Bill Barbot is laughing as he remembers being back on stage with Jawbox after 20 years. He doesn’t seem too bothered by the whole reunion thing, though. It’s not like it’s the first time they’ve gotten the band back together since calling it quits in the late ’90s. “We did Fallon back in 2009, and that was a total lark,” he says. “We weren’t planning a tour or anything. Just thought it’d be fun.”
Now, though, it’s different. Jawbox is back for real, doing shows to celebrate the 25th anniversary of For Your Own Special Sweetheart, and maybe even thinking about recording new material. You know, if they get around to it. “We’re mostly focused on nailing the old stuff,” Barbot admits. “Nobody wants to pay for a ticket and see us stumbling through songs like some half-assed cover band of ourselves.”
Jawbox’s history is basically a roadmap of 90s underground rock, from their beginnings in the DC punk scene to signing with Atlantic Records during the post-Nirvana feeding frenzy. They didn’t exactly fit the mold of major-label rock stars, though. “We didn’t go into it thinking we were gonna be the next Nirvana,” says Barbot. “We knew it wasn’t about cashing in. It was about making records the way we wanted to.”
That attitude meant that while they did score some radio play—thanks to songs like “Savory”—they never really cracked the mainstream. Their sound was too jagged, too cerebral, too damn weird for your average Stone Temple Pilots fan. And yeah, they did tour with STP at one point. “People thought we’d get booed off stage,” Barbot recalls. “But their fans were surprisingly welcoming. I think they were just happy to hear something that wasn’t the usual radio stuff.”
Maybe it was because Jawbox’s songs never felt like they were trying to pander. They weren’t radio hits—they were raw, angular bursts of intensity that sounded like someone smashing a punk band and a math rock band together and seeing what kind of chaos would fall out. For Your Own Special Sweetheart had the polish of a major-label budget but kept all the sharp edges intact. No slickness, no compromise. Just a bunch of weirdos making noise the way they wanted to.
But Jawbox wasn’t just making noise. They were doing it right in the belly of the beast—Washington, D.C.—under the long, oppressive shadow of the Reagan and Bush years. “There’s something different about making punk rock when you can literally see the Capitol from your practice space,” Barbot says. “You felt that anger more viscerally.”
That perspective came back into focus recently when Barbot made headlines by speaking out against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, whom he knew from high school. “People like that are the reason I got into punk rock in the first place,” he says with a sardonic laugh. “Back then, it was guys like Kavanaugh stuffing freshmen into garbage cans. That’s the kind of entitlement that made me want to pick up a guitar and scream into a mic.”
Even now, the band’s reunion has that punk ethos. They’re doing it because it feels right, not because anyone’s cashing in. “We’re not trying to become a nostalgia act,” Barbot says. “We just miss playing these songs, and it feels like the right time to do it.”
The timing is ironic, though. Jawbox’s anti-establishment roots seem more relevant than ever in the Trump era, and the band has been pretty open about their politics. “It’s punk rock to speak your mind, whether it’s through music or just telling the truth,” Barbot says. “And right now, it feels pretty damn good to be punk rock again.”
So if you catch them on this tour, don’t expect any half-hearted reunions or phoned-in performances. Jawbox is back, and they’re still pissed off—just maybe a little older, a little wiser, and definitely not interested in being the band you think they should be. “We’ve got nothing to prove,” Barbot shrugs. “We’re just here to play loud and see if anyone still cares. And if they don’t, well, fuck it. We’ll still play loud.”
Listen to the interview above and then check out some classics below.
