Interviewing The Jins

Zachary Noland

March 15, 2021

Photo of Ben Larsen of The Jins. (Photo by Jack Perkins.)

“Music and art are the great communicators; they’re the things that remind us we’re not alone in this lost consumerist dystopia.” 

“The human experience is beyond what society defines it as, and freedom of expression is the ultimate tool of the individual.”

These are quotes from Ben Larsen, guitarist and lead singer, an up and coming grunge/indie band, The Jins!

The members are, Jamie Warnock, drummer and backing vocals, Hudson Partridge, bass guitar, and Ben Larsen, guitarist and lead vocals.

They met each other in 2014 where they were roommates and decided to make music together, which then led to them starting a band.

The Jins name came from pigeons, as Larsen felt if he related to pigeons when he moved to Vancouver.

Larsen said the reason they started a band was, “We saw how the energy of it got a reaction out of people and something about causing that reaction makes it a really fulfilling experience, like people are experiencing an extension of us which is the music that we create.”

The band consider themselves a performing band and started off by mainly doing shows and making music specifically to perform live.

They went on tour in America in 2019 and haven’t released any music or played live since, but they said, “we’re planning on touring and releasing new music when covid restrictions are gone,” which would be great for helping them grow.

Hopefully, 2021 will be the year everything changes for them, because if COVID restrictions are lifted, then we can expect new music from the band, which will come with more touring.

Although, the band has stated that they don’t want to be a huge band, as they don’t take themselves super seriously, they still want to be passionate about the work they put out.

The band has already expressed their favorite artists and who influenced them like The Strokes, but they were all rock bands, so when asked about their favorites outside of the rock genre they said, “favorite artists out of rock [include] MF DOOM, Aphex Twin and Daft Punk.”

Larsen gets a lot of comments about him looking like Kurt Cobain, lead singer and guitarist of Nirvana, which was inevitable.

Larsen has shoulder length dirty blonde hair, is the lead singer of a grunge band and just so happens to also play guitar.

While his raspy voice isn’t far off from Cobain’s voice, the band’s sound couldn’t be more different than Nirvanas.

They are much more of a pop band than Nirvana was and they want to have fun, while Nirvana’s sound was very dark and depressing and rough. 

The Jins are a great band though, and hopefully if they want to become the next rock band to shock the world they’ll get their chance, but if they don’t want to then hopefully they have their wishes come true.

The band has put out three projects so far, and everyone should check them out and go see them live someday!