We recently connected with Anthony Coseo and have shared our conversation below.
Anthony, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
JAMM was started in mid-2018 off of a Craigslist ad. Matt Crocco (guitarist) put an ad out looking for other musicians to join him and his cousin in making some music in the garage of their home next to Chico State University. Anthony Coseo (singer) answered this ad before the start of his freshman year at Chico State, and from that day “JAMM” was born.
JAMM then spent the next 4 years trying to figure out HOW to be a band. The band held their first show, a house party in Matt’s backyard, only 3 days after their formation. From that moment on, the band was hooked and they knew that this was something they wanted to take as far as possible. From 2018-2020, JAMM endured years of trial & error in figuring out how exactly to make this band thing work. From landing their first paid venue gig, to traveling to San Francisco and Sacramento for bigger out-of-town shows, the band crawled its way into legitimacy until….COVID.
COVID essentially put JAMM on hiatus for 1.5 years. There were no shows to play, it was difficult to meet up to practice, and eventually “real-life” had to take a priority and the band went dark…
…until 2021. In a very quick turn of events, (bass player) Ian McIssac met David Bygum (drummer) during class one day and the two became good friends, eventually turning into Ian inviting David to come practice with the band. From that point on JAMM was resurrected and was as strong and motivated as ever. The band began organizing house-shows at Chico State which turned out to be a great success as the boys finished out their last years of college.
With graduation looming, the band had to make a decision. What were they going to do once college was over? Would the band disappear?
They decided to risk it all and uproot JAMM from their Northern California home and transplant it 600+ miles south to San Diego, CA. 3/4 members of the band were not from SD, but the love for JAMM and the friendship between the 4 members was enough to want to take the risk.
In November of 2022, JAMM all moved into one house in San Diego and instantly made it a priority to play AS MANY shows as humanly possible in order to get JAMM’s name out in SD, and after 1 year the work is seeming to pay of well.
Looking back, everyone realizes how wild of a decision it was to just uproot everything and move. The band had (and still has) a very solid fanbase in N. California, so it was a bit sad to leave that behind. But the reception in SD has been unbelievably good and JAMM is overwhelmed with gratitude for the love we’ve received from the SD community past year.
Anthony, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
We are a band comprised of 4 college buddies who found a similar love of music, performance, and drive of wanting to accomplish this life-long goal of playing music that we all share. Each of us has grown up within music and have discovered that it truly is each of our passions and there is NOTHING we want to do in life more than share our music with others.
We are extremely proud of the individual improvement of our musicianship since the formation of the band. We are also extremely proud of our ability to work together, deal with conflicts, keep our head high when things aren’t going so well, and continuing to push and progress no matter how long the journey is.
JAMM takes a lot of pride in the music we create, but we are also so grateful that we have been able to meet such an AWESOME music community here in San Diego. SD has hundreds of unbelievably talented artists that the world needs to know about and the fact that we have been able to meet and become friends with so many of these artists is something we are truly thankful for.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
(Anthony) The most rewarding aspect is being able to write and share a meaningful message with an audience in a way that not only tells a story, but can invoke an emotional response as well. Music is such an amazing thing because you not only can explicitly get your message across with lyrics, but you have an infinite amount of sounds, movements, and ‘colors’ to paint a visual picture with your song. The fact that someone can personally connect with something that we wrote, whether it’s a deeply meaningful song or just a fun, go-crazy type song, is the most rewarding aspect.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
We have all 4 consciously chosen to pursue a career in one of the most difficult-to-navigate industries out there, but we all have faith that this hard work and dedication will pay off. We all have had to have come to terms with the fact that this is NOT easy and it could take years and years to make music our full-time job but it is something that we have set in our mind that we WILL accomplish.
While you are pursuing music, you will have friends with solid careers, stability, free time, and structure, and as a beginning musician, stability is something you deeply strive for. But it IS a lot of work and it truly does get disappointing at times. But with a deep love for what you do, the hard work absolutely pays off when you get to share your love with the world.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jammbandca.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamm.norcal/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100084249146345
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL9qPIua1-YE_ckSUWWRZAg
- Linktree: https://linktr.ee/jammband
Image Credits
Zeke Shockley