Hot out of Virginia Beach, indie rock band Static Jacket is taking the scene by storm with their debut album, The Grape Lady Falls. The group formed when power duo Colen LoCoco and Jason Goldberg began firing tapes back and forth in 2024. Since then they’ve put together an outfit with a cutting-edge style reminiscent of the Turn Blue-era Black Keys with an ‘09 LA garage rock twist. Static Jacket is the kind of band you hear playing in some beer-stained, neon-lit dive on a hazy Saturday night. Their sound is dirty, powerful, and hauntingly melodic, with a swinging rhythm that steals your breath.
I was treated to a chat with Jason about the band's origins, motivations, and staggering amount of coming projects. The conversation ran as follows.
MSM: How did Static Jacket come together?
Jason: Colen and I both have ongoing projects outside of and pre-dating Static Jacket (Revolving Birds, The Bag), and roughly a couple of years back, both of us were actively seeking out ancillary support for our respective bands.
Colen reached out to me based on our shared love of a lot of the same music, particularly the Breeders, Elliott Smith, and Sonic Youth. I for one was super stoked that he had included “Ono Soul” from Thurston Moore’s “Psychic Hearts” album on a playlist he had made, as it’s pretty rare in my experience to find someone with such an inclination in the 757 area code.
In any case, we met up one afternoon and messed around for a bit. Both of us enjoyed meeting each other and had fun, but at the time I think ultimately both of us were more focused on our recruitment missions than incorporating an additional songwriter into our orbit. So, despite the mutual high regard, we both kind of moved on like ships passing in the night at that time.
Nevertheless, we kept in touch and checked in with each other every so often with band updates, previewing demos, hey-how-you-doings, etc. At one point I was going to step in on bass for a Revolving Birds show in DC, but I messed up my finger and had to bow out.
Finally, around late summer 2024, we decided to get together again to collaborate on something. Initially we thought maybe an EP, but that turned into a full length relatively quickly. We are both fairly prolific songwriters…
MSM: Who are some of your influences as musicians?
Jason: Some cornerstones include the Beatles, the Kinks, Lou Reed, Elliott Smith, Sonic Youth, the Breeders, Guided By Voices, Nirvana, the Replacements, the Zombies, Bowie, Pavement, the Stooges, Beck, Fugazi, Spoon, Royal Trux, Elephant 6 stuff, Wilco, Motown, Big Star, Blur, CAN, Miles Davis, Blonde Redhead, Yo La Tengo, Radiohead, and Quasi.
Recently, Speedy Ortiz, Lemon Twigs, Geese/Cameron Winter, Flasher, Lifeguard, Ty Segall, Slippers, Cindy Lee, and Parquet Courts
MSM: Do you have any dream venues/locations you want to play in the future?
Jason: Haha, gosh. We’re pretty open to anything if people are going to show up.
MSM: What is The Grape Lady Falls all about to you? Was there a certain vibe or message you were trying to get across?
Jason: Intentionality is a tricky thing. The songwriting process for both of us, and for many, I think, has more in common with being a receiving antenna than a transmitter. That being said, there are certain themes I see popping up recurrently among our songs.
MSM: What was the album writing process like for you? Was it just compiling a group of great tracks, or was there more of a structure to it?
Jason: Most folks listening will probably hear two fairly distinct songwriting voices. This wasn’t really by design. We both write A LOT of songs. It’s like having two Robert Pollards in the same band. We also live a bit of a ways from each other, and so a lot of the songs were written fairly independently but also in conversation with each other as they began to accumulate and influence each other. We cut a bunch of songs from the record in an effort to keep things tidy, even though we still really liked them and plan on releasing them in some capacity.
There’s already a fair number of songs pending recording, but we’re also going to try to make an effort to cowrite in real time on the next one.
MSM: How would you describe Static Jacket?
Jason: I’ve been describing it as “classic indie rock,” though that might be a little reductive and possibly inaccurate. We’re probably a little more genre fluid than “The Grape Lady Falls” would suggest. I guess we’ll find out.
MSM: Now that you have released your debut album, what’s the next step?
Jason: We’re eager to keep at it and finish up the batch of songs we have pending for tracking and mixing. We’ll likely release an EP in the near future and a few singles from Grape Lady with non-album “B-sides” while we’re working on the next full-length.
MSM: I hear you have multiple albums already in the works. What can you tell me about that?
Jason: Yeah, as mentioned, we both churn out songs at a pretty regular clip. Between Static Jacket’s backlog, Revolving Birds, the Bag, and “solo” stuff that fits better in its own bucket, we will continue to harass you with an unrelenting onslaught of tunes.
Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 9, 2025
