 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
ARTICLES
DISCOGRAPHY
TOUR DATES
LYRICS
PICTURES
SPECIAL NEWS
REQUEST JUDE
|
|
 |
| ||||||
| NEW!! Read an interview with Jude by Like.com http://www.like.com/music/interviews/01/10050.htma This Jude site has also been linked by Like.com and entitled the official fansite, I wouldn't really call it that but someone apparantly thinks of it as such(because I didn't ask to be linked)which makes me feel really cool. Thanks. Also I've got an interview with Jude's aunt which will be up soon. JUDE BREAKS ALL THE RULES by Steve Baltin "It's like U2 and Peter Gabriel and... Jude?" says singer/songwriter Jude. The L.A. based musician was probably not the only person questioning that grouping when the number-one-selling soundtrack to "City of Angels" was released earlier this year. How does a virtually unknown artist with only one indie album under his belt ("430 N. Harper Ave.") end up on a soundtrack alongside Alanis Morissette, Sarah McLachlan, Eric Clapton and the aformentioned superstars? Perhaps it's, as Jude (last name: Christodal) says, "when you've got a sense of wit, cool irony, ballet-like wordplay." But he's not another egomaniacal rock star. He's an artist with a sense of humor which is apparent on his highly eclectic, often brilliant major label debut, "No One Is Really Beautiful." The album is in spirit, if not in lyrics, much more jovial than its title suggests. "No One Is Really Beautiful" is a predominantly acoustic singer/songwriter album that shatters all the rules: Jude goes from the deceptive funk of "Rick James," a scathing attack on a porn magnate whose treachery leads to the death of a young girl, to the the synthesizer/drum machine-flavored hip-hop of "Brad and Suzy" to the infectious pop energy of the anthem "Out of L.A.," to a heartrending letter to an ex-lover in "I Do." "I think it represents a pretty good cross section of styles," Jude says of the album's versatility. (An artist that comes to mind--not so much in a similarity of sound as in a potential shared audience--is Beck, of whom Jude says he is a fan.) Like the inventive and single-named Beck, Jude has made the jump from an indie to the majors. Also like Beck, Jude's muse doesn't permit him to follow the "normal" major label route of releasing an album only every year or every other year. "I may put out another indie record in the next year," he says. "I'd like to make it more than acoustic; maybe I'll make it all on the piano or something. I just wanna put some more songs out. Ten songs every two years seems like not enough." The critics and fans who are quickly becoming Jude devotees are sure to agree with him on that last count. KINK INTERVIEW FM102 OCTOBER, 1998 JUDE TALKS ABOUT HIS DEBUT ALBUM, "NO ONE IS REALLY BEAUTIFUL" WITH BOB ANCHETA. BA: Very nice. Jude is in the studio here at Kink. The CD is called "No One Is Really Beautiful." Where do you get a title like that? Jude: Where do I get off saying that? BA: Yeah. Jude: I guess the obvious corollary is that every one is beautiful in their own way. But that was already a song...(laughs). BA: In the lyrics, it says you hate spaghetti? Do you really hate spaghetti and love earthquakes? Jude: Sure. Actually I do eat spaghetti. After I started playing that song,I'd be at someone's house for dinner and they'd say, "Oh, I'm sorry. I know you don't eat spaghetti." People have ruled out all pasta, all tomato... BA: You've got to be careful what you put in your songs. Jude: I suppose you do. BA: People will take you seriously. It says that you were born in Boston and then moved to Los Angeles where you did everything. You just had your eyes on Los Angeles as the place to be? Jude: I had my eyes on the prize. I grew up on the east coast and I always thought of Los Angeles as that Never Neverland... BA: Was it? Jude: Oh yeah. It's really a perverse Oz. BA: Well, just think of the percentage of people that get a record deal down there. It's pretty low. Jude: You can't think of those things when you go there. BA: Or you'll never make it. Jude: You can't sit down and go, "I'm going to take a realistic look at this." You just have to believe. I just felt I was writing songs that were important and I loved them. You know, it's the only thing I do well so... BA: Who did you grow up listening to? Who do you like? Jude: My dad used to play a lot of Paul Simon and Sam Cooke around the house. My mom played the Beatles a lot. BA: You are only twenty-eight years-old so... Jude: We had aunts and uncles who would give me albums. Once I started listening to the radio, it was disco at that point. So I listened to the Culture Club and the things that were on the radio. I also listened to a lot of Motown. I would put my own Motown tape in when George Michael was driving me nuts. BA: You were included on the "City of Angels" soundtrack. How does someone approach you when they want you to be on a soundtrack? Jude: With ease. That's how they approach you. Because I play a lot in Los Angeles, people see me around there and they asked me to look at a screening of the film to see if I would want to write something for it. So I did. I saw an early screening of it. Of course I picked the part in the movie where the composer wanted his piece. I went in with a couple of songs. I had this one song that was already almost finished for the record, too. I went into the soundtrack guy's office and played him a few songs and that was it. BA: Well, let's do a song that's called "I Know." Your bass player William Rowe is here to help you with that one. It's Jude live in the Kink Studios. BA: From the "City of Angels" soundtrack, Jude in the studios here at Kink. You guys have a big show tonight at Key Largo. You're going on at 7:30. You're sharing the bill with Sinead Lohan. Do you know her? Jude: Yes. We've been with Sinead for the better part of a month. BA: Oh, so you've been hanging together? Jude: We've been hanging together. She and her whole crew. They just get liquored up every