Chris DeMakes A Podcast Review

The Pitch:

Chris from Less Than Jake talks to musicians about their songs.

The Product:

It may be my algorithm (it almost definitely is) but punk rock is having a bit of a resurgence in the music theory zeitgeist. Low End University is churning out highly educated but accessible breakdowns of classic punk songs on YouTube, a whole slew of musicians including Matt from Rancid and Steve from Sum 41 have their own YouTube channels, and Song Exploder featured Green Day and Paramore.

Our subject today is a perfect venn diagram of all the above, and has the added benefit of having been there, done that. Chris DeMakes has been synonymous with Less Than Jake since 1992 and has a contacts list of every punk rocker you would want to meet, and plenty of punk rockers you would probably want to avoid on a night out.

In his podcast he shoots the breeze with his guests before jumping into an extremely detailed breakdown of a chosen song, analysing each layer of instrumentation and vocals, and pulling out new stories from the guest on the writing and recording process. This is where Chris really shines. He is relentlessly enthusiastic and concurrently obsessive over music, and often notices elements that the musician themselves has forgotten, or in some cases, never noticed.