Jukebox the Ghost

Band

Jukebox the Ghost’s flamboyant and ambitious new album, “Cheers” is an arena-sized, ebullient toast to surviving and thriving in the face of hard times, conjuring up 70’s Queen and McCartney-styled song suites, without sacrificing any modern punch. As the millennial generation’s torch carrier of the piano pop legacy, Jukebox the Ghost’s latest album represents a fresh, ambitious, and imaginative take on the piano rock genre.
Piano-pop trio Jukebox the Ghost formed in college in 2006 and has steadily their devoted fanbase over almost two decades, finding their home as an internationally touring band with a massive, grassroots following outside of traditional music industry pipelines. Composed of Ben Thornewill (piano/vocals), Tommy Siegel (guitar/bass/vocals) and Jesse Kristin (drums/vocals), they have played over 1,000 shows around the world over the course of their touring career.
“Cheers”, their sixth studio effort, is the result of a three-year songwriting and recording process, culled from over 50 songs that the band brought to the table. The recording process began in Brooklyn during the beginning of the pandemic and continued throughout, with the band self-producing and quarantining together for six months to make the finished product -- by far the longest stretch of time the band has spent in the studio working on a LP to date. The effort is palpable; motifs appear and re-appear in interstitial tracks that segue into standalone pop songs, implying a larger thematic architecture that borders on a concept record without being overwrought. By almost any measure, it’s their most ambitious and cohesive creative effort to date.
Some of the overt nods to Queen on songs like “A Century in the Making”, “Hey Maude” and “Cheers!” aren’t a matter of happenstance -- The band has made an annual tradition of "HalloQueen," where they perform two sets: One as themselves, followed by a set break, and one in costume — and in character — as Queen. Through the process of taking a deep dive into Queen's catalogue, the band ended up rediscovering themselves, too. “We find their sense of musical adventure inspiring,” says pianist/singer Ben Thornewill. “In a way, it helped inspire us to get back to our true selves and fly our freak flag a bit more. It’s amazing how much character and ambition they managed to pack into catchy songs.”
The poppier side of the record’s stylistic span recalls the hip-hop-influenced energy of Twenty One Pilots (“Million Dollar Bills”), the modern piano balladry of Andrew McMahon (who, not coincidentally, is featured as a co-singer and co-writer on “Wasted”), and the theatrical flair of Fun’s 2012 breakthrough “Some Nights” (“Brass Band”) – but the album’s artier passages conjure comparisons to McCartney’s song suites (“Raise a Glass (intro)”/”How the World Began”), Radiohead’s brainy pop (“The Machine (intro)”/”Everybody Panic”), and Tally Hall’s intricate vocal acrobatics (“A Century in the Making”). Weaving through the album’s wildly catchy singles is also a dream-like narrative throughline, beginning with Tommy Siegel’s apocalyptic “Ramona” and ending with the poetic and surreal “How the World Began”, recalling elements of Jukebox the Ghost’s pseudo-concept-album debut, “Let Live and Let Ghosts”.
Longtime fans will hear little bits of past Jukebox the Ghost embedded in the record, distilled into something more confident and bold. The imaginative lyrics, song segues, and storytelling of Let Live and Let Ghosts (2008), the retro sensibility of Everything Under the Sun (2010), the concise modern pop smarts of their recent self-titled album (2014) and the broad pop earnestness of Off to the Races (2018) are all on full display. On their sixth studio album, Jukebox the Ghost is firing on all cylinders. Cheers, indeed.
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Piano-pop trio Jukebox the Ghost formed in college in 2006 and has steadily amassed a devoted cult favorite over almost two decades, finding their home as an internationally touring band with a massive word-of-mouth fanbase outside of traditional music industry avenues. Composed of Ben Thornewill (piano/vocals), Tommy Siegel (guitar/bass/vocals) and Jesse Kristin (drums/vocals), they have played over 1,000 shows around the world over the course of their career. In addition to countless headlining tours, they have also toured as openers alongside Ingrid Michaelson, Ben Folds, Guster, Motion City Soundtrack, A Great Big World and Jack’s Mannequin, among others. In addition to festivals like Lollapalooza, Outside Lands, Bonnaroo, and Bottlerock, Jukebox the Ghost has also performed on The Late Show with David Letterman and twice on Conan. Their 2022 fall tour will take them to their largest headlining venues to date across September and October, culminating in four of their signature HalloQueen shows.