BRATTLEBORO-With a mention in Rolling Stone, recent tour dates in New England and New York, and a new album on the horizon, local favorite Jatoba returns to Stone Church with its signature high-energy blend of bluegrass (“groovegrass”).
Formed in 2008, the trio includes John Jamison of Guilford (guitar, mandolin, vocals), Jason Scaggs of West Chesterfield, New Hampshire (guitar, banjo, vocals), and Jeff Richardson of Saxtons River (upright bass, vocals).
As described in its publicity materials, the band and its members are known for a “unique musical chemistry and a unique songwriting approach. They seamlessly communicate through spontaneous composition and improvisation, bringing an unpredictable and dynamic element to their live performances.”
Influenced by their Blue Ridge Mountain roots — where Scaggs and Jamison grew up — and also by the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire where the three have lived for decades, Jatoba has shared its music with audiences up and down the East Coast over the last 17 years.
The group has shared the bill with the Jeff Austin Band, Greensky Bluegrass, Trampled by Turtles, Rusted Root, The Kitchen Dwellers, The Infamous Stringdusters, and Leftover Salmon. Jatoba has been featured at Northlands Music & Arts Festival, Jerry Jam, the Dead of Summer Music Festival, Friendly Gathering, and FloydFest.
The band has ties to the venue on several levels, with Robin Johnson, executive director of the Stone Church, where Scaggs operates the sound and lights.
Johnson credits Scaggs and fellow builder Joey Birchmore as “the primary builders in the transformation” of the former church sanctuary, including a new dance floor, stage, and bar.
“They even hand built and hung all the acoustic treatment throughout the church,” Johnson says.
The Commons recently caught up with Scaggs, 44, to talk about the upcoming tour stop in Brattleboro, the new album on the horizon, and how he balances the demands of his building company, his work for the venue, and being in a touring band, and his family. Following is an excerpt of the conversation.
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Victoria Chertok: I believe the first time I saw Jatoba was at Jerry Jam back in 2015! And here we are one decade later.
Jason Scaggs: Yeah, wow! Time sure does fly.
We used to love playing Jerry Jam. That was a great festival. We probably had an electric bass player and a drummer at that time, because Jeff Richardson, our bass player, was not in the band at that time.
V.C.: That sounds about right.
J.S.: John and I did a couple tours as Jatoba [as a] duo. We ended up going down South, and then in 2008 — because we already knew Jeff — we decided to form a trio, to try to do the whole bluegrass/jamgrass thing. At that time the pioneers on the scene were Yonder Mountain String Band.
John and I grew up in Roanoke, Virginia. Over the years, we would migrate around and find ways to meet back up, and we kept playing music. We did a lot of traveling.
I ended up back in Southern Vermont and started a different band with Jeff in 2006, Phil and the Fuzz, which was a Keene State party band.
V.C.: How did you come up with the band’s name?
J.S.: Jatoba is a South American hardwood tree. We were thinking about band names, and we looked at this plank board and it had the word “jatoba” printed on it. And we’re like, “Oh, that word looks pretty cool.” So we looked it up and found out it’s an older-species tree. [The definition] said something like “the roots run deep.” It seemed fitting at the time.
V.C.: How did growing up in Virginia impact your music?
J.S.: Roanoke is a larger city and is nestled in a valley right around the Appalachian Trail. It’s not too geographically different from this area. It’s fairly rural, and there’s a lot of bluegrass down there.
Being a teenager in the ’90s, we grew up on grunge rock like Radiohead and Stone Temple Pilots. For many years, I went to MerleFest, a big bluegrass festival in North Carolina, and it turned me on to that kind of music pretty early.
V.C.: Who were your early music influences?
J.S.: Pink Floyd was huge and some of that ’90s grunge rock. Psychedelic kind of rock was really big for me.
In addition to listening to bluegrass greats, I was simultaneously spinning Wu-Tang Clan and OutKast on the disc changer.
V.C.: How old were you when you picked up an instrument, and which instrument did you start with?
J.S.: I was first trumpet from sixth through eighth grade in the marching band. And then I got to high school and didn’t want to be in Band. I had already started playing guitar through middle school. Acoustic is what I kind of started on.
V.C.: You mentioned that you love to write songs. Tell me about your songwriting craft.
J.S.: I enjoy creating and writing music. I enjoy melodies. I like to think that there’s a muse out there that, even in my life today, where I just wake up with melodies in my head and ideas for songs.
