PREMIERE: JINX! Shares Single "Favorite Color Gold", and It's One of the Year's Best

JINX! is a new name to us here at WMF in 2021, and one we’re exceptionally excited about. We received an early listen to single “Favorite Color Gold” from producer Gabe McDonough and were immediately taken with – and impressed by – the remarkable new track. And while JINX! unabashedly evokes the spirit and swagger of late 80s and 90s baggy with “Favorite Color Gold”, San Diego native Jonah Paz (working under the JINX! moniker) is looking irrevocably on course to blaze his own trail into 2022 and beyond.

Just days before the release of “Favorite Color Gold” and this premiere, we sat down with Jonah and Gabe (who co-produced the single) at WMF HQ to learn more about JINX! and get additional background to what has become one of our favorite tracks this year.

Bobby Weirdo: Your single “Favorite Color Gold” is out as of October 22. This isn’t your debut single, but it’s your first new music in a while, and I’m really excited by it because it’s moved in a cool direction.

JP: Yeah – I’ve been doing this a while, but there’s something different with this one, and I think it’s the best one I’ve done.

BW: And what’s the name of the other song that you’re releasing in conjunction with “Favorite Color Gold”?

JP: “Play with Me”.

BW: Listening to “Favorite Color Gold”, it feels like there’s been a shift since you did Big Style, which – to my ears – sounds like it was inspired by The Garden. Some of that Big Style attitude still feels present with the new music from JINX! in 2021…

J: For sure – yeah.

BW: But now the inflection has moved away from those earlier influences, and instead sounds like it’s informed more by a Madchester kind of vibe. What was the journey from the earlier recordings to this new music?

JP: When I started JINX!, around 2015, I was in high school and The Garden was one of the bands that was happening during that time. Before I found them, I was just into punk rock. They were kind of punk, but were definitely doing their own thing. That gave me inspiration.

When the Pandemic hit, I kind of lost inspiration and motivation to find new music, and resorted back to the music I listened to and grew up with, which was a lot of British music.

BW: What bands or albums in particular are you thinking about, when you say you listened to British music?

JP: Obviously The Stones Roses – the self-titled [album]. Listening to [Primal Scream’s] Screamadelica a bunch shifted things too, because it’s such an intricate album. [It’s] complex [in a way that’s] similar to The Garden, so that connected the two in my mind. It’s complex and crazy, but musically more palatable.

*Jonah Paz in Silverlake, 2021. Photo: WMF*

BW: Is JINX! a band, or is it just you, working with other musicians?

JP: It’s tricky, but I would call it a band. I write and record all the music. I started it just to see what I could do, because I was a part of bands before, but nowadays it’s a band. Those guys are JINX! as much as I am.

BW: What was the process for “Favorite Color Gold”, from concept to finished track?

JP: During quarantine, like anyone else, I was just writing and writing and writing. I probably wrote an album’s worth of songs, but never put it out because there were no shows happening, and there was no reason to.

After that wave and the “fake” JINX! album I made, “Favorite Color Gold” came. So I wrote an album’s worth of songs that were kind of just practice for me. I developed as a songwriter, and then “Favorite Color Gold” was ready to punch.

BW: Where did you record the single?

JP: Just in my bedroom.

BW: The whole track?

JP: The whole track.

BW: And then, did you mix it at home, or where did it go once you’d laid down the track?

JP: It went to Gabe [McDonough], and then James Gordon. Gabe and James helped with vocal stuff. For me, vocal stuff is done instinctively, and whatever comes, comes. But they gave me confidence and said I should really give it, so I really gave it. That helped a lot.

BW: And when “Favorite Color Gold” went to Gabe and James, what was it for? Mixing, or additional production?

JP: Gabe and James got involved because Gabe and I talk all the time. I’ll send him riffs, and I sent him a video of me playing along to the jungle beat of the song, and he said, “Dude, you’ve got to finish this!”

The song is very confident, and hearing the hype for this song from Gabe, James, and even my family…it was like, “Yeah, this is the shit – let’s do it!”

Gabe McDonough: Yeah, I heard it, and it was the music I grew up with. James Gordon is in New York and is a mixer. He and I made experimental techno together as Thick Bricks. So I knew him as a great producer, and he just happens to be English.

