Caught Inside: The Transcript

This interview was recorded on the 13th September 2024.

Last year I had the pleasure of speaking to Jasper Renner-Allen of Caught Inside. Jasper was the first interview I did for my university "Roots" project. Here's what we talked about:

What’s your name?

I'm Jasper

And you're from?

I'm from Auckland.

What high school did you go to?

Western Springs College

Okay, and you've been playing music for how long?

Uh I don't know, like, all my life, I suppose. All my life. I’ve been playing drums for 11 or 12 years. And I come from a musical family, so.

And you study jazz?

Yes, I study a Bachelor of Music, majoring in jazz performance and sonic art.

What is, which is now called digital music. Digital music, because everyone asks. It’s sort of like Garage Band. Garage Band is what we call a digital audio workstation. DAW. And it's like a primitive version of a DAW. And I use that. It's, it's kind of the same thing.

What was your first time, just you Jasper, as an individual playing for a live audience?

I don't know if it was the first time, but maybe the oldest back I can remember, over the school summer, right, there was this school holiday program run by the community. And it was like for like two weeks and at the end of the two weeks, like all the kids would come together and perform. Like a band camp. Yeah. It was pretty cool. I was maybe like seven or eight. There was this, this gorilla playing drums for this Cadbury advert. And it goes “doo doo, doo doo, doo doo, doo doo, doo doo”

There’s this tune by Phil Collins, “In the Air Tonight”.

They got me on a big like, rolling stage. And I was on there with my drum kit. And I jammed that tune. And I just imagined that I was that gorilla from the Cadbury ad. Anyway, they rolled me out in front of the neighbourhood parents and I was just hitting away on my drums.

How did Caught Inside come together? What's the story behind the band's formation?

Okay, the year was 2019. There was this band and hadn't played any gigs. It was the two guitarists, singer and another drummer. They got asked to play a big gig, which was for a climate march. Their drummer was unavailable and he couldn't do this gig. So they called the only drummer that they knew, or maybe the best drummer that they knew. Probably the best drummer that they knew. And they asked me if I wanted to play this big gig in front of like 5,000 people.

I hadn't done much gigging then, but they asked me on the Monday, uh, we practiced in the week and performed on the Friday.

That was terrible. But after that day, I suppose they kept me in. I ended up replacing the other drummer. And here I am today.

What about your first time playing together as a band? I guess that was, as you were saying, for the Climate March.

Yeah. I suppose we had a few practices before that. It was not a good gig.

What about your first good gig, the first gig where you played and you were like, “Yeah, we've got something here.”

We did one kind of like fairly big tour last year, and I think that was when I really saw what we had going on. We also got to open for the Flaxxies.

That was good. It was a good gig.

But I think I drunk too many beers on the night and I might have messed up one of the songs a bit! Now I know not to drink as many beers. I think like half a pint is my limit.

How does the band typically approach songwriting? Is it collaborative or does someone take the lead? Do you have much input yourself as a drummer?

Okay. So this is something I want to do a bit more of. It's kind of like someone in the band comes up with, with an idea, a melodic idea. They play it and then I just kind of like come up with a drum beat

I don't really have much say in the, the melodic or harmonic aspect of the music. Yeah. But, I mean, I'm the drummer, so I bring the rhythm or if it's something to do with the arrangement, you know, I can kind of go with that.

So I'll help with that.

Now, I hear you just released a new vinyl. You had a vinyl launch party last month. How's that going?

So, so we got printed 300. They came from Paris so that’s really cool.

So we got 50 to sell ourselves. I think the rest went to retail stores around the Probably around the North Island So I think you could find them in like Flying Nun Records.

We've sold maybe 30 or 40 of the 50.

What was the process of making the vinyl like?

So we got our deal to do this album like two years ago, so we recorded everything awhile ago.

And then we only released it this year, so it's a bit of like a long process.

What made you want to create a vinyl?

Um well, we've done tapes. We've sold tapes, but not everyone has a tape deck. CDs are kind of lame, even though they are on a comeback. I don't think they have the same appeal as a vinyl. And then this guy approached us to print out our song, our single. That was kind of the reasoning. I think it's a cool form of physical media. 

How does the academic environment influence your approach to music?

Okay, to be honest, I think that pursuing sometime takes away from the from the fun. It can make it feel like you’re only playing for a mark. But still I think it's made me better and its good to remain competitive in that and to be in the scene.

So you would say you need to find a disconnect between your assignments and playing for the band?

Yeah. Yeah, it's like Juggling And even though that the band has never like been graded or anything some of our audience is still from the school so sometimes it can feel like we’re performing for a grade.

Do you all study music?

No, just me and me and Raff. He studies composition. Like classical composition and now jazz. And the other two don't study music. One of them studies law actually.

How does the Wellington music scene compare to Auckland, and do you think it has shaped your band?

Okay, I think that the Wellington music scene and the Auckland scene are pretty different. Wellington's a lot more it's alternative, a lot more close-knit. You kind of know everyone in the industry and you see all the same people when you’re playing gigs. Whereas in Auckland, it's a bit a bit different. It's a bigger place.

I also feel like since being in Wellington, at the Wellington Jazz School where I attend, has shaped us as a band quite a lot. We've taken in two new members, a horn player and a saxophonist, and we've been playing a lot more like, kind of jazz adjacent stuff. We've been described as jazz adjacent.

Do you think it's easier to build a following in Wellington than in Auckland?

Well, maybe it can be more likely. In Auckland there’s a bigger pool of artists and fans. So, you can have more success, but also more failure

I think in a smaller place the community is more supportive.

Where do you see Caught Inside heading in the future? Any big goals or creative directions you want to explore?

I think definitely we're trying real hard to play a, a, like a New Year's festival.

That'd be real cool. Uh, not this year, but hopefully next year.

And we've played street festivals before. We played, uh, Newtown Festival and we've played CupaDupa and Wellington Jazz Fest.

Do you have any advice for emerging musicians?

I think actually getting gigs and playing as a band is maybe like 70% of it. Like socialising and networking, being personable. And then like 20-30% of the rest of it is that your actual skill. As a player like you can be cracked as at your instrument, but if you're a dickhead no one's gonna give you gigs. So you need to be out there. You've got to be proactive. You gotta put yourself out there and go get it.

What inspires you?

If it was a movie that inspired me, I guess it would be that movie Whiplash. Or maybe like the Lord of the Rings soundtrack, that’s really cool. But I don’t know if that’s something I am incorporating into my drumming.

I don't know. I guess. Are you like drumming a song, like thinking about like the environment you're getting like heated up about like the political and economic state of the world? I don't know.