Jekkel's latest CD "Tastes like" is their best material to date. The songwriting skills of the band have greatly improved as evidenced in their third album. Having reorded this album on their own, Jekkel creatively controlled the entire album as to best replicate their music through their own artistic descisions, and it shows. "Tastes like" has been claimed to be the band's "best music" and to "have a very personal feel, there's much more energy and passion involved". Louder, Faster, and oh so much tastier.
/ Jim: The fun loving, guitar flailing, stage jumping heart throb. Katie: The sexy but cute, crazy head and stick throwing drum marvel. Laramie: The HOTT and cool, laidback, ass kicking bass player.
It all began as a quest to compete in the middle school talent show and ended up being a full-time passion. In the fall of 1998 Katie, who had been drumming since the womb joined forces with her newly guitar playing brother, Jim Cathcart. Realizing that two was simply not enough they picked up their childhood friend, a young chick guitarist with the greatest shared love for Green Day they had ever seen. Laramie Hancock, who was originally a second guitarist, quickly became the Mike Dirnt of the trio. Set forth by their mutual love of music the band was thus instilled into the lives of the three individuals.
Since then, JeKKeL has recorded three independent CD's ("Losergeek" 2001, "Ping Pong Warriors" 2002, and "Tastes Like" 2004) and recently finished recording a new 5 Track Demo featuring what they consider to be their best material to date. While this is a great step for the band and shows much progress they are even more confident that the best is yet to come. In addition to time spent in the studio, JeKKeL has played a variety of venues from the Knitting Factory, Whiskey a Go-Go, Hogue Barmichaels to local venues of the Coachella Valley, parties, schools, and recently the Coachella Valley Music Awards where they were recognized as the valley's "Best Pop Punk Band". JeKKeL has developed a distinct following in their home-town of La Quinta and continues to gain new fans at every show. However, a big focus of the band currently is to spread their name outside of the desert region to other cities and gain a following beyond California. While they maintain a scatter of fans from Washington, Oregon, Texas to Georgia, New Jersey and even Japan, they are always looking to make more friends.
The variety of styles that encompasses JeKKeL's material is a unique aspect of this band and has greatly attributed to the age mixture of fans. From 6 year old rockers to 93 year old rockers, this band produces a sound that isn't quite limited to one distinct genre. JeKKeL prides itself on fun face-paced driven rock sounds yet loves the milder, slower, yet equally solid music. Undoubtedly their personality and stage performance distinguishes this group and makes their music even more enjoyable. Ask any fan and they will tell you that "as good as the CD is they are even better live". JeKKeL is all about the music and the show is not just a reproduction of the recording but a new, high-energy experience in itself. Jim sings out loud to the crowd, runs around stage as if he were on fire, throws his fist into the air, moshes all over the place, shakes his enormous mob of golden hair and brings the audience into the music. At the same time Katie batters her arms from behind her set, thrusts her body into the music, thrashes her head back and forth and of course enjoys singing to, making eye contact with, and making facial expressions at the crowd. Laramie by all means brings perfect balance to the group dynamic with her unbelievably fast double bass picking and solid, confident, in-your-face stance as she too assists Katie in backing up vocals while flirting with the audience. The wall of music JeKKeL produces
Email a Friend
