Roll With the Changes: A Look Inside Demure

I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with the band Demure, a four-piece rock act that feature punk energy, catchy melodies, and punchy lyrics. I first saw the band open for Agent Orange a few months back and was impressed by their demeanor and skill. Little did I know that two of the band members are recent additions to the band, while another is on the way out. Front man Jack Jackman and bassist Sol Zimmerdahl gave me a rundown of who they are. 

Interviewer: What is Demure? How did you guys meet and form together?

Sol: I’ve known Jack a really long time. Met this dude at concerts back in the day. 

Jack: Demure was something I started as a side project. I was with a band that just got signed. The band was from here, from Portland. The band was called I Digress and we were picked to represent Portland in America’s Got Talent. It went good but to be truthful, I got this itch to start a band. I’ve never fronted a band before. I tried to be a lead singer and while I was doing that, our lead singer in the other band had a terrible seizure during rehearsal, which changed the direction our lives. At the same time our sponsor went bankrupt. So all I had was this side project, Demure, and was able to focus on that. 

Interview: Oh man, that must have been tough. 

Jack: It was. I Digress was a very pop like band. We used to joke that our genre was “sex-pop”.  But I’m from the background of more grunge. I come from Cleveland, Ohio. My roots are engrained in the punk scene from the East coast. Black Flag, Minor Threat. So, the grunge sound really worked for me. I feel like, for what I do, it’s a mix of pop, punk, and emo.

Sol: I have a lot of crossover with Jack but I’m more of a West coast guy. Bands like Agent Orange, which opening up for them was great. But I’m a fan of the grunge thing. That’s totally engrained in who I am. All those big grunge bands and small ones. The bands I played in with Jack back in the day were all grunge and punk bands. I feel like the band has gotten really aggressive since me and Dylan joined. Jack has allowed us to be part of the creative process.

Demure has been through quite a bit of changes throughout the years. They have had twelve different lineups that have altered the sound of the band. Demure originally leaned into pop rock territory before Sol (bassist) and Dylan (drummer) joined six months ago. The two newer members brought in a more punk and raw sound into the pop-like roots of the band.

Sol: We used to play together back in the day, our bands. So, I was pretty familiar with Demure before I joined. It might have been nine or ten years ago when our bands started playing music together. This was an interesting time to start in the band and go on tour. I remember we were like “we’re actually doing this right now, with all the crazy stuff going on”

Demure just finished up a short tour of the West coast recently that included Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The band were one of the many that tried their luck during the COVID pandemic.

Sol: I’ll be honest with you. Before we went on the tour, I was like, any day there’s going to be some new news that stops the tour. I had my fingers crossed. I know this guy in a punk band and he had scheduled twenty different tour dates. And he had to cancel AT LEAST three quarters of them because of the Corona thing.  

While the tour felt unpredictable for the band because of COVID, the tour turned out to be a fun experience.

Jack: We would have the crowd engaged by the second song.

Sol: People were having so much fun. The whole tour, we had people going wild at every show.

Interviewer: How was the tour? What was it like?

Jack: I feel like everything that could have went right, honestly went right. We’re actually coming back to the Whiskey, opening for Puddle of Mudd, so we’re going to have another tour in May. I’m kinda scared because the previous tour went so well! If you woulda bet me money that two years from now that there would be a pandemic, like a zombie apocalypse, but your band is going to have the best time ever. I would have lost all my money.

The band ended up renting a Yukon for the tour after the rental company was out of the car that was previously booked, which was much smaller. Luck kept the band going as they were faced with enthusiastic audiences and friendly encounters.

Jack: We kept making money when we shouldn’t. Like we played a show with maybe ten people in the audience. And they were really engaged. I hate to say it, but I think they were surprised at out level of musicianship. The owner apologized for not having anything ready for us. But I was like “no sweat, I’m used to playing for not a lot.” I was just thankful that someone recognized us and gave us some money for gas.

Sol: Some of them were great. They fed us, gave us drinks like crazy. I didn’t even think there were tickets involved, they just kept giving us drinks and asking nothing in return. Really accommodating. Everyone was great to us on this tour.

Jack: It was probably the most fun I’ve had on tour. There was no drama. We all just had fun, made jokes and laughed at each other’s worst things. Actually, our drummer called me the night before the Whiskey show and told me that Sol was out drinking at the Whiskey. He was worried about him. So, I went down and checked it out. There was nothing wrong, he was just living it up, drinking, and having a good time!

Sol: Yeah man, pregaming! Pregaming at the Whiskey A Go-Go!

Interviewer: What was the favorite spot y’all played at?

