JUNO:
the band that might just save your life,
one day

ENTER THE SECRET CODE

It's one of those Seattle days that not many people know we actually get to enjoy on a fairly regular basis. The sky is wide open blue, the sun is blinding and all the kids on Broadway are in shorts, tank-tops, any kind of blue-camo based summer-wear you can name. I'm spending a weekday afternoon with Arlie Carstens, lead singer for Seattle band Juno, walking, talking, walking and talking.

We meet at the beautiful Vivace espresso house with it's cool interiors and large windows overlooking a park where people sprawl and play, soaking up the absolutely gorgeous day. As I walk in, Carsten is reading a rave just-out review of his band's new record in local mag Tablet, which is right on except for the somewhat bizarre Roger Waters reference. We take a window seat and order Americanos and Lattes in oversized cups that make your hands look really small. And we smile. The smile of the good-coffee-in-huge-cups-drinking sunny afternoon invisibles, temporarily immune to the world whilst watching it glide by. That's a good smile.

"Right now," says Carstens, "I'm happy."

And so he should be. Juno just released their second album, A Future Lived In Past Tense [DeSoto Records] and it's killer…a modern classic, even. And a lot of us can't believe it ever got here. Juno is a band with a story, and quite the tale it is.

Pink Floyd has nothing to do with it.

THINGS GONE AND THINGS STILL HERE

Arlie Carstens is as Seattle as anybody I've ever met. Born in this city’ Swedish Hospital, he's lived here his entire life despite offers, lures and emotional reasons to transplant to bigger hubs of humanity. In true Pacific Northwest spirit, Carstens started pouring all his energies at a young age into two of this region’s religious activities -- music and sports. He excelled in both, becoming not only the frontman in one of today's most exciting rock bands, but also a super-talented snowboarder. He turned pro early on and it became almost impossible to pick up a boarding magazine without seeing a piece written on or by Arlie John Carstens. At the same time, his band Juno was spreading it’s wings and learning to fly. Buzz was immediate as the fledgling group released a couple of singles on different labels (Jade Tree and Mag Wheel) and started thinking about a home for their debut album. There was a strong connection to Seattle kingpin's Sub Pop for quite a while and everyone expected the debut album from Juno to have the famed black and white logo on it. The 'negotiations' went on for eighteen months, during which time Carstens made an appearance on the legendary Hype! video -- not as a performer, but as the young man in the promo before the movie starts shilling the soundtrack album in a style mocking all those lame TV infomercials where a happy couple reminisce about their favorite music. Despite all this, it all went wrong, the deal went dead, and Juno came away feeling they had wasted a huge chunk of time being dangled.

It was here that the initial formidable line-up of Juno solidified. With the enigmatic Arlie leading the charge on vocals and guitar, Juno lined up thus: Gabe Carter and Jason Guyer on guitars, Travis Saunders on bass, and Greg Ferguson behind the drum kit. The “three-guitar front” became almost a catchphrase as Juno rendered Seattle's jaded hipsters speechless at show after show. You have to realize that Juno isn't a band with a star and a bunch of supporting players, every member is a piece of a very intricate puzzle. The live show quickly became legendary. Arlie emotional and frantic on the mic, slapping his own hand over his mouth one second and taunting the audience the next. Gabe, lost in sound yet completely in control of the songs, making his guitars emote like no-one else. Jason, almost serene next to his bandmates, yet ready at any second to mutate into a rock monster. Travis, gentlest man in the world offstage but a bizarre weirdo schizo bass thing on it with his stuttery robot dances and incredibly unique approach to playing. And Greg, quite simply one of this country’s greatest drummers. The man is untouchable.

This, then, was The Juno.

THE DEVIL WEARS A HALO

Finally a record deal was sealed! Juno's first album would be a bi-coastal joint release between the Jawbox label DeSoto in Washington DC and Seattle's own Pacifico. Everything was in place, and then Arlie Carstens broke his neck snowboarding and almost died. A bad ending to a cool move in a half-pipe left Arlie in a halo for months after going through experimental surgery to re-fuse his spine and neck. Whilst wearing a halo, which is a cumbersome metal ring attached to the head by screws drilled into the skull, you cannot lie down as too much pressure on the screws could force them into the brain. Carstens spent four months sitting up in a bed, focusing all his energy into the recuperation because, if the surgical procedures didn't work, his neck would have to be re-broken and everything would start over. For an overactive Straight Edge kid, keeping still and being pumped full of drugs was far from the ideal position to be in. It was as if Dante had written a personal Hell for Carstens. And what about the record, the tours, that whole band thing?

A WISER AND MORE JUST FUTURE

Carstens made a genuinely miraculous recovery. The intensity of therapeutic concentration paid off. Suddenly Juno were back on the stages, the record was in stores causing waves and everything was...good. This Is The Way It Goes and Goes And Goes was the title of the album, and it spread Juno's fan base from Seattle to all across the world. Earlier this year, before the release of the new record, Juno undertook a mammoth European tour, from England to Slovenia, a tour nine months in the planning. Travel is a great refresher to Carstens.

