Jordan Esker & The Hundred Percent

Between the range, continuity, and noteworthy voice of the front man this band has all the fixings to become the next big thing. [Fail to Learn] is exciting, passionate, deep, raw, honest and real. - Mieux Magazine

The [Normalcy EP] is described as soft rock but after a quick listen, it’s quite easy to hear why attempting to classify their sound is rather futile. JE & the 100% clearly are making music with no holds barred and frankly, it’s refreshing to hear. - Discobelle

Jordan Esker needs to gain some weight. Especially if his dreams of becoming the husky soul singer he says lives inside of him on a new song, “Taking An Office Day,” are going come true.

“I picture Paul Janeway of St. Paul & the Broken Bones or William McDowell,” Esker, who is all of 132 pounds, told CL in a message. “I’ve joked before that I’ll one day get fat for an album just so I can get a different sound from my voice.”

CL EVENTS CALENDAR: JORDAN ESKER & THE HUNDRED PERCENT
TOUR KICKOFF AT CROWBAR | HOMECOMING SHOW AT ALE & THE WITCH

He’s going for it on the almost six-minute cut, and his band The Hundred Percent seems hell bent on taking him there. The song was recorded almost entirely live at St. Pete’s Yoko Phono Recordings (apparently one of the busiest DIY studios in town) and mixed by Orlando, Florida’s Kyle Hoffer.

“People always talk about what you lose when you don’t record a band all live in the studio, but no one ever mentions how you literally lose the interaction between the instruments,” Esker added. His guitar plays hot and will feedback in seconds. He says overdubbing guitars wouldn’t work for what the band is trying to achieve. Singing in the same room as the drums lends itself to having the drum overhead mics pick up a lot of the bass guitar and even the vocals in the room and keyboard clicks.

“I basically am just keeping it from feeding back all of the time,” said Esker. “So when Vincent hits certain drums during practice, or someone even talks in a certain frequency, the guitar will react in a certain way.”

On Sunday, the band is getting in a van and embarking on an almost three-week tour that drops them in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee. The kickoff show happens at Crowbar in Ybor City on September 25 and the homecoming is at the Ale & the Witch in St. Pete on October 13. More information is available on CL’s events calendar.


Listen to “Taking An Office Day” and see the tour dates below. Follow the boys on Facebook. - Creative Loafing

It’s an El-Rocko return for Florida-based Jordan Esker and the Hundred Percent. The band just released the soulful, jangly single “Taking an Office Day,” their first recording in two years. - Connect Savannah

Tampa, Florida’s Jordan Esker & the Hundred Percent brings a clearer tone to the bill with acoustic guitar, terse rhythms, and melodic influences. Best Supporting Actor was released in October 2014; Esker has a captivating voice, able to be tethered then released in falsettos and declarative wails. - Connect Savannah

MEMBERS: Jordan Esker (guitar, vocals, keyboard), Vincent Montemarano (drums, vocals), Matt Raspo (keyboard), Emmit Dobbyn (bass)

Jordan Esker & The Hundred Percent was originally just Jordan Esker; the rest of his band came together carefully over the years, a quartet of fine instrumentalists that currently stand among the area’s most soulfully rocking acts around right now. Their croon-fueled melodies are paired with jangly and bleary chord progressions and feather-light rhythms, sometimes coming to thunderous crescendos or segueing into more haunting breaks. Their experimentation with extremes still manages to contain a certain uniformity showcased in impressive debut LP, Best Supporting Actor, released in 2014 and prompting a short tour through Florida and Georgia.

Next show: August 6 with Sweet Crude, New World Brewery, Ybor City.

RIYL: Modest Mouse, Jimmy Eat World, Andrew McMahon

Self-styled sound: “Soul, gospel, rock, folk, and indie as a cover all. With a little bit of experimental song structure.”

Key track: “Periwinkle”

How Jordan Esker is building a fanbase: “I’ve been working as an independent artist since 2013 and right when I got out of college, I started demoing some songs and wanted to do a full album. I was in a lot of bands over the years and decided that this was a good time to put out a full effort...I wanted to show people I was serious and wasn’t just someone with a few acoustic demos recorded in a bedroom... We did a small Southeast tour last year in November, we did most towns in Florida and Savannah, Ga., and we’re currently working on a slightly larger tour for October..."

