Joan of Arkansas share album “Imperfectionists”
ABOUT JOAN OF ARKANSAS
Joan of Arkansas is a power pop band that didn’t forget about the “power” part based out of scenic downtown Phoenix AZ. We formed out of sheer boredom during the pandemic in 2021 via Tinder and Craigslist. The Tinder part was in 2019 (There’s a couple in the band, we’ll let you guess who.) We don’t advise trying to find a drummer via Tinder. That could go bad. We jokingly refer to ourselves as “Record Collector Rawk” fusing influences from Punk Rock, Church Basement 90’s emo, 70’s power pop, Stoner Metal, and all the rad stuff from SST, Matador, Sub Pop, Amphetamine Reptile, Merge, Swami, Drag City, Touch and Go, and Kill Rock Stars over the years. Loud Guitars, Manic Drums, Gang vocals, Melting Fuzz Pedals, and Amps that catch on fire (that has now happened twice.) We are constantly writing and recording the songs we want to hear on our own dream radio station and have released 3 eps and 5 singles in a lil under two years. Our first full length LP “Imperfectionists” drops on 7/1/23 and we think it’s really damn good. We hope you do too.
Joan of Arkansas is:
Kayla Long- Vocals
Joshua Lynch- Bass and Vocals
Zach Bird- Guitar
E.P. Bradley- Guitar
Sean Harris- Drums
For Fans of: X, the Pixies, the Rentals, Hüsker Dü, Poly Styrene/X-ray Spex, Guided by Voices, the Gits, and Superchunk
ABOUT THE ALBUM: Imperfectionists – out on July 1st
“We are really really really proud of this album. We really feel that we are coming into our own and are really starting to branch out but still stay rooted in our “sound”. Basically, we are really happy with being a big ass indie rawk tree that covers a lot of ground: “Final Girl Semi Finalist” and “Peck” couldn’t sound more dissimilar, but you know they are from the same band. We are a full collaborative thing: Zach and E.P. write instrumentals separately: E.P. is the Archers of Loaf, Pixies, Husker Du noise pop fanatic, and Zach is a lil more Superchunky, a lil more indie poppy. They then put their own spin on each other’s riffs and it becomes a lil more “J.O.A.”. I dare you to guess who wrote what. We also have a beast of a drummer (Sean) who is a more talented guitarist than all of us put together, who smooths it all out and weeds out the suck. Josh writes all of the vocal melodies, he just has such a weird ear for them, they always come out of left field to us. Then Kayla and Josh map out the whole vocal/lyrical world. Each of us is absolutely integral. This album is kind of a mile marker where we all feel we understand who we are and what a J.O.A. song sounds like.
This album was recorded liveish with the immortal Jalipaz Nelson at Audio Confusion in Mesa, AZ (Dude has produced so many good albums, you should check him out.) More than half were done in one take. Kayla’s voice almost exploded. We dig the aggressive, loose feel to live recordings, the feed back and fret slides aren’t scripted. Fingers bleed, bad notes are barely avoided, the odd colorings aren’t planned. They just happen. We wouldn’t have it any other way. We are super music nerds and we read somewhere that Husker Du recorded Zen Arcade in one take live. We aren’t as good as Husker Du, obviously, but we go into every recording session trying to pull that trick off. We kinda love the chaos and the pressure of it.”
– Joan of Arkansas
ABOUT THE ALBUM’S FOCUS TRACK: “Peck”
“Peck is a little sugary pop bomb that has the blackest lil urban ennui filled heart tucked underneath all that musical sweetness. We’ve always loved those kind of songs, where you catch yourself singing happily along to lyrics about depression and urban confusion and the general feeling that you are the ugly duckling that never turned into a swan, just an average duck. We promise we aren’t “downer” people, but if you don’t get depressed from time to time you just aren’t paying attention. That doesn’t mean you have to write Type O Negative songs about it though, Life sounds like a lot of things. This song sounds like you just got a breakup text while you have a mouthful of Funfetti Cake.”
– Joan of Arkansas
