Jacksonville locals Little Geronimo just dropped a self made video for their new song Glow. Check out the video below followed by a chat with band mates Brandon David and David Kennedy.
David, catch me up with your past history of former bands, your house venue, etc., that would bring us up to now.
I spent a lot of my high school years jamming reggae and Beatles covers with my friends, and in college I headed my own reggae band on guitar, but I was always into post hardcore and I never really met musicians that had the same passion for it as I did. Then I met Brandon, the singer of Little Geronimo, in 2015 when I came to Jax for a Circa Survive concert. We really hit it off, and I ended up moving here to form the original lineup of Little Geronimo. I then started getting involved with the local scene and Lil’ G was supposed to play an outdoor house show, but it started raining, so we ended up moving it to my house. That house we were supposed to play at stopped doing shows after that and I kind of picked up the torch. That was kind of the whole catalyst for the Bughouse. That was around 2016 when we were getting ready to drop our EP Kingdoms, after which we played some shows and put out a music video. We went through a few lineup changes after that, and then spent the last 3 years solidifying a lineup and working on new music. Now we have a serious arsenal of stuff we want to release and we’re just getting started!
Brandon, what were you doing before you met David? Any bands or singing projects?
Well, before Little Geronimo, I was in a couple small projects in high-school one called Bagheera another called Green Saw Island, but a couple years later I made a project with my friend Christian Lehr called Glasses Beyond Glasses which was fast paced math rock type project with Circa Survive-type vocals and that’s actually what I showed to David the day I met him because it had just come out. That’s what started the conversation of us making music together because he liked it and we discovered we had other similar musical interests.
David, tell me more about the lineup changes. Who are the newest members and how did they get involved?
Our original guitarist was on all of Kingdoms and I actually met him at the Circa Survive show too, because him and Brandon had come together. They were already working on most of what became Kingdoms, then we started sending demos back and forth and it all came together. Unfortunately, we had a disagreement after releasing our Change single and he decided he didn’t want to be a part of the group anymore, so we were just kind stuck trying to figure out how to start playing shows. I recruited a friend from college, Josh, on bass, a mutual friend Adam on guitar, and then we had another guitarist that played a couple shows with us, but it didn’t end up working out. Josh ended up going to medical school so he didn’t have the time to dedicate anymore. So it was back to a 3 piece. We tried out a few people after that, and then Adam knew someone from JU that he thought would be a good fit, so we tried him out and found Dan for our new bassist. Unfortunately with COVID this year, Dan decided not to be a part of it anymore, and so have found Turner Payan for our new bassist. He’s picked up a good amount of weight as far as promotion goes which has been great. Hes also brand new to bass so he’s learning as we go and he’s been doing a great job. Finally after having found Dan we were still down another guitarist and Adam knew another person that was kind of a childhood friend who came and tried out, and he’s been a great addition. It’s funny because when he just jams between songs at practice hes a great bluegrass player, and it’s just so different from what we play but hes super versatile and picks up our stuff perfectly.
Is there a link to the Kingdoms EP we can check out?
Absolutely! Here’s the link for the Kingdoms playlist
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kSICOvSQNVlFg5zrd-ns0VXKN4zcYcpvY
David, is Glow the first song with the new line up?
Yeah! Kingdoms was just me, Brandon, and Ryan.
Brandon, do you guys have other tracks in the works?
Yes we do! We have been working on new music for a little while now and we’ve created a lot of awesome songs people haven’t heard yet, I’m excited to share them with the world!
What’s the story behind the band name?
The band name Little Geronimo stems off the association of a common phrase exclaiming the word “Geronimo” when jumping from great heights into unknown areas. The band name Little Geronimo basically translates to 95% will power and 5% luck. God, the universe whatever you want to call it, no matter how much effort you put in to make the greatest thing you possibly can, and mix genres, and take risks, and leap from great heights into unknown areas, there is some force greater than us that we have no control over and you just have to believe in it for it to work. You’re mostly operating from will power, but that 5% left is faith. Little Geronimo is a phrase used by us that means 95% will power and 5% faith, or could translate to just ‘Have a little faith’.
David, when was the Glow track written and the video filmed? Pre or post Covid?
The song was written and recorded back in either 2018 or 2019 so all we had to do was go to the studio and have kind of a final mix and master session to get it finished. We all wore masks the whole time and tried to make sure we didn’t bring extra people around. Josh (our producer) has been really conscious of it all and cares about being safe.
We just filmed the video in November. As far as the video, we’ve all been isolating pretty well, other than work, and got tested before the video shoot just to be safe.
This was your first video you filmed/edited?
The first one I did personally for us. I directed and edited, and our friend Lane Pittman from the local band KSICK shot it for us. We did another video for our single Change from Kingdoms and I’ve made a few lyric videos for us, but this was my first time editing a full length live action music video for us!
Here’s the Change video (I didn’t edit this one btw) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl8_L7lgubk
Have you attempted to play out live yet?
We haven’t played any shows with Turner yet, we played our last show this year back in March at Archetype with Bilmuri, Embracer and Culture School. We did a live stream festival that I set up, but we haven’t played anything since then unfortunately.
Is this all self produced/recorded, or who do you work with to get the final product?
So far we have only ever gone to Josh Cobb at Rockbot Studios! He’s located in Riverside and incredibly dedicated to finding and honing in on the sound that we’re trying to achieve.
Where can people connect with the band online?
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjBAhlhKK6euNJNBRheCZXw
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/littlegeronimoband
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/littlegeronimo/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/geronimolittle
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2FhiE7cx2Dsb5Ln41siHGz?si=lRG3wPV4RVy2jbxhUOc-Cg