"Our main goal right now is to build a good local fan base, to the point where we're able to bring out a good amount of people to reliably headline a show...but to be one of the more established bands in the scene and be a part of the community a little more."

Most rewarding feed back you get when playing?: "Really for me, it's a feeling of acceptance! It's my passion and something I've been doing since I was 12 years old, so any feeling of acceptance is heavily rewarding...anytime you go play a show and there's any amount of people there that come to you afterwards, even if it's just one person and they tell you how much they appreciate you, that compliment goes a long way.”

Hardest thing about making a career of music: “Having a focus. I’ve gotten better at it lately. I have a habit of getting into every aspect of music. I produce, I started mixing...it’s really just narrowing your focus and figuring out the product or genre you want to be, creating an identity, putting what you’re best at and what people can relate to out there, and turning that into memorable performances. That’s a big hurdle for so many good bands.”

Favorite show in recent memory: “The Amsterdam’s last show was great, and the turnout was great, and it was cool to be playing there for their last event. It was kind of like ‘Why does it get to be us that gets to close this place out?’ ...But that place did a lot for the scene, not just in a local sense either, but they helped establish a jam jazz night...and bringing international acts in, and great ones at that. That was really cool just to be on that bill. Definitely that show.”

Favorite town you’ve played?: “We usually say Savannah. That was right in the middle of the tour so that was good timing, we played two shows there, and one was a house show on the third story of a condo, so we carried our gear up there and right after that we ran over to this other venue that was two miles away, got there on time, found out we were playing last on the bill at around midnight...but Savannah’s a late night town and we had a very responsive crowd.”

Favorite local venue: “New World Brewery has the best sound. We love the sound there, there's different things we love about different venues, like Greenbench, we love the vibe there, it’s undeniable even if you don't like beer. The Loft which is an incredible venue in St. Pete.”

Jordan Esker & The Hundred Percent’s favorite local artist: “House of I, We share a bassist with them and got to know them by playing our first couple gigs together when we were forming, when I was still a solo artist. Jackson Davis and the Jackettes, Alexander and the Grapes, and Jitters are all fantastic."

Any big news? What’s coming up? "Currently we just finished recording a four track EP that we'll release in the next two months, probably at the end of August or September. So we're gonna do that and have some singles to lead that off, and we have the tour as well. We have another single coming out this year that was co-written with the guys from Starlight Studios in Orlando, which was a great opportunity!" - Creative Loafing

Jordan Esker CD Release Show with House of I, Press, Eden Shireen Hints of old school emo, blue-eyed soul and grungy alt rock soak the debut album of Tallahassee-Tampa area singer-songwriter Jordan Esker, who got some musician friends to sit in on the recording of Best Supporting Actor so textured full-bodied instrumentals back his earnest high-toned vocals and solo instrument juggling. For his local album release party, he’s joined by “The Hundred Percent,” which includes some of his favorite TBA local and touring musicians. (Market on 7th, Ybor City) - Suburban Apologist

If you've ever caught a performance from the Hundred Percent, then you know how sonically in sync they are. Keys, guitar, bass, percussion, and vocals collide with the same force as waves crashing into jagged cliffs or more gently onto soft sandy shores, depending on the message of the song and passion in the moment. As they were never strangers to The Amsterdam, it only made sense to close the night out with a member of the Am-family. - Creative Loafing

To follow an incredible act is a task, but Jordan Esker & The Hundred Percent pulled it off. For a band that stumbled together by accident in late 2014, their collaboration is seemingly divine. Imagine Hall and Oates had an angry teenage son who made music with what fell out of a self-aware gum ball machine and then played at an aquarium after-hours for a high school prom; that's the Jordan Esker & The Hundred Percent sound. It's a good thing, I swear. At times bluesy folk pop and at others a positive 80's tribute to keyboard slaying and unrequited feedback, the frequent melodies are tempered by timeless drumming and the acrobatic vocals of Jordan Esker himself.

Each element of the ensemble is center-stage without turning into a one-man-show. At the end of each song, their sound is sucked up into a silent, alien vacuum and every time it made me double-take; I felt like I had just missed something significant, and listened for more. - The Odyssey

The great thing about Jordan Esker is that he doesn’t sound like anybody else. With some musicians, you can do a short-hand review that goes something like this: “The Artic Monkeys sound kind of like the Beatles with a dose of Queen.” Sure, you can hear some echoes of things he’s listened to or nods to musicians Esker respects, but nothing sounds like a carbon copy of someone else.