Sol: Obviously the Whiskey! I mean The Double Down was cool. But Whiskey, it’s gotta be, it’s gotta be! It’s a legendary venue. 

Jack: You would have thought we were buddies (Agent Orange). Those guys are legends and we were treated like equals, which I think is rare coming from guys from that level of status. I felt a sense of accomplishment after that show. Anywhere we walked after, we had people coming up to us and saying like “appreciate what you guys did up there”. It was humbling.

Sol: Everywhere we played, people went out of their way to be good to us. And you could tell that they really liked the music. I never got an ingenuine vibe.

Both Jack and Sol have been into the music scene for quiet some time. Jack has played in bands that have opened up for acts like Chevelle. He also had Demure open up for Rival Sons and Everclear years back. I noticed a wall of guitars in Jack’s home as I talked with him over Zoom. He revealed that his singer that had brain issues from a seizure has shown interest in being in I Digress again. Sol also comes from another band called Abnorm. Jack notes that Demure seems to have some momentum and it would be a great way to give back by having the other bands perform with them. This fits into Demure’s ideology of giving back to the rock community and taking advantage of the resurgence of live shows. 

Jack: I talked to my friend who was the singer of my old band. He was telling me that the good thing about all this stuff that’s happened in the last few years is that it’s made live music important again. It was kinda going away at one point. COVID really did make people enjoy live shows again. It’s still harder to make money but I think now you have to be able to perform. You need to be able to play live. Or get yourself one hell of a representative on YouTube.  

Demure is one of those bands that are great live. They feed off of the audience’s energy, providing an experience that reminds people why live shows are so great.

Interviewer: Because of streaming, it’s harder to find out about smaller bands. What do you think about that?

Sol: Everybody is famous, so no one is famous. Everyone has all the social media accounts. It’s easier to get on a platform and put out music. But also nobody cares. Because everyone is doing it. It’s hard, there’s so many people who are musicians who don’t want to go anywhere with it. But they still make these pages and they still try to hype it up. It’s hard to go up against that, being a musician where this is really central to your life. A lot of hobbyists are having fun and I have no problem with that. But it’s just not like you get signed and your life starts, touring everywhere.

Both Jack and Sol agree that it’s become more difficult for musicians to get recognized for their music. Sol is more of an old soul, being an avid CD user and looks to buy CDs when at shows. He notes that he isn’t into social media as much, that Jack is the one who is more involved in the creative aspect with the Demure’s social media and website. It might help that Jack went to school for Computer Programming. While Jack is more tech savvy, he also creates comical videos for the band. 

The band’s songs deal with things like suicide, obsessive girlfriends, and other things. But the band tries to keep it fun for the audiences since the goal is to create music that is exciting and easy to listen to. 

Jack: I do pretty silly stuff. The last video was me auditioning for the band because I lost so many members over the years. So it was me auditioning for them. But the band are actually all murderers. Their only plan was to murder me. So, they let me in the band, and I get all arrogant by making them dress the way I want to. Now they have a real reason for wanting to kill me. The songs we write about, while they are pop-like, are about heavy stuff that’s happened in my life. So, I try to make it less heavy with the videos, almost ridiculous. (laughs) Maybe the next video should be me murdering all the members who have quit the band in the past.

Sol: When I write songs, I always want it to have a broad appeal. Something everybody can get. The trouble is that it’s hard to give everyone what they want.

Jack: You know what though, I think the staying power of some music isn’t very good. Metal and Rock are pretty timeless. But hip-hop, you really got to be into it. Like I really like the older stuff from the 90s, just because the style is similar to what I do (as a musician). If you’re a fan of metal, rock or punk, it really doesn’t matter what time period you pull from. People just like it.

Jack: I was watching Dazed and Confused the other night and was like “man these are some great songs I haven’t heard in a while. (to Sol) They actually remind me of your house parties you used to throw.

Sol: Those were good days.  

While we talked about different bands and genres, the age-old discussion of hair metal vs. grunge came up.

Sol: The whole hair metal versus grunge at different stages of your life was brought up with us. We were offered to open up for Quiet Riot or Puddle of Mudd. And, I mean, I’ve always been more of a grunge guy, and you can argue Puddle of Mudd is post-grunge. But right in there. And then you got Quiet Riot, who are legends, but their hair metal and that’s not really what we do. Our newest member, Brian, mostly was pushing for Quiet Riot.

When bands go through member changes, new sounds and styles can make the band into something that wasn’t there before. Demure went into detail on the changes they’ve experienced as old members have left and new ones have joined.

