Today’s guest post is by Sam Aguilar, a freshman communications student at ASU. Music is a really big passion of Sam’s and he interviewed Phoenix band Just Seconds Apart for this feature on JillyPopMusic.
The definition of a Garage Band nowadays is a music creation program that lets anyone with a Mac create their own music right from their computer. I want to approach the term Garage Band back to what people originally remember it to be, a group of friends playing music literally from their garage to hopefully make their dream a reality and play their music in front of thousands of adoring fans, eventually. The newest Indie-Pop band Just Seconds Apart are bursting straight out of their garage and onto the big stage with their phenomenal new single Like The Ocean. The thing is, for Just Seconds Apart, they did not need to travel far to go to each other’s garage to practice.
They are, in fact, 17-year-old triplets that were literally born, Just Seconds Apart. Sela is the oldest, plays the drums and provides some of the vocals. Ari, considered the middle child, is the lead vocalist and guitarist of the band. Finally, the youngest of the band Alex, who plays the keyboards, bass, and you guessed it, provides vocals as well. Each one of them has the full package and it was definitely exciting to sit down with them to find out about their newest single, life as triplets in a band, and what we can expect from them in the future.
The first thing I had to know was if they had any other siblings or was it just them. Right off the bat they had me laughing when they said “Only 3 of everything, we even have 3 dogs”, which makes me wonder what Christmas is going to be like in their home because I would like to have 3 presents. This definitely got me wondering that by being triplets, disagreements must be pretty intense since each one of them know how to irk the next. They all disagreed. “We’re really close so if we ever have a disagreement, we talk it out and make sure to resolve it right away.” Usually there has to be one to diffuse the situation and “Alex comes up with something funny and everything’s well”. In terms of their music, when they come together to try and write, “our different music tastes enhance our writing process”. They each have a way of coming up with an important piece of the song that contributes to it being remarkable in every aspect. “Ari comes up with the melody, then as we come up with the concept leading to me writing the lyrics, along with Alex contributing to both lyrics and melody. Ari pitches in with the lyrics too.” Sela said.
In terms of musicality, I had to ask just what is it that they do that contributes to their music. As Ari said, “Although our vocal synchronicity comes naturally, we do a lot of vocal training, including an hour of warm-ups. We spend many hours in the studio but really try to remind ourselves that chill time is very important”, which is great to hear because as much as we want our favorite musicians to be all about music, they also need their time to relax and regroup. “We also like to eat healthy, workout and meditate” when they are not playing music but still want to keep their minds strong and focused.
As far as their single Like The Ocean, “it was an emotional recording process because we wrote the song when we were fourteen prompted by something that happened to us personally. Every lyric we sang held so much feeling, we hope this song is able to inspire others and that’s what we love so much about music”.
Listening to Like The Ocean truly is an experience in itself, a journey through the eyes of Sela, Ari and Alex, and the emotion that they lay it all out there for the fans to feel with them. They hope this brings new listeners to know that their music truly comes from the heart and that Like The Ocean will be the song they can lean on when they feel they are in need of some comfort. The lyrics are matched beautifully with perfect harmonization among the 3, pair it with epic melodic strings from the violin. If you think this song has is great already, no, Ari’s guitar playing harmonizes with the violin to accentuate the tempo of the singing. I cannot forget that Alex adds a melody to back up the rhythm of Alex’s guitar playing. It is amazing that they are only 17 years old but hold so much musical talent and they have not even approached their prime yet. They are human though, “at our first performance when we were 5, Alex got stage fright. He sang one song and then bailed, but now he’s the least nervous among us!”
To truly appreciate who they are, I asked them more about themselves other than music. “Sports. As long as we can remember, we’ve played competitive sports on the same team. Our dad was the coach and our mom was the team mom, always the loudest cheerleader”, said Sela. What I really wanted to know is who is their celebrity crush at the moment. Sela absolutely loves Enrique Iglesias, Ari is in love with Gigi Hadid (look out Zayn Malik!), and Alex loves Victoria Justice. I asked if they were to ask them to prom but they go to online school, so they haven’t yet. Although they’ve definitely been asked. “At one of our shows, we kept seeing fans holding up signs asking us to prom”. They do have experience playing at proms, “we played for Phoenix Children’s Hospital because they were born preemies (10 pounds combined) so it has been a charity of our choice and we are forever grateful for saving their lives’ as their mom chimed in. Now the question we were all waiting for, is it there a curfew on practice, like lights out by 10 p.m. “No, no and no”, she said with laugh.
As for Just Seconds Apart, I asked what does 2017 have in store for them. Sela said excitingly, “Releasing new music, traveling, and touring; doing collaborations with artists and always looking forward to learning more and growing”. Like The Ocean is already an amazing track so I am ecstatic for what the future holds for Just Seconds Apart and the success that is awaiting them.
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Love the close harmonies and the tripled “oh-oh-oh.” It’s really catchy!