We have all been to some crap seaside town somewhere on a rundown old amusement park and seen some version of a one man band, if my memory serves me correctly it was probably frontierland in Morecambe for me, I was about ten years old. I’m trying my hardest to avoid some over weight balding chap in a lederhosen with a bass drum strapped to his chest an accordion under each armpit, bells on his ankles and harmonica bolted to his face as he shamefully tries his hardest to entertain hundreds of passing kids as we all compete to get to the front of the line for cyclone or stampede. Poor bloke… Anyway everyone has their own ideas on what a ‘one man band’ should look and sound like, luckily we  have moved on a fair way over the last few decades and musical performances by solo artists are becoming more and more popular. We have been making a little noise about one such solo artist for some time now with the release of his album Semicircle, and after physically melting my face off at the TTT and Tall Ships show before marching through the crowd and singing wildly to my girlfriend who was talking to her mother on the phone outside, I thought it was about time we caught up with Jeff and asked him exactly what’s going through his mind!

BR. If you could be a Beard on the face of anybody in the world (dead or alive) who would it be and why?

I'd probably have to go with Abe Lincoln.  Obviously one of the most important figures in American history, but also, I can't think of anyone who rocked the no-moustache-beard look quite as well as he did. 

BR. What is your musical background, have you ever been in bands? When did you start performing all the elements on your own?

I actually get this a lot.  People think that because I'm a solo performer, I must hate playing music with other people or have no friends.  I've actually been in lots of bands though, too many to name here.  I just don't really see the point of starting a band to play songs that I have already written, so all the bands I've been in were pretty much equally collaborative between all the members.  In high school I was in a few bands, usually playing drums but also still doing stuff on my own on piano, and also picking up the guitar and bass.  I guess this is where I got into recording too, and the whole loop thing is just sort of an extension of that, so I got into looping technology shortly thereafter.  In college, I was in this band called Mammoths Melting Out of the Ice!?! where we all played lots of instruments but I mostly played bass and guitar.  This was probably the most 'serious' band I've ever been in, probably almost too serious.  It affected us all too deeply.  So, eventually we split up and I started this two-piece band called Manduo with the drummer from Mammoths which was a lot of fun, except this time I played the drums and he played the Fender Rhodes and a bunch of electronics.  Then I graduated, so I moved to Chicago and just kept working away on songwriting and recording.  Maybe I didn't find the right people to be in a band with, so I guess I got more into the solo stuff then, and really just trying to push what I could do as one person.

BR. The term ‘one man band’ has somewhat of a stigma attached to it and congers up pretty crazy imagery of drums on backs, tambourines on heads, ankle bells and trumpets duck taped to faces, can you tell our readers how you differ from a stereotypical one man band.

These days, there are so many solo performers and such a wide spectrum of music that I don't really think there is such a thing as a typical one man band.  Lots of solo artists out there today are doing amazing things but also there is at least as many boring ones.   When I'm on tour, people literally tell me about one man bands I've never heard of every single day.  Also, nobody really does the kind of carnivalesque shit you are talking about anymore with a bass drum on their back and stuff like that.  It's mainly been replaced by dudes with MacBooks and/or an SP-404.  I guess it's so much easier these days to make something in your bedroom and then show up to the gig and push play, that people are less willing to take risks.  I like taking risks, and I like a challenge.  I'm pretty much against using any kind of prerecorded material so it's kind of a massively self-imposed limitation for me when I play live, but I think, as long as I'm up there doing something, it's a Juffage show.  If I'm playing along to a backing track, to me it doesn't really feel like a Juffage show, or like I'm playing a show at all.

BR. You put on a pretty amazing live show, what sort of reactions do you get from people when they see your show for the first time?

I guess there is quite a big continuum here from extreme enjoyment to extreme hatred.  My show is not that easy to ignore, so it just depends on whether or not the people in the audience know what is about to happen or not.  This also goes for promoters.  If someone books me and didn't actually read my email where it says "live looping of drums, bass, etc...", or listen to my music, and are expecting an ignorable acoustic guy this usually means trouble.  I've had several promoters tell me that I was their favorite thing they have ever put on, but I've also had promoters physically come up while I was playing and start throwing my amps off the stage.

BR. What is your thinking behind putting ghetto blasters playing recorded noise into the middle of the audience?

I don't really have an answer to that honestly, other than I just thought about it one day and decided to try it out.  It creates a unique sense of space for the audience that they don't normally hear in most concerts, which is why I was sort of drawn to it.

BR. What would you say is the single biggest influence on the music you make apart from music itself?

Hmmm, obviously the passage of time, because it's totally unavoidable.  Think about something you did or made a few years ago and you go, "why did I do it like that!?!"  There is lots of dead time in a day when you are at work, or driving, or waiting in a queue, and your mind can wander.  But also, there can be really focused time, kind of like what Csikszentmihayli talks about in flow theory.  Someone could have long, intense periods of concentration when writing, but also, you can just be walking down the street and get an idea, or pick up a bass and start singing and the song is already there.  Then you can spend a week recording one instrument for that one song you came up with in two seconds.

BR. Besides making music, what else do you find yourself doing in your spare time?

I spend far too much time booking shows, sitting in front of my computer lately.  I just started working on a U.K. and European tour which is going to go from October 3rd to December 5th, so I have a lot of work to do.  I record bands quite a bit as well, and am a freelance engineer at Loom Studios.  I also work at Mr. Foleys, a great pub in Leeds, and also sometimes at Beer Ritz, this fancypants beer & wine store.  So I always know when the best beer is coming to town.

BR. What have you learned about Yorkshire and its people since coming over to the UK?  (Being a Lancastrian myself, I bet you stopped buying people pints.)

Don't ever disagree with a person from Yorkshire you don't really know when they are trying to make small talk with you, even if what they are saying is complete bullshit.  For example, if someone from Yorkshire goes "my god it's bloody boiling today!", you can't say, "actually it's not really that hot".  They might go cry in the corner because you disagreed with them.  They will hate you forever.  So you have to say something like "yeah, it's hotter than Satan's asshole!,” which means that by agreeing with them, you are now their new best friend.  I also stopped tipping my bartender and cab driver.

BR. Satan has organised a festival of the worst music on earth in order to recruit souls.  Who's on the bill?

Speaking of Satan, Nickelback.  All day for the rest of eternity.

BR. If the world was going to end tomorrow and you could tell our readers to go out and do one last thing before you die, what would it be?

Grow a beard.  Oh, wait.