"If I'm in the same place too long or around the same people I can become very underwhelmed, and slip into laziness. Being somewhere new re-energizes me, things fly at you so fast, all these new opportunities, and everything takes on a new clarity. I'd never go out dancing in Seattle until two in the morning, but on tour, after we'd played a show, I'd have fun at cheesy discos until five or six a.m., four or five nights in a row. Dancing to James and fuckin' Chemical Brothers."

ALL THE HIP KIDS WAIL

For an actual description of the music that makes up A Future Lived In Past Tense, go see Reed Jackson's fantastic review on these very pages where he absolutely nails the massive accomplishment of the record and all the sparkling, cinematic detail within. We're concerned here with the men behind the music, and of course the effects of their albums now sent unto the world to raze the fortresses of adequacy with the soon-to-be-legendary Juno guitar storm.

SOMEONE SOMEWHERE WILL ALWAYS SING THE WORDS YOU NEED

Juno are two bands in one. The first time I ever spoke with the group in an interview setting, back when This Is The Way It Goes And Goes And Goes was just coming out, we spent a great deal of our time discussing the bi-polarity of the band, the schizophrenic nature of the Juno beast. The equation remains today and seems magnified, if that's possible.

"Live, we're fairly energetic. Loud maybe." Carstens grins. " Sometimes funny, sometimes sad."

Sometimes confrontational, I suggest.

"Yeah, yes, definitely. When you play to a packed room, in a confined space, you want to light a fire, see some energy."

I push Arlie on passion and focused aggression.

"There are things in life worth taking a stand on. There are things in life worth dying for. I certainly believe there are things in life worth killing someone over. Not that I advocate killing anyone."

At this point two young children start running around our table, noisily and annoyingly. Carstens jumps up, goes over to the parents of the children, whispers a few words in their ears and returns to our table. The wee ones don't even come near us for the rest of the afternoon.

"I mean I love kids," says Carstens, "kids are alright..."

Back to the bi-polar Juno....

"We record albums that sound massive and enveloping, with the very limited amount of money that we have. We try to make our recordings sound spacious. Our recording budgets are tiny, and because we want to make the records we want to make -- without question -- every member of the band will come up with x-thousand dollars to put towards it. That's how we do it, fuck it, this is the music we want to make, along with spending the money in the right places, like using Kip Beelman as engineer/producer. The live experience is almost the opposite. The records are big and lush and you can immerse yourself in them, it'll swarm over them. The live show, we don't replicate the records live. That's not what we want live. We want an energetic show, to get people moving. We want them to think "’his is nuts!’ -- you know?"

In Europe, Carstens chipped his tooth on a microphone. In England, Juno confounded the London press Mafia. Advance copies of AFLIPT was sent out to all the usual NME people, and a bunch of journos attended Juno's show at The Garage in beautiful Islington. They couldn't believe what they saw as Juno, as always, went ballistic on the crowd and exploded all pre-conceptions into fragments. This is Juno as they always have been and will always be.

THE POINTLESS QUESTION

Arlie - will Juno ever make a spiky nasty album and then get on stage and play all soft and lush?

"No."

AN EXPANSION ON THE POINTLESS QUESTION

"I don't think that could ever happen for us. We have such a wide variety of songs. Look at "You Are The Beautiful Conductor Of This Orchestra" and "Trail of Your Blood In The Snow" -- super low. We have people in our band who love fast aggressive stuff, some who like the mellow stuff. We all like each other, we all like different stuff, we can each come in with a different part and end up with something amazing from those parts, but we won't sit down and say 'let's write a super-fast album' -- you know?"

For the record, and in case you don't have the record yet (shame!) - “Trail of Your Blood In The Snow” is a very jazzy track, slow and somewhat intricate based around oscillating bass notes, that slowly advances at a steady pace, all beautiful melody and heart-soothing progression, until the last 30 seconds where it erupts -- literally out of nowhere -- into skull-crushing guitars.

PUT ON YOUR PUNK BELT AND ROCK IT FOR ALL THE SQUARE COOLS

There's a lot more we could talk about -- Arlie's description of the "absurdly bombastic" “Covered In Hair” ("the song is wearing a cut-off shirt and jean-shorts, it's doing guitar windmills!") more excellent tour stories from Europe, the whole incredible recovery process (mentally AND physical) from the neck-breaking, the history of punk-rock from then to now ("now, super jocked-out from Orange County with snap-on haircuts") and the ever expanding Juno philosophy that is so encompassing it's practically a sub-culture. We could talk about it, but that would be another ten million words on the Unpop site. All I can end with is this -- seek out Juno, now, on record and live. Embrace them. Hold them close. Because one day, in complete and utter honesty, they really, really may just save your life.

Some Of Arlie Carsten's album picks that will always save your life:

Talk Talk- The Laughing Stock
American Music Club - Everclear
Lungfish - everything and anything
Nina Simone - everything and anything