents, grew addicted to the limelight early. "I didn't want to play the piano at all," he explains, but kept getting attention, so I kept doing it." Sturmer was attracted to the drums when his father took him to hear a jazz band. "I saw these drums, and they were really loud, and it looked like a big engine, with some guy driving on top!" Although both Andy and Roger spent a great deal of time playing jazz in the beginning, they had been listening to a variety of musical styles-from '50's doo-wop to Broadway shows to techno-all their lives, gaining in the process an invaluable lesson in songwriting. "All the musicians we hung out with would go over to each others' houses with a stack of albums and say 'listen to this jazz record from '62,'" Roger recalls, "and then 'Oh, and here's the new Missing Persons album.' If it was good music, we'd listen to it. Then when Andy started experimenting with writing his own stuff in high school, I was really inspired by that, and slowly got into songwriting as well." After high school Roger attended USC< returning in three years to hook up once again with Andy. "It was very healthy for us," says Andy. "There were things that Roger brought back to me that I hadn't even heard of, and vice versa. Even though we barely saw each other during that period, it was incredibly important in the big picture of what we're doing now." Following their first album and tour, the band parted ways with guitarist Jason Faulkner and bassist Chris Manning. "Chris, Roger's brother, hadn't really been a musician before Jellyfish," explains Andy. "The road is really tough, and I think it hit him really hard-he got home and didn't want to go back out there. Plus, though we wanted him in the band, he just didn't have the drive to be the amazing bass player that we needed, and we're perfectionists." Jason, a former member of the early '80's psychedelic band Three O'Clock left to pursue his own career as a writer and singer. It was during the tail end of the recording sessions for Spilt Milk that Eric auditioned for the guitar slot. "Years ago, my band (Love Bang) had opened for [Tim's band] The Producers-that's how I got to know Tim. When I found out through him that Jellyfish was looking for a guitar player, I sent in some Love Bang songs, flew out to L.A. and auditioned. They were so wrapped up in mixing that I didn't really get to hang out with them-I thought I had blown it. Then a couple of month later I got the phone call, and here I am." Enjoying only moderate success from their first album, the band's reputation has grown-largely by word of mouth-into almost cult status. But Spilt Milk may mark the beginning of their ascendancy to popular acclaim. With album sales mounting and radio stations beginning to sit up and take notice of their unique appeal, it looks like Jellyfish is finally going to take their place in the big parade.