The trick is to try to grab it when you got it, because a lot of stuff kind of comes and goes. It’s how diligent you may or may not be to record those and/or to get some sort of idea onto paper or onto recording or on an instrument.
V.C.: What has it been like to play with bandmates John and Jeff for the past 17 years?
J.S.: I feel really grateful for those guys. We’ve been playing music together so long that there is definitely a very strong, intuitive connection when it comes to writing and when it comes to playing live on stage.
We’re a pretty improvisational band, even as a string band, and when you’re up there playing on stage, the longevity that we have as a band has created this kind of safety net where we can take chances and go out on a limb to improvise, and we know that we can trust each other.
V.C.: You say “come dance your grass off” at a Jatoba show and call your signature sound of bluegrass “jamgrass” or “groovegrass.” What exactly does that mean?
J.S.: Groovegrass, man. It’s just an aggressive kind of approach to bluegrass. I try to beat box. It’s about a pocket. We want it to get people moving. Bluegrass kind of does that a little bit already, because it’s already a four-to-the-floor kind of beat. We just want to capitalize on that.
V.C.: Am I right that your concerts are 99% originals and 1% covers?
J.S.: You could go as far as say like 95% originals. We’re an original band. We’re pretty selective about the covers we play. It’s a great feeling when we’re playing shows and seeing people grab onto words or phrases and sing them aloud with us on our originals.
V.C.: What brought you to this neck of the woods initially?
J.S.: I used to live in Burlington around the turn of the century. In 2005, my wife Erin [Scaggs] and I had our first daughter, Ella, out in Colorado, where we met. Erin grew up in New Hampshire, so we decided to move to Brattleboro because this area was closer to her family.
V.C.: You wear many hats at the Stone Church. How do you balance your music career with your building company, your four to seven shows per month that you run sound and light for, and with your family life with Erin and your kids? How old are they now?
J.S.: Personally, I have the awareness now that I have a very long-standing history with that place. My construction company, Homestead Builders, did the build-out and turned the place into a real music venue back in 2016–17. Bucket list for sure!
[One] main reason is having a very understanding and patient partner and family, and the other would be being stubborn.
Erin’s pretty self-driven in a lot of ways, too. She also works at Stone Church as director of programming and community outreach.
Graham is 11, Pearl is 14, and Ella is basically 20.
V.C.: What’s it like doing sound and light at Stone Church?
J.S.: I’m one of a few house techs at Stone Church. We have a tech director, Dan Richardson, who’s pretty phenomenal in terms of knowing his shit for sure. We’re pretty lucky to have such a competent tech director.
V.C.: Jatoba has a fourth studio album coming out early next spring which you are recording with engineer Billy Straus at his studio in Putney.
J.S.: Billy’s pretty awesome. It’s a really full album. They’re all newer songs. There’s a couple on there that we don’t play live much, just because it’s nice to have some surprise elements.
With this album, we wanted it to sound really full and hit really hard. So we’ve recorded multiple different instruments that we all have played ourselves to make it sound like a quintet or a quartet.
V.C.: What can the audience expect at your Dec. 6 show?
J.S.: From our set, they can expect a super high energy, raucous good time. We’re very much a live, in-the-moment band.
When there’s a big crowd, we’re kind of feeding off of them. We end up interacting with our audience. We want to make people to have this circular feeling. And I think we do that pretty naturally.
V.C.: I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you about your mention in Rolling Stone last year. Was that a surprise?
J.S.: One of the freelance writers, Garret Woodward, was at the Northlands Festival last season, and he caught our set. He threw us in a review, which was amazing.
It was a total surprise, and it feels good to have some sort of recognition like that, because as a band, you work really hard. And to have a mention in Rolling Stone regardless — like to have it be your first time, even if it’s just a nod — feels really good.
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Two bands — Jatoba, Armchair Boogie opening — take the stage on Saturday, Dec. 6 at Stone Church, 210 Main St., Brattleboro. Doors open at 7 p.m. Show is at 8 p.m. This is an all-ages show.
For tickets and information, visit stonechurchvt.com.
For more info on Jatoba, visit Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube.
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Editor’s note: Stories presented as interviews in this format are edited for clarity, readability, and space. Words not spoken by interview subjects appear in brackets.
Victoria Chertok is a contributing writer to The Commons and The Keene Sentinel. Since 2017, she has published more than 250 arts and entertainment features, interviews, and columns in both newspapers, as well as in the Brattleboro Reformer.
This Arts item by Victoria Chertok was written for The Commons.