On May 21st, Brookline High School senior Alec Goldman tweeted a video of his Brookline High School Music Collective performing a jazz arrangement he led of the Joyce Manor song “Leather Jacket” from their first LP. When Joyce Manor retweeted the video, it went viral and garnered praise not just from that band but from artists such as Los Campesinos!, Peach Kelli Pop, and Jeremy Bolm of Touché Amoré. I spoke to Goldman on the phone about the story behind his viral jazz arrangement.
Allston Pudding: How did you first get into the music of Joyce Manor?
Alec: So it’s a funny story actually. About two years ago I was super into Modern Baseball—you know them?
AP: Yeah, totally.
Alec: I went to see them with my friend at the House of Blues in Boston and Joyce Manor were opening the show, and I had never heard of them before and I didn’t even know any of their music when I first went to the show. But then I went there and they started playing and it was crazy. I’d never seen people like that at a show before and I was like these guys have something special about them. Even though they weren’t the main act, they owned the crowd like they were, and it was really incredible to see and be a part of that. So I started listening to their music heavily after that.
AP: Did you start with that first album, or did you work your way back there?
Alec: I think I just started with whatever was the top marked on Apple music or when you type in “Joyce Manor” the first thing that comes up. I think the first song that I really got into was “Constant Headache” and then I actually really liked the stuff off the new album Cody. That’s just a great album that you can listen to back to front. And then from there I just started looking up songs one by one—the ones with live videos, because I love watching live videos of bands. Leather Jacket had a really cool live video because they were playing in… I think it was a closed down restaurant to a bunch of people and I was like this is so cool.
AP: What drew you to doing “Leather Jacket” in particular?
Alec: Funny enough, the time signature did because most rock, punk, and emo songs are in 4/4, but I believe “Leather Jacket” is in 6/8 time signature. When I listened to it I was like, oh this lends itself to jazz nicely actually. There’s just a very nontraditional beat for a punk tune. And I was like this could be really cool if I were to take it and make it into a jazz song.
AP: You tweeted this was for an assignment where you could arrange anything with the jazz band. How did this open-ended assignment turn into a Joyce Manor cover?
Alec: So basically I’m in the music collective at Brookline High School—it’s a class you have to audition for and all that, so everyone who’s in it is a very talented and capable musician. It’s everyone’s job throughout the year at some point or another to take a song and arrange all the parts so that each instrument has a part to play and then you play the song as a whole. Different kids arrange different songs and I was worried that my teacher would say no, but then when I brought her the song she was really encouraging about it. She was like, “yeah we can totally do this.”
And so I went home, it took me a few weeks of agonizing over and figuring out the proper melody and harmony notes. And I was just like whoa this is actually coming to fruition. I was really happy with it and it was just a really cool scenario where it was kind of like my own special cover.
AP: Were any of the other musicians into Joyce Manor too?
Alec: The guitar player in the collective actually was the one who showed me Modern Baseball I guess two and a half years ago and so I believe she knew of them and a few of their songs. But after she showed me Modern Baseball I just kind of spiraled into finding all these other bands. So I believe she knew the song. But then I believe up until I showed the rest of the music collective, none of them had really heard of Joyce Manor.
AP: Are they into Joyce Manor now? (laughs)
Alec: I’m working on it. They definitely listened to it a lot because I asked them to for figuring out melodies… I tried to write out the melodies as best I could from ear but it wasn’t perfect so I would get back to them like, “hey can you listen to this a few times?” And so definitely some listened but I don’t know how much of gigantic fans they’ll be.
AP: How did people react to the viral status of that video?
Alec: So I actually haven’t seen a lot of the jazz band in person yet because I did it last night and we didn’t have class today. But it’s been incredible. I’ve been like… I wasn’t able to sleep last night because my phone was dinging so much and I didn’t want to turn it off because I loved it so much. I texted them as soon as Joyce Manor retweeted it and I was like, “Guys… we’re going viral.” They thought it was really great. They were like, “hey, way to go, this is really cool, we’re glad to have our stuff out there.”
And all the comments have been incredibly positive, some even complimenting specific musicians. So that’s been really cool to see. And everyone’s really happy with what happened there.
AP: Did you have prior experience adapting music of that kind to jazz arrangements?
Alec: So this was my first real arrangement. At my time in Brookline High School, I joined a jazz class… I’ve been involved with jazz at the high school since my sophomore year when I barely knew how to play bass guitar, and my teacher was really great about teaching me stuff. And then junior year I got into this mini advanced ensemble where the teacher would teach us stuff that would prepare us for being in the high-level jazz band. We spent a few months learning, like ok this is gonna be… this is what arranging is, this is how you do it, you need to figure out a part for every individual instrument. Everyone had to try an arrangement of sorts. I think I did a song from a Broadway show. I did this song called “Falling Slowly” and I had the sheet music in front of me so it was pretty easy. I could just like write it down, take it from the pages into the computer, like “oh this goes here.” It was like an easy puzzle.
This was my first time going into it like ok here’s the melody on your phone, you have to figure it out on the piano and then give it to a saxophone.
AP: Sounds intense.
Alec: Yeah definitely. I spent a lot of time stressing over it but I could not be happier with what’s happened with it. And Joyce Manor seemed to love it so that’s just the coolest thing of it all.
AP: Was that the highlight of the viral status of [the video]?
Alec: Honestly yeah because I believe it’s Barry, the singer, who runs the account. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure. So him saying this a beautiful arrangement, thank you… I was just on cloud nine. I was like why is he thanking me, he wrote an amazing song that I got to work with. And Joyce Manor follows me on twitter now which is like the craziest thing to ever happen to me. (laughs). I remember it was 12:30 or 1am and I should’ve been asleep but I couldn’t, and then I just saw “Joyce Manor is now following you” and I was like what is happening.
AP: Are there any other musical projects you’re pursuing now or will be pursuing?
Alec: Yeah, I’m so glad you asked that actually. So the reason I play jazz is because I love music so much and jazz band is the best way I could play music in the high school. And so I’ve been pretty involved in making music. I play in—I started my own project called The Fictitious Yacht People. We’re on Bandcamp, iTunes, Apple Music, and all that good stuff, Spotify… we put out our first single and… I started it in August of this year and I just wanted to make songs and show them to people and that was just a perfect outlet. So yeah, that’s kind of my main thing.
I love making music that’s emo tunes like Joyce Manor and I guess me doing a Joyce Manor cover in jazz band is just my persistence at being like I just have to play emo songs all the time. And so yeah, The Fictitious Yacht People is just how I created a wonderful outlet for it and I’m really happy with it. We just put out our first single and I’m releasing an EP in late June I believe. That’s what I do and spend a lot of my time doing. It’s what I want to do when I’m older. My dream is to be where Joyce Manor is basically.
AP: Anything else you want readers to know?
Alec: Just that I was very much not alone in this project. There are so many amazing musicians in the jazz band. And my teacher Carolyn Castellano helped me out so much with this. I owe her so much for helping me figure it out. There’s a section in it where the entire band is harmonizing with each other, and I spent so long agonizing over that, and I’d constantly go to Carolyn like, “I don’t know what to do here,” and she was like, “ok, sit down, we’re gonna figure this out and I’m gonna help you out”. She really pushed me like, “you gotta do these parts,” and I can’t thank her enough for the support she’s given me as a music teacher and the rest of the band.
In the video I’m the one playing the bass guitar, as you can probably tell from the pants and Animal Flag t-shirt. But yeah, the other musicians truly took it and made it sound amazing. So big thanks to everyone in the Brookline High School Music Collective, and especially to the instructor Carolyn Castellano.