This interview is with Jeff drake who talks openly about working with Amanda Brix Toland in the band Amanda Jones, not to be confused with Miss Amanda Jones... The one and only Amanda Lear..As well as his drug problems and being in The Joneses.
Punk Globe: Could you tell us Jeff about working with Amanda Brix Toland In the band Amanda Jones?
Jeff: I recorded with Amanda Brix Toland in the mid 90s in a band called Amanda Jones. I had just gotten out of Federal Prison and wanted to do Something besides The Joneses. One night I saw Mandy fronting a cover band at the Coconut Teazer in Hollywood. I was blown away. She could really sing and she looked great and had great stage presence. By that point I Had known Mandy for about 10 years. We had dated for a short time during the mid 80s, so I knew her well. I knew she was smart and funny and suspected She would be a great songwriting partner. So after I saw her singing at the Teazer, I asked her if she wanted to do a band together and she said "Yeah". So we started Amanda Jones and I thought it was a great band. It was me, Mandy, Keith Michael on bass, and Sean Antillon on drums. I was the Singer of The Joneses, but in Amanda Jones I just played guitar and sang Backups, which felt more comfortable for me anyway. Turns out me and Mandy made good songwriting partners. After our first gig at the Teazer, Greg Shaw from Bomp! Saw us and asked us if we wanted to do a record. So we did an EP with Bomp! We were The Coconut Teazer house band on Saturday nights for a while and played a bunch of gigs around Hollywood. Of all the bands I was in , Amanda Jones was my favorite. I felt more Comfortable not being the front man of the band, so I enjoyed that. I had Slot of fun writing with Mandy and that was a really creative period for me. I had been friends with Keith for several years and got along well with Sean so it was a good time. I think the ep we did for Bomp! Was really Strong and I thought that Mandy did a great job. We should have been huge.
Punk Globe: Any favorite bands?
Jeff: My favorite band is The Rolling stones, up until about 1983 anyway; After that not so much. Something happened when they started working With Chuck Leavell and they just don't sound the same. I like The New York Dolls, Roxy Music, lots of 70s rock and roll. My favorite guitarist is Chris Spedding, the English session guy. Lately I've been into this Dub band Called The Revolutionaires and lots of Stones bootlegs from the 70s.
Punk Globe: Could we talk about The Joneses? When did the band form?
Jeff: Sure we can talk about The Joneses. I figured we would. Steve Olson And I had been in rockabilly bands together in Orange County and kept Getting kicked out. So we decided to start our own band. Steve came up with the name. When people asked us what we sounded like, we Would tell them if The New York Dolls meet Eddie Cochran at Chuck Berry's house, that was the kind of music we wanted to do. The First Joneses lineup was me, Steve Olson on bass, Ron Emory from TSOL on guitar, and Mitch Dean from Sun Tans from the Sun on Drums. I had never sung before, and didn't really want to, but we needed a singer, Nobody else could do it, and I was writing the Lyrics to the songs, so I sing them, cuz No one else knew the words. I didn't really like it And we are supposed to get a real singer, but We never did, so I was the singer of the Joneses.
Punk Globe: what was it like being in the Joneses?
Jeff: I did the Joneses for over 20 years, so it was all kinds of things. At first it was really exciting. I was really young (20) and had just moved back to SoCal. I was from a farm town in southern California. I couldn't believe my luck. As soon as I moved back , I met up with Steve Olson. He was really famous for being a skateboarding champion, so he knew all kinds of people. When we started the Joneses, things happened really fast. Three weeks after our first show, which was with Missing Persons, who were huge at the time, We were in the studio recording our first 45. A month or two later we recorded "Pillbox" for BYO. This was in early 1982. By October 1982 we were opening for The Blasters at Peppermint lounge in NYC. That was our first nationwide tour. I was shocked at the crowds we were drawing out of town. Bigger than back home in LA.; Just off the strength of that BYO comp. One great thing about being in the Joneses was the girls.. Girls loved the Joneses. Steve Olson and Steve Houston looked like movie Stars, and I wasn't Deformed or anything, so we always drew a lot of girls and when the girls came out, the guys follow. After our second tour in 1983, I moved from Orange county to Hollywood, and that's when the band really took off. I was going out All the time and that really helps the band. When people see you out. The L.A. weekly voted us LA's most loved band that year and the crowds kept growing. By 1984 we had a celebrity Manager, Danny Sugarman. All the labels wanted to sign us. I was getting into all the clubs and drinking free food, so I felt like a rock Star. I was only 23. People were recognizing me on the street and I thought I made it. People started wanting to hang out with us, and bought us drugs and stuff all the time. We got credited with starting the mid 80s rock and roll Revival in Hollywood. Unfortunately we started doing a lot of big shows with bands that were more metal, and I really didn't dig that scene. My problems with drugs kept getting worse and by 1991 I was in federal prison doing time for bank robbery. When I got out, the Joneses kept but we were never as popular as we were before. So being in the Joneses was really exciting, it was heartbreaking, sometimes all at once. But it was never boring. Never a dull moment!
Punk Globe: Jeff who wrote the Joneses classics like Criminals in my Car, and Jonestown?
Jeff: I wrote most of the Joneses songs, with some notable exceptions. "Criminals" and "Pillbox" were the first songs I ever wrote. I wrote these when I was in high school, I must have been 16, right when I started learning to play guitar, and way before I was in the Joneses. "Jonestown" was a group effort. That's a pretty unusual Joneses song, pretty unique. We wrote that at the very beginning of the band. We were listening to The Clash a lot,and they were doing some reggae and dub Influenced stuff and that's what "Jonestown" was supposed to be. I think Steve Olson came up with the bass line first and Ron Emory came up with the spaghetti western sounding thing. Everyone kind of wrote their own part. Graveyard Rocks was written by myself and Ron Emory, and "Zoner" was another group effort. In the very early days the songs were More of a group effort. After that, with a couple of exceptions, I wrote all the songs.
Punk Globe: what are you working on now, Jeff?
Jeff: At the moment, I'm not really playing any music, although I should be. I started working on an album of duets with Pleasant Gehman, but that was put on hold because of the pandemic, and Pleasant got busy with other projects. I hope we start it up again. Last year I wrote my first book "Guilty! My life as a member of the Joneses, a heroin addict, a bank robber and a federal inmate". It's being published by Hozac Books and is supposed to be out in the summer of 2022. A label called Projectile Platters is releasing everything the Joneses recorded on 3 vinyl LPs. The first volume just came out last week. And volumes 2 and 3 are supposed to be out in June and July. So mostly I've been doing interviews and whatever I can do to promote that stuff.
