JUPITER -- the original 1980's band from Long Beach, California is back with a new retro-moderno sound -- featuring reforged and updated new arrangements of the original JUPITER and MAX WEST playlists, as well as a modern high-tech / high-energy presentation of new material that carries forward their unique eclectic-rock sound.
JUPITER -- a power-trio formed in the mid-1970's, featured -- Lorenzo Gigliotti - electric 12 string and vocals; Jay Perris (Juarez) - drums and vocals; Tim Chaplin - bass and vocals. In their first years the band played cover tunes and worked steadily playing any gig that materialized. They played bars, clubs, school dances, banquets, special occassions --even military bases -- anything that paid. They also played a lot of fraternity parties -- beer-busts that sometimes swelled to over a thousand... Fraternaties always paid nicely... But the well-paying music circuit came to an end in1978, when the disco genre put a strangle hold on everyting. Suddenly Jupiter, as well as many, many other bands found it much harder to get paying jobs because everyone wanted DJ's...
Just as things looked really bad a new scene suddenly appeared with a new genre -- Punk / New Wave -- and this new sound was a sound which was very suitable for Jupiter. They recorded an album called MULTIPLE CHOICE and made a limited number of copies -- they distributed it themselves and managed to get it played on LA radio -- most notably KROQ, which was a small low-powered station at the time but despite their weak signal, they were the
leading radio station in the country -- because they were playing the newest, edgiest and hottest bands and many of those bands were coming from Los Angeles -- which was the place to be -- the LA music scene from 1979 to 1986 was where many of the bands and artists were coming from and this is where everyone wanted to be. Jupiter played some of the hottest venues in Hollywood, on the Sunset Strip and the LA / Orange county area -- they played Gazzari's, The Troubadour, Club 88, The Hong Kong Cafe, Madame Wong's and even the infamous Cuckoos Nest in Costa Mesa were just some of the clubs -- there were many other places too. They were very busy and continuously trying to promote the material.
Eventually JUPITER broke up in 1982, because Tim left the band. Jay and Lorenzo were left in the middle of recording another album and they decided to continue the project renaming their new band "MAX WEST" -- unfortunately they ran out of money and never finished the entire album, but did manage to release an EP with 4 songs -- the ep was titled -- "THE RICH AND FAMOUS COLLECTION." They soon found another bass player --Ray Lopez and began performing live again. They played at a number of venues but things in Los Angeles started changing again and soon the scene began to wind down.
By 1986 Lorenzo was tired -- He was teaching social studies in the LBUSD during the day and playing music all over the Los Angeles at night -- getting home at 2 or 3am, unloading the truck or the van then getting up to go to teach.... he said "I wore out, so I decided that I had to stop playing music and find a more traditional way to live and support my family" Jay continued performing and played with a dozen other bands. Lorenzo stopped playing music in 1986 and I didn't begin again seriously until 2012 when he started playing a few places solo -- then he let it go again until August of 2014, when Jay called him and asked if he wanted to do an open-mic in San Pedro -- Hesitating at first but
then he did go -- performed a couple of songs, and all of the sudden he started playing everywhere again... eventually he teamed up with to do the solo "Jay and Lorenzo" shows but in March Vaughan Risher a Long Beach music enthusiast who held regular events at Long Beach's Rebel Bite eatery asked if they would consider resurrecting JUPITER for a special show as the featured artist at his Rebel-Bite open mic. Jay and Lorenzo agreed -- Jay had now playing guitar for several years -- but in JUPITER he played drums. Lorenzo has often said "Jay is an amazing drummer" (he played drums for 40 years) but he had not played drums in the last 15 years, so he needed try it out again -- well one thing is certain -- Jay is still amazing on drums -- there are few drummers who play the way that he does. These days he uses electronic drums and when he and Lorenzo did the JUPITER show at Rebel Bite -- it was very, very familiar to those who were familiar with the original band or their recordings. Lorenzo and Jay were both very pleased with the result as was the audience that night.
Now they are seriously pursuing the rebirth of JUPITER -- JUPITER 2.0 and are playing as a duo-band -- Jay plays electronic drums and Lorenzo still plays electric 12 string in its normal register and he also splits the signal into a second amplifier utilizing an "octave down" -- processor. The ability to play bass notes from the 12 string and the extended depth of the electronic drums gives JUPITER 2.0 a very special and unique sound -- similar to the orignal JUPITER but with even more range and depth. They are lining up JUPITER shows quickly and expect to begin adding new material later this year -- for now they are adapting the original JUPITER playlists to this new set-up and the overall sound is full, very enjoyable and really interesting.
The new combination has been getting some serious attention. KBeach Radio's Jody Timmerman did an interview with them on his "Rebirth of Rock" program in March 2015 and the entire show was all about JUPITER and MAX WEST -- the replay is online if you want to listen to it -- it is now a video so there are photos to go along with the interview.
JUPITER -- the original 1980's band from Long Beach, California is back with a new retro-moderno sound -- featuring reforged and updated new arrangements of the original JUPITER and MAX WEST playlists, as well as a modern high-tech / high-energy presentation of new material that carries forward their unique eclectic-rock sound.
