Diandra Interviews: Up And Coming Duo Jocelyn and Chris Arndt (Part 1)
I am a firm believer that it is what is inside that counts. This old adage has been told since the beginning of time as a constant reminder to human beings that it is the spiritual that wins over the superficial. I know I sound rather sappy in introducing an interview with the dynamically talented Jocelyn and Chris Arndt, a duo I have covered before. Yet, I bring up this fact because talent is not enough to shine. Even intelligence, of which these Harvard students clearly have, can falter in making someone special. Thus, it is not just the bundles of talent, creativity, and intelligence that make Jocelyn and Chris Arndt stand out amongst the massive crowd of rising artists, but also the genuine feeling that it is their heartstrings, rather than their guitar, that they play in their music.
Diandra: Your music is insightful and filled with personal anecdotes/ social commentary. What is the biggest personal and social message you wish for your music to say?
Chris: Ooh… Tough question right off the bat. Is it a cop-out if I say I don’t think we want our music to have any one overarching message? Self-confidence, love, originality- they’re all messages we’re trying to relay to our audience. But I think the really cool thing about music is that it means something different to every listener. You hear what you hear, and the person standing next to you at the show might hear something completely different. And that’s absolutely wonderful. I don’t want to tell people what I think our music should mean to them, because then they won’t be able to interpret it for themselves and fit it into their own life in the way that works best for them.
Diandra: What about music do you think connects people so spiritually and mentally? (particularly in terms of rock/blues)
Chris: What a cool question! I’m sure there are a bunch of reasons I can’t think of, but two immediately come to mind. First, music is really hard to talk about. I know that seems like a weird thing to say, but honestly, have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone about what a song really sounds like? With visual and literary art, we’ve got adjectives and colors and descriptors out the wazoo, but when it comes to having a discussion about sound, we don’t really have much vocabulary. Because of this, people are very quick to resort to describing music with emotions. And we all feel those, so it connects us in ways a book or a painting might never be able to. The main reason I think music connects to people so strongly, though, is its universal accessibility. There are no educational or material requirements to make music—you just find some people and start singing and clapping and having an awesome time! Everyone has those times when they’re alone in the car or the shower and some dope jam comes on and they just can’t help but belt it out. Have you ever heard the song ‘In the Air Tonight’ and not played along with that drum fill? Rock and blues take this accessibility to the max. If you’ve ever been around a campfire, you know that the first thing anyone ever learns on the guitar is the riff from ‘Smoke on the Water’. It is, like, a given. And the blues was built around three chords and a five-note scale—it’s about as simple as it gets. It’s so easy for anyone to get invested and emotionally involved in music, which is one of my favorite things about it, and I think a large reason it connects with people so quickly and easily.
Diandra: You have played over 100 performances in the last year. What is the roughest and most exciting part about tour life?
Chris: Honestly, it’s all pretty much awesome. There are definitely times when you’re two or three weeks in and you’re in Tempe, AZ and its 10PM and you have a morning show appearance 6 hours away in San Diego with a 5AM call time and you haven’t slept or showered in longer than you’d care to admit and the only available food is a day-old Taco Bell beef soft taco with a few fire sauces and you kinda feel like you’re dying, but even those moments are pretty special (at least, once they’re well in the rear-view mirror). Everything is so exciting on the road! It’s a new place every day, and you get to see the country, and meet all sorts of people, and try all sorts of food, and it’s just awesome! I don’t know if I can pick a single most exciting thing. I personally have an obsession with eating, so it’s pretty exhilarating when I find a new kind of gas station snack that they don’t have where I’m from, or when we go to a restaurant and order something I’ve never even heard of. Stuff like that is my jam (pun not intended). But, then again, it’s pretty damn exciting to step on stage in a brand new city and see a bunch of people rocking out and having a great time and just get lost in the performance too! Tour life is about as much fun as I think anyone can possibly have. It’s so exhausting, but it is so so so so awesome!
Diandra: You are a duo that wears many hats: musicians, siblings, students, etc. If you could add another “hat”/ role to your life, what would it be?
