On a cool, fall Saturday night the flannel-clad descended upon the western edge of Allen Street to celebrate the latest release by local hard rockers Handsome Jack. The crowd spilled out of Nietzsche’s and onto the sidewalk in anticipation of hearing songs from the band’s fourth proper studio album, Super Moon.
Sitting next to the merch table, just a few feet and a few hours from where his band will take the stage, guitarist and lead singer Jamison Passiute leans back and says the band had an extremely simplistic approach to the new record.
“We basically listened to what we did in the past, heard things we don’t like, and kinda go in the opposite direction.”
Over the past year the band scraped together money for Super Moon by playing in a multitude of different bars throughout Western New York. Some of those included long hours and late nights doing 3-hour stints at Gonzo’s in Lockport “just to make some money.” Passuite explains the band would do what it could to earn enough money to pay for recording and pressing the album.
“We even played a birthday party for some guy we didn’t even know cause they paid us 400 bucks just to do it.”
After a stripped-down, drummer-less set by fellow classic rockers Johnny Nobody and indie atmospherics by the Mourdant Sisters, Handsome Jack takes the stage around midnight to a packed-in back room of Nietzsche’s, buzzing with anticipation. The group quickly settles into their somewhere-between-mid-and-slow-tempo bluesy groove.
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Holed up at Matt Smith’s HI/LO Recording in Eden, NY the band recorded the majority of the music in just two days. After a few overdubs, some re-recording and mixing, Super Moon was completed in just less than three months. Inspirations varied from song to song but are all “rooted in the same feel” said Passiute.
While the title Super Moon could easily be mistaken for a pagan reference, the album, with its down-home lyrical affirmations, feels like a template for what they could be playing at packed-full mega churches instead of the typical Christian rock and reworked hymns. On “Time will tell”, Passuite sings “I know there’s a good life that’s out there in the sun/ It’s not too far to see.”
On stage, the band belts out the new songs with the conviction of a Sunday preacher, inspiring more than a few sweaty dancers. The group maintains a rhythmic slow burn as Passuite and bass player Joe Verdonselli wring every note from their instruments. It’s now in the early hours of Sunday morning, and Handsome Jack is working hard to conjure up a catharsis-- just a few yards from the First Presbyterian Church quietly sitting down the street.
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