I heard what Jonah was doing, and said, “Hey, can James and I just fuck with this? If you don’t like it, it’s fine.”

JP: And that’s the thing – we were in COVID times, so I didn’t give a fuck. We had time to do whatever we wanted to the songs. So we just did it.

And even though those times did – and still do – suck, they’ve given a lot of people time to work and think about who and what they want to be. For myself, too, I knew coming back after all this that music was going to be huge.

BW: As you mention, we’re all coming out of an extended period of no live shows, but you did play a show in Spring Valley at The Pitchfork not long ago. Is that kind of a happening DIY spot?

JP: Yeah, it was our first show back, and our first time playing there. From what I know, it’s going on [there]. The spots in San Diego are always coming up, and then going away, and then the next one comes up. So that’s probably the one for the next couple months, until it’s not.

BW: And you’re from Chula Vista, right?

JP: Yeah.

BW: You and I were talking offline about The Zeros, who are from there. Hmm…who else is from there? Isn’t P.O.D. from there?

JP: Yeah! The drummer Wuv [Bernardo]’s sons went to high school with me. It’s all weirdly connected. My parents grew up in the whole San Diego post-hardcore thing – all the Unbroken guys are family.

BW: Your dad was in a couple bands, right?

JP: He was in Impel and Kill Holiday.

BW: I wanted to talk about the video, which Jackson Sjogren directed in San Diego.

JP: Yeah, he’s a great friend that has done a lot of stuff. He works with Swish Projects, which a collective in San Diego.

BW: The video was filmed at the Marston House near Balboa Park in San Diego, right?

JP: At the Marston House, and then [also] at Swish Projects.

BW: Tracing the journey of your music from starting with what we might call a Southern California punk vibe, but now incorporating influences from Manchester of the 80s and 90s, how do you feel your music works in San Diego?

JP: San Diego is just a trip. It’s gone through so many different phases, and I think we’re in a weird one. I think a lot of people who were in bands fizzled out, and focused more on partying and other things. The bands that are around aren’t very good. So I want to put this song out and shake up the hometown.

BW: Is “Favorite Color Gold” only going to be coming out digitally?

JP: Just digitally, for now.

BW: Do you have any JINX! shows coming up?

JP: We’ve got a show on the 30th at the Ken Club, and then November 21 at Til Two Club.

BW: I saw The Garden at the Til Two Club around 2015, which I think may have been their first 21+ show. It was full on, and amazing.

JP: Yeah, I remember that show, and being super bummed I couldn’t go, because I was a little kid. When I first saw them it was like punk rock, but with some Fatboy Slim/Prodigy kind of thing. It was crazy.

BW: So, you’ve got the two shows coming up. Do you have new material for an EP or album at this point?

JP: Yeah, I’ve got loads of songs ready.

BW: At any level, do you find yourself in your head, trying to figure who the audience will be for a song like “Favorite Color Gold”? Do you wonder how people will respond to its references, or does that even matter?

JP: I just go for it. I know what a good song sounds like, and I know it’s good. Obviously, I look to family and friends to see if they like it. If they like it, they do. But if [they don’t], it’s like, “alright!”

BW: As far as referencing that classic Manchester sound, it is a rich thing to mine. Bands like The Charlatans and The Stone Roses were already so adept at synthesizing different music eras and styles, and then you in turn referencing them in 2021 opens up additional creative possibilities.

JP: Yeah, it’s obviously a great period in music. When I listen to that stuff, it just feels very youthful and uplifting, but also just so good. So that’s what I’m running with.

BW: It is uplifting – it’s pretty special when you hear people actually singing Charlatans songs in pubs in England. It’s party music, in that sense.

JP: That was me the other night. San Diego has a Britpop night, and we were jamming.

BW: I feel like “Favorite Color Gold” came at a good time and that the world can really benefit from that vibe of music these days, so I’m glad it came along when it did.

JP: Thanks. I’m excited, and feel the same way. It’s a confident jam, and a lot of people my age are more than ever insecure approaching art or music. Like, “Oh, this is my little thing.” But you have to go to the moon with it. Let’s do it huge – know yourself and be stoked with whatever you do.

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