Kevin Bronson on April 22nd, 2020

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When we last looked in on Jagged Baptist Club, the noise-rock quartet was making ears bleed and purists’ hearts pound with their uncompromising assault. In today’s edition of the Buzz Bands LA interview/artist playlist series QUARANTUNES, main man Blake Stokes talks about Reddit feuds and rediscovering his love for Hershey’s chocolate syrup. A sweet spot? Who knew?

THE LATEST FROM JAGGED BAPTIST CLUB

Full-frontal rockers Jagged Baptist Club released their debut album “Reptile Super Show” last summer. (Don’t be shy, they’re not, so start with “Running on Synthetic”.) They’ve followed it up with “Basking in the Heat Lamp – Live in Los Angeles,” a reasonable approximation (minus a few decibels and the smell of sweat) of what you’d hear from Blake Stokes, Josh Boyd, Morgan Ponder and Craig Ramsey in a club. The quartet reports that besides being halfway through making a new album, they have both privately commissioned and asked for fan-sourced remixes for the track “Tender Cactus.” They’ve made stems available to anyone who wants to take a crack at it.

HOW ARE YOU HOLDING UP AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MANAGE THE ‘STAY AT HOME’ EDICT?

I’m stressed out but managing. I used to live in our rehearsal space years ago, so being confined to a small area with nothing but records and movies and books to entertain you is something I’m sorta used to — at least I have an internet connection this time. I’ve been watching police interrogation tapes on YouTube, working my day job from home, arguing with 20-year-olds on Reddit about the new Strokes album (it’s growing on me), raising my 3-year-old and rediscovering my love of Hersey’s chocolate syrup. I honestly think I’m just in survival mode right now and won’t feel the impact of all of this for a while, which is what I assume will happen for most of us.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO WHEN THIS IS OVER?

We obviously want to play again. The Mayor said he doesn’t see large shows happening until next year, which is scary but maybe he’ll let us play to 60 people at Gold-Diggers. We also wanna reschedule the tour dates we had to cancel, since we were about to hit a lot of cities we’d never been to before! I also need to get back to Disneyland, and I’m trying to get churro sick.

ANYTHING WE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THIS PLAYLIST?

One great thing I’ve been able to do with the extra time on my hands is actually explore some new music. The playlist is all new stuff I’ve been listening too since the shutdown. It’s a solid mix of new music from new bands and new music from some of my old favorites.