Chris: When Jocelyn and I were in high school, we were big winter snow sports enthusiasts. We were actually ski and snowboard instructors at Gore Mountain, which is an awesome ski resort in the Adirondacks—if you’re ever in the area and want a place to ride, definitely check it out! Since we started both doing music full time and going to college (whenever music allows, at least), we haven’t had a lot of time to hit the slopes. That’s probably the one thing I miss the most from not being so busy all the time. I really loved teaching little tiny kids how to snowboard. I also really want to become a better cook. As I mentioned above, I’ve got an obsession with eating and food, and I’ve recently discovered a passion for cooking stuff. The thing is, I kinda suck right now. Like, a lot. I make a pretty mean chocolate-chip cookie, but other than that, it all comes out embarrassingly bad. I’m working on it, though! Someday…
Chris: It seems pretty funny now, but when we were in high school, having a career in music was never even an option for us. We heard countless horror stories about the industry, and we had pretty much resigned ourselves to the fact that we just didn’t have what it took to make it, so we never really set career goals like that. When we first formed a band in middle school, our big goal was to get a non-talent-show gig. That happened, so we decided we wanted to write an original song. We’d written three by the start of my freshman year. At that point, we told ourselves the ultimate in success would be to make an album. So, we wrote some more songs, won a few battle of the bands, used the winnings to pay for recording time, and self-produced an 11-track album called ‘Dry Cereal’. I remember feeling pretty confused when we threw our album release party, because it didn’t seem right that we’d made it so far when we really had no clue what we were doing, but we just kept on going. Our next goal was to get a song on the radio. That was our loftiest one yet, so we were pretty skeptical of it ever happening. We told ourselves that if that happened, we were going to stop while we were ahead. Less than three months later, we had two songs in regular rotation on 97.7 WEXT, an independent station out of Albany with the nicest and most supportive staff in the entire world. We sort of joked that our next goal would be to go out to California to play music, but we decided that it was time to focus on school and try to get into a good college. How could we ever top being on the radio? Then one day, we were playing a gig in the beer tent of a local fair and met a couple named David and Anna Bourgeois. They seemed impressed, and they started to talk to us about this thing called a development deal. We had no clue what that was at the time, but we figured it out and went all-in. Four years later, we’ve charted nationally on the AAA, AMA, Jamband, and RMR radio charts, been added to more than 200 stations across the country, and we go out to California 3-4 times a year. So we’ve made it to Cali, and it’s time to set the next goal, the next step in this crazy journey. The next couple bullets on our list? Playing our music internationally, and topping the chart positions we made it to with “Edges” with our next album. Oh, and winning a Grammy would be nice, too. I still feel like we’re going to wake up some day and realize it was all fake and I’m actually just a socially awkward food-loving high school junior. But hey, until then, we’re just going to keep dreaming.
Diandra: You both are intelligent creatives, so I’m sure you have gone through the nightmarish “writers block.” What was the hardest song you have ever written, and why?
Chris: There have been some pretty rough songs in terms of songwriting. The two that immediately come to mind are ‘Gaslight’ and ‘Too Much To Me’. For ‘Gaslight’, it wasn’t a writer’s block problem; we were having a really hard time coming to an agreement on the rhythmic structure of the song. One of us wanted it swung, and the other wanted it straight. I don’t remember who was who, but I remember it being really hard to compromise. That was one of the only times I remember compromise ever having been a challenge—I think we learned a lot from that one. ‘Too Much To Me’ was definitely a writer’s block problem. We actually started writing that song 5 years ago. I played the riff and Jocelyn came up with the lyrics of the first verse, and then we had no idea what to do. We kept bringing the song back up and trying to finish it, but we never quite knew where to go next. Finally, about this time two years ago, we just sort of sat down for a day and brute-forced our way through it. That was such a frustrating day that, about halfway through, we took a break from ‘Too Much To Me’ and started a brand new song. About 45 minutes later, we had completed ‘Jagged’. I think that’s the only thing that kept us sane and confident enough to finish. In general, when we’re having trouble with one song, it usually helps to switch gears for a little while and work on something else. It can be just the recalibrating confidence-booster we need to get back on track with whatever is causing the problem.
Diandra: What is your happiest musical memory?
Chris: Oh man. There are so many. I feel like all of my best memories have to do with music in some way or another—there’s always some song playing in the background of my mind. This will probably change if you ask me again in five minutes, but right now, two memories immediately popped into my head. The first is Christmas-themed; it being the holiday season and all. I remember waking up on Christmas morning and hearing the Vince Guaraldi Trio Christmas album playing, and running downstairs and seeing our dogs on the couch. Everyone else was busy getting ready for the day, so I just found a blanket and went and cuddled with the dogs until everyone was ready to do Christmas morning stuff. That was about as peaceful as I have ever felt. The other memory was of our first ever performance, at the Lion’s Club Variety Show in the Canajoharie High School auditorium. I was playing a black strat-style First Act, Jocelyn was playing a grand piano and singing, and we had a drummer with us on a tiny little drum set. We had decided to perform Stairway to Heaven. The adrenaline rush lasted from our stage time (around 8PM) to after midnight. I think I’ve pretty much been addicted to music since then.
If you enjoyed this interview Click Here for Part 2. Such thoughtful answers need space to be absorbed and admire, yet one thing is instantly clear: THE HEART! I called it from the beginning of this interview. Heart says a lot, and if you have heard their music, you know they are good, but seeing that Jocelyn and Chris are good people, just makes it sound even better. You want to encourage great talent even more, when you know it comes from great people.
