If you've been down to Asbury Park NJ and hung around the scene a little it's no doubt you might have heard about the Linden brothers, Jack & Jeff. Finally the two have teamed up and Jack Linden fronts the awesome new power pop band Karma Gambit along with his brother Jeff on lead guitar, Chris Dubrow on bass and Dan O'Connor on drums. The band cites plenty of 90's influence like Weezer, Oasis and of course Fountains of Wayne but they also reference new acts like Harry Styles and MGK in the lyrics of the bands newest single "Cable Knit Sweater". The band has reinvented itself in an exciting way and we caught up with frontman Jack Linden to talk about it!
1. How did the band form and what does the band name mean?
The band formed after the dissolution of my previous project and I felt adrift creatively. I was doing folky things and emo bands and it somehow never occurred to me to write what I love the most, which is catchy rock ’n’ roll with strong melodies and plenty of harmonies. Power pop, for lack of a better term. I wrote one song called Magic 8 and then a flood of songs followed, which became our first album “This is Probably a Mistake, but…”
If you asked me what the band name means I’d give you a long-winded answer about a day that I returned a shopping cart directly to the cart attendant at Shop Rite in hopes that good karma would come back to me later that day. If you ask my bandmates I just put two random cool-sounding words together. They might be right. But I still think I’m right.
2. Previous musical projects? How'd you first get into music?
I was in a folk-pop band called Rose Boulevard, which was active mostly from 2014-2016. In 2020 we remotely recorded a soft rock EP under the name Jackson Paradise, which felt very different and had another singer so we decided to release it under a different name.
It’s difficult to say when I first got into music. The Beatles were always playing in my house growing up as a kid, so that was the most formative influence I had. Even today most of what I do starts with the Beatles. When I was 11 or 12 I heard Nirvana’s Nevermind and it blew my mind and that was pretty much it for me. Music was going to be a lifelong love affair.
3. First concert that you ever went to?
The first concert I ever went to was Counting Crows on the This Desert Life tour. I was probably eight or nine so I don’t remember much but it was awesome. Locally I can’t quite remember but I think it would’ve been some Stone Pony showcase that our guitarist Jeff was playing.
4. What's your writing process like?
My writing process will vary depending on the song, but typically starts with some idea of a style I want to try writing or some chord progression. I also keep a list of song titles and lyrical ideas to explore and I’ll mumble melodies to myself in the car or the shower until something sounds good. Then I’ll grab a guitar and see what sounds good underneath the song. The best ones I often write a cappella in the car, like Cable Knit Sweater and I’m in Love with the Sun.
The former came about because a girl with whom I had a tumultuous relationship had bleached my hair and said I looked like Machine Gun Kelly. On the drive home I started singing “You say I look a bit like Machine Gun Kelly but still you aren’t buying anything that I’m selling” and then I just kept singing different lines until I had the skeleton of the song and I finished the chords when I got home.
I get vicious migraines which will come and go very suddenly, but are always exacerbated by bright lights. I had one on a beautiful summer day and I was driving listening to the Beach Boys when I had to pull over, shut off the music, and put on sunglasses to cut out the light. Then the line “I’m in love with the sun but the sun doesn’t love me” and I wrote the rest of the song with a Jack and the Beanstalk parable anchoring the lyrics.
5. What other artists or songs inspire your music?
Fountains of Wayne - Action Hero
Fountains of Wayne is probably our favorite band collectively, and Adam Schlesinger is definitely the biggest influence in my writing. Obviously they’re mainly known for Stacy’s Mom but their entire catalog is worth checking out if you like the kind of music we play. This song is from their last album Sky Full of Holes and to me epitomizes Adam’s lyrical style. It tells a hyper-specific story that seems like it could be a humorous story until you realize what the Action Hero metaphor means. It’s brilliant songwriting and something I always strive for.
Raspberries - I Wanna Be With You
There is maybe no band in history that more epitomizes the phrase “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus.” The verses last about five seconds and then we get to the main hook. Luckily it’s a fantastic chorus. The backing vocals and arrangement here is also a definite influence for this album.
Farrah - He Gives An Inch
This is a band that, much like basically every other power pop band, I really wish would’ve gotten more attention. Similar to Fountains of Wayne, they have a knack for telling stories with great melodies.
Sloan - Spin Our Wheels
Sloan has somehow been going for over 30 years with the same four guys. I would say that’s incredible but also I’ve been playing with the same three people for a while now and I can’t imagine playing with anyone else. Another power pop band with great melodies and harmonies.
Tinted Windows - Messing with my Head
Another Adam Schlesinger project. Lyrically it’s much more straightforward than what he did in Fountains of Wayne but when you listen to this song you realize that even without that he had a sense of melody that is pretty much unmatched. Musically this is basically what we’re going for a lot of the time.
Arctic Monkeys - The Bakery
Alex Turner is a great storyteller and has the ability to tell heartbreaking stories in a way that will occasionally skip choruses entirely, which is a risky move for any rock music, but it’s something I will do from time to time. Chameleon does this on our first album, as well as Kiss and Tell from our new album.
Panic! At The Disco - Nine in the Afternoon
I got really into Panic’s second album a couple of years ago. It’s blatant late ‘60s Beatles pastiche, but it’s done so well that I really don’t care. In 2019 I was planning on writing a psychedelic pop concept album where each song used a fairy tale as a backdrop for telling a story very personal to me. I ended up scrapping it but I’m in Love with the Sun and Dorothy, Let’s Go Home survived and made it onto this album.
Weezer - Don’t Let Go
Another collective favorite of the band. I believe the first time our bassist Chris and I played music together was a drunken ramshackle version of this song. The whole Green Album is extremely underrated in its simple pop pleasures.
The Wonders - That Thing You Do!
I swear this is the last Adam Schlesinger song on the playlist. He wrote this as a simple songwriting exercise to see if he could pull off a song in this style. Obviously he could and Tom Hanks picked this to be the titular song in one of my favorite movies. If the song wasn’t as good as it is the movie would not work in the slightest, because you hear it a hundred times. Fortunately I can hear this a million times and be as excited on the hundredth as I was on the first.
Oasis - Half The World Away
By his own admission Noel Gallagher never really cared about lyrics. However, it doesn’t really matter if you can write songs like this. He could basically do nothing wrong in the ‘90s. This is from their B-sides compilation, which could be most bands’ greatest hits.
I couldn’t pick one Beatles song. Just listen to their whole discography after this playlist and you’ll get the gist of how much of an influence they are on me and the band as a whole.
6. What's the live experience like and your philosophy on playing live? Do you think the music live should be identical to the recorded version or should it be it's own thing?
To me every band is different live. Generally I prefer that bands stick pretty close to the recorded version because I want to sing my lungs out and I can’t do that if every melody and lyric is different from the album and the arrangement is entirely different. Sorry, Adam Duritz. Our songs would sound pretty silly with a two minute spacey guitar solo in the middle so we stick fairly close to the record.
7. Has the band toured? What has the touring experience been, best shows?
We haven’t toured. Just local shows. The first go-round of the band we had a slightly different lineup but the best show was probably when we did a rocked-up version of Britney Spears’ Baby One More Time where Dan added a drum solo and I added a ridiculously over-the-top Chris Cornell-style scream in the middle of the song. So maybe we don’t stick to the record all the time.
8. What's up next for the band?
Our new album “When Does Rock ’N’ Roll Start to Get Sad?” comes out September 23rd on Mint 400 Records.