Video premiere: Joel Jerome, ‘There’s Nothing Here To Bother You Anymore’

Kevin Bronson on September 27th, 2019

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Joel Jerome is equal parts singer-songwriter, producer, mentor, svengali and force of nature. He has cast a presence over the Los Angeles scene ever since his band Dios stormed out of Hawthorne to release two albums in the mid-Aughts (and played Coachella in 2004). Back then, he went by his given name, Joel Morales. Now, he’s known as Papa Joel.

Over the years, Jerome’s releases on various local labels — including his own Psychedelic Thriftstore Recordings — have been sprinkled with the fairy dust of ’60s psych-pop and folk. He’s from the Beach boys’ hometown, after all, and he’s conversant in everything from the Beatles to the Elephant 6 Collective to really early Beck.

Given his lineage, it seems only natural that Jerome is the latest artist to link up with L.A. independent Dangerbird Records (coincidentally, founded the same years as Dios) for the label’s Microdose singles series.

Jerome’s new single “There’s Nothing Here to Bother You Anymore,” out today, sounds like a Beatles gem that’s been left out to ripen in the California sun. Wistful yet optimistic, Jerome’s steady vocals and typically stellar guitar work exude the warmth and large-heartedness that has characterized virtually all of his music. If mere guitar tones could make the world a better place, look to the instrument he is holding.

The homespun video for the new single is directed by Steve Hanft, who has helmed videos for the likes of Beck (“Loser”), the Cure, Phoenix and Radar Bros. and directed the Elliott Smith documentary “Strange Parallel.” It stars Jerome, with friends, in his Glassell Park neighborhood. The songwriter’s bulldog, Chewy H Opdycke, kinda steals the show.

Jerome has another full-length in the works — a Joel Wesley Harding album titled “Glassell Skyline” — and “There’s Nothing Here To Bother You Anymore” was originally intended to be on it. “It worked better as a stand-alone single since it was the only song from those sessions to feature electric guitar,” Jerome explains. “Recorded at my home studio Psychedelic Thriftstore in Glassell Park, the song was recorded at two drastically different tempos, and being the indecisive Pisces/Scorpio Moon, I combined the two for a daytime/nighttime feel.

“Like the album it was originally on, the lyrics have to do with lamenting the people and relationships of the past, wrapping yourself up in that warmth of sadness and regret but knowing you’ve come out of the other side wiser, more empathic and determined not to repeat your mistakes.”

||| Watch: The video for “There’s Nothing Here To Bother You Anymore”