Jack: For us, it depends on who you got in your band. Grohl changed Nirvana. You (Sol) and Dylan changed our sound now. People who heard Demure eight years ago defiantly don’t get the same thing. You have to have chemistry, if you don’t people can see through that. If you’re an early Metallica fan, you can tell the missing of Cliff Burton. Even though he’s a bass player. Just kidding Sol. 

Sol: What Dylan and I have brought to the table has changed it so much. Davis, the old bassist, was great. But there’s just such a stylistic difference between him and I. We didn’t plan on changing anything, Dylan and I. But we couldn’t help ourselves. We play pretty fast too; the tempo has totally gone up. 

Sol recalls seeing Demure a few times in the past before being offered a spot in the band. He was able to bring his own personality to songs that he heard in the past.

Sol: I didn’t see Demure play for two years because of COVID. So, coming in blind and hearing some of the songs I have heard before and just being told this is how the song goes. I’ve been practicing my scales and just trying to get sharp, so chemistry could develop. I actually kept a lot of the original notes from our first jam sesh because it worked so well.

Demure is one of the many rock bands that are eager for a return to previous decades for the genre, preparing for a potential genre shift that has happened in the past.

Interviewer: What do you this will happen with rock music this decade? I think a big shift in music is bound to happen.

Sol: I hope to be part of that shift when it happens. I always thought the 20s would be our shot to own the scene. For Demure, my band Abnorm, and some of my buddies bands, it’s time for us to step up. We have people like MGK who are now doing a version of a rock genre. But it’s not their specialty, like I bleed this stuff. It’s just a matter if people want it or don’t want it. I’m not going to change who I am or what I do on the basis of what’s popular. I mean I’ll try to write stuff people enjoy. But I’m going to be who I’m going to be. 

Jack and Sol have different but similar goals for the future of the band and themselves. Jack works a steady job that helps people in need and has a son and a supporting wife. Jack points out that both music and his job are very rewarding, but he would fully be into music if he didn’t have his job. 

Jack: I always say I’m not going to get too into music and not spend as much money on music. I feel like Michael Corleone in Godfather 3. I keep getting pulled back in. I was going to take a break December through April, but I met Sol and Dylan, created this new sound and they want to get going. And part of me is like “so do I!” I’m not going to stop playing. I’m also in a place where I have a steady job that allows me to do what I want with music. But if I could pay off my house with music, I’d definitely do it. 

Jack notes that him and his wife have similar passions.

Jack: (laughs) My wife would probably kill me if I fully went in. She’s very supporting of me. She’s a pathologist but also runs a dance school for Hula dancing. So she understands what I have with music. I’m lucky to have a wife that has a passion similar to mine.

Sol is a driver and a sculpture who participates in art shows around the Portland area and drives around the country. He has released three albums, two of them were burns, and the most recent is called “Reborn Through Strife”. 

Sol: I’ve always wanted to make money with music. I did my own CD pressing. I wanted to do this all myself and profit off it. I’m a very business-oriented person. You see it with my sculpture. My sculpture is a serious supplement to my day-to-day job as a charter driver. It’s a third of my total income at the end of the year. So, I know money can be made with art. But music is hard. You don’t have a physical, tangible product like we used to with vinyl and CDs. It’s difficult to make money when everyone is willing to do it for free, that’s what my experience has been like here (Portland). It’s about music first. But I’d love to see money be a part of that. I’d do this professionally. I’ve always wanted to go on long tours.

Sol recalls a conversation about touring he had with a band member of Agent Orange.

Sol: I was talking to some guys in Agent Orange. They said, “We really prefer to do tours that are four rather than six”. And were kind of talking in jest. And I’m like “Yeah ours is four.” And he’s like “Oh yeah, that’s way better.” And I was saying I’d like it to be longer. And he was asking me what I meant by that. I told him four days is not enough. And he was like “I’m talking about weeks!” This is a real profession, out there for weeks! I’d love to do it. I’d like to have some recordings with this band too. I mean opening for Agent Orange was a check off the bucket list. I would love to keep doing stuff like that. So, if I’m doing that, I might not be as focused on the money-making aspect. I could quit my job now and just do sculpture but its very hard. It can be tedious. And I gotta say to anyone who’s going to read this. If you’re a painter, musician, or whatever medium you’re into. You’re going to be doing a TON of it if you want to make a living out of it.

Since Sol and Dylan have joined, the band’s sound has changed drastically, and the old songs don’t reflect the current band. Jack plans on re-recording the songs and making them available to stream by February. However, some songs are available to listen to on their website. 

Check out Demure at the Whiskey A Go-Go on May 7th, 2022.