night...I'm just kidding. They're lovely people. They've been really great to us. BA: That's probably why they're going to be coming into Kink at 3:00 this afternoon. They're still sleeping it off. Jude: Exactly. They've got the big bus... BA: Well, you have a great CD out and what a fantastic singer you are. I'm sure we'll see you in bigger and better things eventually, television and big concerts and all that. Jude: All of that crazy stuff. BA: You'll get your own tour bus pretty soon. Watch out for that. Thank you for coming by here. Jude: Thanks for having us. BIOGRAPHY PROVIDED BY MAVERICK RECORDING COMPANY The son of a professional musician who toured the bars and clubs of Europe, Michael Jude Christodal was born 28 years ago near Boston. Not surprisingly, Jude was raised in a family in which music making was routine and where the kids, four in all, were sung to sleep every night. After attending high school, where he pursued a variety of music projects, Jude gave up music altogether and attended College of Charleston, Boston University, and Emory University, eventually earning a degree in Philosophy. Booksmart and streetwise, as absorbed by D.H. Lawrence as he was addicted to Marvel Comics, he had, by 1993, resumed writing and singing songs again. His restlessness compelled him to leave Charleston, South Carolina, where his family had relocated, and so he jumped into his Hyundai and headed for Los Angeles. "I always perceived that L.A. was 'the place," he says today. "It had a tradition of magic." But initially, it was a cruel trick that L.A. played on him. Delivery boy, dishwasher, and demolitiion man, his life became a blue of menial jobs. He even tried going Postal. It was during a computer sales gig,however, that Jude got something of a break when a customer came into the store and the two started talking music. Knocked out by the quality and originality of Jude's song "Cammie(I Do)" and a few others, he fronted him $100 to book a studio session- where things went even better than expected. "I went in with just four completed songs and came out with fourteen," he recalls, astounded to this day. "That was such a revelation. It was the proudest moment of my life." His confidence stoked, Jude soon launched himself into the L.A. music scene where he made an immediate impact. "Thirty or fourty people, the same people, started showing up, some were taping every show," he says. Those who caught Jude's set were treated to that rare kind of performer, one whose magnetic stage presence and dark, chiseled good looks could mesmerize any audience. In late 1997, Jude signed to Maverick Recording Co., and in early 1998, he began work on the album that would become No One Is Really Beautiful. The CD was alternately co-produced by George Drakoulis ( The Black Crowes, Kula Shaker, Maria McKee), Mickey Petralia (Beck, Luscious Jackson), clif Magness, Ron Aniello, and Jude himself. Everyone contributing to No One Is Really Beautiful- Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers' keyboardist Benmont Tench, Grant Lee Buffalo's Paul Kimble, and Michael Ward and Rami Jaffe from the Wallflowers- shared a common objective. "The idea was to serve the songs through arrangements," says Jude. So whether it's a row-boned track about an aging "tit turnstle" starlet ("Prophet"), a tribute to his own mother ("You mama You"), a sardonic, hip-hoppy tour de force("Brad & Suzy"), or an armor-piercing put-down ("Rick James"), Jude's razor-sharp points of view are heard loud and clear. The song from which the album's title is borrowed, "Charlie Says," is based upon Jude's experience as a janitor at a Hollywood casting agency. Skewering the endless procession of "mediocre models of the hours," "Charlie Says" gives a juicy black eye to the illusion that physical beauty equals goodness. A similar sentiment propels the jaunty "Out of L.A." which, with the effervescent "She Gets The Feeling" and the haunting "I Know"(appearing prominently on the multi-platinum # 1 Billboard soundtrack album City Of Angels)is among the most drop-dead unforgettable tunes you're likely to hear for quite a while. Add to the above list the Squeezy "I'm Sorry," the sensual "Battered and Broken," the solo acoustic "George," and the in-your-face apologis "The Asshole Song," and there's something both timeless and timely, altogether infectious and winning about No One Is Really Beautiful. INTERVIEW WITH JUDE IN MOXIEGIRL SUMMER 1999 BY LISA B. "Jude's No One Is Really Beautiful"(Maverick) is a folksy CD that's earned him a bunch of comparisons to Jewel. The first single, "Rick James," is a scathing putdown on lame boys who use girls for sex, which means Jude has instantly won himself a coveted spot in the MXG We Love Him department. I chatted with Jude on the phone from Virginia Beach ("Can I just say it's freezing here?" he said by way of hello), where he's currently touring with fellow cute boys, Better Than Ezra. The record seems pretty bitter about L.A.? Jude: Actually, I don't think so at all. I just wanted to pull the curtain back. You get to L.A. and you find the people you idolized are public-relations-invented cretins. It's like Jerry Springer. You can't take your eyes off it. "Rick James"is a really sensitive song to be written by a guy. Do you have a fear of being tagged Mr. Nice Guy? Jude: (Kinda laughs.) I have enough people in my life who aren't afraid to tell me I'm an insensitive jerk. It's funny when we're playing the song live- we get to the line 'You got some pretty girl to get down on her knees,'and all the lame guys in the audience are like 'Whoo!' Then a couple lines later it goes 'Now you're going straight to hell and that's where your story ends.'The guys go 'Ohh.'It's really funny to watch that. We look for it every night now. Any advice for the girls of America? Jude: Don't put up with garbage from guys. But don't expect princes and knights in shining armor, either. |
 Sign Guestbook |
 View Guestbook |
 Jita1016@aol.com |
|
. |
| Visitors: 03186 |