Esker released Best Supporting Actor in October and he is currently touring with Asheville, North Carolina based band Press. In 2013, Esker and Phil Nettle recorded a CD while their roommates were on vacation. Over the course of a year, friends from Tallahassee, Florida, and elsewhere contributed to the album.

A multi-instrumentalist, Esker plays guitars, bass, keyboards, piano, Hammond organ, drums and percussion on the album as well as singing. Each of the 10 tracks on Best Supporting Actor has layers of sound and surprises. Esker currently lives in Tampa and his music combines Emo, Classic Rock, and Soul with hints of Reggae. Surprisingly, it all works together.

“Not in Love” starts out sounding like a dark funhouse track with its piercing piano and drums. The chorus brings in a kind of ‘60s soul before the song drops into Latin-flavored percussion.

Esker’s songs explore relationships that fall short. The narrator of “Periwinkle” says “It’s too bad we didn’t fall in love yet” as he laments never being able to break down his girlfriend’s emotional walls. In “Forehead” the narrator describes the fumbling kiss a lover places on his forehead and labels it an endearing promise. When things don’t work out, he sings, “Why did you have to be so addicted to new beginnings?”

Even when the lyrics are morose (“I’m always holding a little bit back/As I’m wondering about the love that I’ll get back”), the music is upbeat. On “The Little Bit That Counts” the Florida State University Gospel Choir’s building voices make the words “Nothing comes easy with a straight mind” sound almost joyful.

The song “Exactly” has a swirling organ with a drum and bass combo that infuse the song with some funk and soul. Here is one of the places where you can hear that Esker is a fan of The Band, but the song does not sound like a Band song. It sounds like Jordan Esker.

Download Best Supporting Actor or order the full album at JordanEsker.com. - Quail Bell Magazine

Jordan James Esker created and self-released a great concept album called ‘Best Supporting Actor’ at the end of last year. This is a wonderful album, where numerous Tallahassee based and other musicians contributed their time and talents with Jordan himself contributing to the vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards, pianos, Hammond organ, drums, and percussion on several tracks. We are delighted that this year and half long experiment came to fruition in the shape of this beautifully orchestrated, soulful, pleasant and very listenable album. You can find out all the details about who did what and support the artistes by making a purchase at http://jordanesker.com/. For now we would like to leave you with few of our favourite picks: - Instant Filter

Jordan Esker and the Hundred Percent, four musicians based in Tampa, have released their second single, “Common Indecency,” proving that no genre is beyond their musical prowess. It’s the slower, more contemplative follow-up to “Taking An Office Day,” the soulful anthem they released last November.

“It’s like a soft ballad but with a lot of loudness to it. That’s the kind of vibe that we’ve been trying with our newer stuff,” said Esker. “Lately, we’ve been trying to give weight to songs no matter the speed they’re played at.”

The lyricism of “Common Indecency” pairs well with its emotional, powerful style. The song opens with Esker’s voice delivering the gripping lyrics, “When people leave the room it’s hard to believe they’re not talking about you.”

It captures the anxiety we’ve all experienced before: you walk away from a group of people and know they will say something about you once you’re out of earshot. Whether the things they have to say about you are positive or negative, it’s the uncomfortable truth that people have a nasty habit of pursuing connectedness at the expense of others.

For Esker, the lyrics for “Common Indecency” came quickly. The instrumentation, however, took years for the band to refine.

“It’s undergone many reincarnations over the time of it being mixed and recorded,” he noted.

The band is approaching their new album with a heavier focus on giving songs the space they need to allow each part to sink in. Songs will be more riff-driven, Esker notes, without compromising their melodies.

“Common Indecency” and “Taking An Office Day” are two of the four songs the band has scheduled to release. They are optimistic that an additional handful of demoed songs will be a full-length album by the end of the year.

The band is participating in a contest to be featured on NPR Music’s Tiny Desk series. The song will be re-imagined yet again to make it fit into the smaller environment of Esker’s home studio. A glockenspiel (mini-xylophone), two accordions, and an upright piano will be incorporated for the song’s simplified sound.

Listen to “Common Indecency” on Soundcloud, and Bandcamp. - Indie Soul Media