Most great things in life come in pairs: fruit-flavored popsicles, two-for-$2 beer and jeans all come to mind. For Nashville fraternal duo JEFF the Brotherhood, this could not be more true.
As co-founders of the Infinity Cat label and veterans of the now-defunct teenpunk fiasco Be Your Own Pet, Jake and Jamin Orrall have seen and played in bands of all sizes, but as their rising success shows, less is often more.
“Any show that’s packed with a good audience is my favorite,” Jake Orrall said in relation to the band’s recent string of bigger rooms and crowds. “If it’s five people or 600, it doesn’t matter as long as they’re packed in front of the stage having a good time.”
Though their style is implacable with a specific genre, JEFF exude the essence of the garage-psych rock revival that has surged forward over the last decade, starting with the Brooklyn breakout of 2001 with The Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs and gradually disseminating across the globe. With the release of the band’s most recent album, “Heavy Days,” the duo has distilled their ethic into a word, indicated by the album’s three songs with “heavy” in their titles. To wit, this association is only intensified by their frequent performances with label mates and best buds Heavy Cream, with whom they have just finished a two-week tour.
From sweaty, hole-in-the-wall punk festivals like Chaos in Tejas to overblown rock happenings like Bumbershoot, JEFF’s exposure has grown exponentially from their Nashville basement. At their last performance in Knoxville in December, the Orralls slew the crowd with acid-bent guitar jams, piss-break beat box jams and a fog machine. While Orrall said their stage setup hasn’t gotten bigger, the recent upgrade in stage sizes have allowed the band to beef up their onstage chops.
“Recently I’ve been preferring big, more-open stages,” Orrall said. “We’ve been getting more comfortable with the size of the crowd.”
Also with success has come some of the finer points of professional rock ‘n’ roll, such as a booking agent. When asked where he was most looking forward to playing, Orrall blanked temporarily and laughed as he checked the upcoming tour itinerary.
“I never know where we’re going these days, ‘cuz we have a booking agent now,” Orrall said. “We booked ourselves for the last four-and-a-half years. Brooklyn’s going to be awesome. I’m really looking forward to Montreal, and we have a lot of friends in Chicago. Those are what immediately come to mind.”
JEFF the Brotherhood will play the Pilot Light Sunday with Heavy Cream and Natural Child, another Infinity Cat band who Orrall said have been called “the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world.” The show begins at 10 p.m. and admission is $7 for those 18 and up.
