Buzz, 3/93: Gene Loves Jezebel

 "It's an accident," proclaims James Stevenson, the rather mystic bass player for Gene Loves Jezebel. "The music just comes from somewhere else and, wherever it comes from, we're just a tool…it comes through us." 

What a weirdo, eh? Not really, considering all this impervious mumbo-jumbo comes from a man whose band has been responsible for a singularly unique sound which has filled alternative radio airwaves for a better part of the last 10 years. What other groups even come close to matching those bristling vocals that made songs like "Desire" and "Tangled Up In You" so cool in high school? And what about those guitar licks? Extra Crunchy, nay? Yes, admit it, our post-pubescent lives would not be the same without this lot. 

"One thing I think that's been overlooked is we're a rock band of some serious caliber," says the ever modest James. "I mean, we got lumped into kind of an alternative bracket, but I think people have missed the fact that we have a lot in common with a lot of the great English rock bands of the late '60s and early '70s, as well. Anyone from Free to Pink Floyd, I think we've got more in common with those bands than anyone like Bauhaus and all those Goth bands we got lumped in with." 

On Heavenly Bodies, the band's latest endeavor, the Gene Loves Jezebel boys are determined to drive the point home by turning up their guitars, screaming even louder and spicing up those melodies to an unbearably mesmerizing degree. 

"We finally got to what we feel Gene Loves Jezebel was always meant to be," admits James. "I think it's our most complete album and it's our most mature album. But it's also our freshest in a lot of ways. I really think it's a classic." 

Ooops, looks like he's slipped back into his fantasy mode. 

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