Published: Monday, November 23, 2009

Updated: Monday, November 23, 2009

Green River Ordinance is a band from Fort Worth, Texas that is currently on a nationwide tour with David Cook.

The Vanguard was able to get an interview with Jamey Ice, who plays guitar in the band. He was kind of enough to speak with Greg Gulbranson as he drove the band's van from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Peoria, Illinois.

Vanguard: What genre would you call your music?

Jamey Ice: We're kind of pop rock. We always tell people that if U2 and Tom Petty had a baby we'd fall somewhere in that area. We're kind of like Third Eye Blind and Matchbox 20 and bands like that.

V: So you're the guitarist?

J: Yes

V: How many guitarists are in the band?

J:There's me and there's Joshua Wilkerson, who plays electric guitar and our singer plays acoustic on a couple songs.

V:Who's the main songwriter?

J: It all just depends on the song. It's all an organic process. Sometimes [singer] Josh [Jenkins] will have a little melody, or sometimes we'll have a guitar lick or drum beat. A lot of them, we all kind of work together on.

V: I was looking at your Twitter, and I saw where you posted about a guitar you bought at a truck stop. I bet it played like a dream!

J: It played terrible. It was really hard to get in tune. We actually wound up giving it away; we all signed it. We had a big contest at a show in St. Louis. It was one of those things where we were looking for a guitar to do that with; we had talked about it. And we were in a truck stop and were like “A truck stop's selling guitars!” So we had to buy it.

V: Did have a brand name on it?

J: It had a brand but I honestly can't remember what it was. Ironically enough, it was made in Ft. Worth, Texas, which is our hometown.

V: That's pretty weird. You don't see many $80 guitars made in America.

J: Yeah, I know.

V: So your brother, Geoff, plays bass in the band. What are the age differences between you guys?

J: I'm two years older than he is.

V: I guess the little brother always ends up playing bass.

J: [Laughs] Yeah.

V: Did you two play together before this band got started?

J: Yeah. The band kind of started out when me and my brother started a band, and we played “Sweet Home Alabama” for our middle school talent show.

V: Yeah! Alabama!

J: We all wore these matching outfits; it was real cheesy. Then like a year later, when I was fifteen and he was thirteen, we started Green River Ordinance.

V: Do you guys use in-ear monitoring like with metronomes and all that?

J: Yeah, we do. Me, personally, I'm not a huge fan. As a guitar player, I like things loud, I like to hear the sounds from my amp. A lot of these tours, they don't have [stage] monitors, they only have [in ear monitoring systems].

V: Are you still playing that Orange amp? I watched a music video and you had one.

J: Yeah! The cabinet actually is an Orange cabinet. The head that I play with is kind of a custom head that a buddy of mine, out of Dallas, builds. It's kind of like a little boutique kind of thing.

V: What can people expect from your shows?

J: Our goal is that, if you come to our shows we're going to get you off your feet, and get you singing along at some point and hopefully dancing. We came up playing a lot of Texas bars and frat parties and things; Texas people like to sing along and dance and have a good time. So that's what we grew up doing, playing a lot of Tom Petty songs and stuff like that, so if you come to one of our shows definitely expect to dance and expect to sing some.

V: I can't really imagine keeping the passion playing like, the same songs every single night.

J: [laughs]

V: How do you always get yourself excited to play this song that you've played for the fifteen-thousandth time?

J: It's kind of fun because it's so autopilot musically, most of the time because you've played it 15,000 times it gives you a lot more freedom to like move around and jump off stuff. So you focus more on the show and the performance and having fun with it. You know, goofing off some. There are some songs that we've been playing for like, four years, you can get tired of it and just think “ I never want to hear that song again” but then you just play it every night.

Green River Ordinance will be playing the Saenger Theater on November 24 with David Cook.