The Jacks
Label: Edgeout Records/UMe
Band Members: Jonny Stanback, vocals, guitar; Tom Hunter, guitar; Scott Stone, bass; Josh Roossin, drums
Type of Music: Rock
Booking: [email protected]
Legal: Renee Karilian at Carroll Guido and Groffman
Publicity: [email protected]
Web: thejacksbandla.com
A&R: Cheryl Benson-Guanci
Struggling, unsigned band wins high-profile performance competition… Label deal is offered… Band turns down the deal. Huh?
The band in question is The Jacks, four young men from Los Angeles who recently signed with Edgeout Music (under the Universal Music Group umbrella) and just released their self-titled debut EP. The band was formed just over two years ago, initially by school pals Scott Stone (bass) and Thomas Hunter (lead guitar). Lead singer Jonny Stanback joined when the pair heard him singing at an acoustic open mic, with drummer Josh Roossin the last to become a Jack.
The sound, while lively and drenched in contemporary garage edge, is heavily influenced by ‘60s and ‘70s rock.
“We got lucky in that all four of us have a good core of influences that overlap, and we just wanted to make music that could be representative of a live four-piece band,” Stanback says. “We wanted to have that raw rock & roll energy.”
The band signed with Edgeout when they took part in KLOS-FM’s neXt2rock competition and won the Los Angeles regionals. They performed at the Viper Room and were offered a contract as part of the prize, but they didn’t much like the terms so they turned it down and waited for Edgeout to get on its feet.
“Through Scott’s friends, we knew Tony Guanci, the head of the label,” Stanback says. “We had been loosely associated with him for a little bit. Once we got that neXt2rock thing, he and his wife Cheryl [Benson] took us aside and said they were starting a new label and they wanted us to be a part of it. That’s what we did. We turned down the KLOS thing, and then it took about a year for their label to be fully off the ground.”
