Interview:

How do I see spirituality having a significance in music? Where does the inspiration come from? For the most part, people believe that musicians are a product of their influences, subconsciously processing the parts of every band they like, and melding them into their own thing. However, there are times when you are in the rehearsal room with the rest of the band, or at home on the couch with your guitar, when something out of the ordinary, and totally unique comes out of nowhere, making the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Most of the music we as Jakob have written, that I personally really dig, has been with no preconception, in the middle of a sometimes meandering, and what would appear to be a meaningless jam and out of nothing an idea will just start to form and I’ll look at the other guys in the band and they’re looking back at me with the same wondrous look, like “where did that come from?” And on these occasions I sometimes feel removed from the whole situation like I haven’t really got anything to do with what’s going on, like I’m a bystander looking down at my hands moving around on the guitar by their own. I’ve never been, or have even remotely had any inclination to being, a religious man, but I can not explain where these things and moments come from. I’ve talked to so many other musicians who have these things and I’ve never heard a decent theory or explanation. John McGlaughlin, a very religious musician, had a theory that the music we get is from a higher source that comes through what is like a glass window, our soul or something, and the more we dirty up the window, the less can come through. Thus the theory of writers block? Maybe, but it kind of comes closest to the best explanation I’ve heard so far.

“The music we get is from a higher source that comes through what is like a glass window… the more we dirty up the window, the less can come through.”
– Jeff Boyle, guitarist in Jakob