Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jakob Core. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Jakob, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

When I was seven, I saw a bunch of kids gathered together. They were marveling over an album. I was always an outsider, so I didn’t feel like I could join them, but I caught a glimpse of the record cover. It was Rock & Roll Over by Kiss.

I was transfixed by their visages. At some basic level I understood that their music gave them a platform to re-invent themselves as otherworldly characters, utterly divorced from the reality of who they were.

I bought their albums and became a devotee. I saw them play live at nine years old, my first time seeing a concert. The stage show, the adulation of the audience, and most especially the loudness of the music was transformative.

As I grew out of their music (really it was their images that drew me, their music wasn’t terribly good) I began to explore other music. I started listening to new wave, people like Duran Duran, Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk. This started me on a journey toward more electronic music, which became my passion.

But it was when I was a teenager and bought my first Bowie album, Low, that my ears pricked up the most. The second side was full of this fantastic, ambient transcendence. I didn’t know at the time that it was Brian Eno’s contribution that I was so taken by, or I’d immediately have began to explore him. I’d realize my mistake years later and correct it.

This opening up of my ear to new sounds eventually led me to groups like Coil, Foetus, Skinny Puppy, and Cabaret Voltaire. Synthesizers laid the foundation for the musical journey I was on, and I had to explore them.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I joined my first band in high school. We played a talent show. I was the singer. It was terrible. It was also my first experience having and overcoming stage fright.

I joined theatre and got cast in a play. More stage fright, more having to overcome it.

By college I was acting, doing music and sound effects for, and even once co-directing plays, while also making music on my own. At the same time I was getting a bachelors degree in Photography. I began to work at a boutique professional photo lab. At this point work life and life in general had a deleterious effect on my more creative side.

I began to let my passions take a back seat to my expression, a decision underwritten by friends and family who, while superficially supportive of my efforts, nevertheless encouraged me to be more “realistic” in my pursuits. This suppression of my passions lasted for well over a decade, and it was the worst decision of my life.

After moving to the west coast to pursue a masters degree in animation, dropping out before completing my thesis, getting into hard drugs and eventually becoming homeless, my sister intervened in my life and brought me back to Texas to live with her till I could get back in my feet.

My sister, Letty, was and is the most supportive individual in my life, a support she offers completely without judgement or reservation. Living with her I rediscovered my musical side, and I began to produce demos again.

I should also say that in my time on the west coast my beloved weimaraner, Jules, was instrumental in grounding me and keeping me sane. His love and support were such that my psychiatrist declared him a service animal, and he was spot-on in his assessment. He and my sister have me the love I needed to get myself back, kick the drugs, and rediscover the other things in life that I loved.

A brief side track to the present, another love I’ve discovered, namely my partner Aaron Tyler, has shown me similar unconditional love and support, and I love and support him back. I didn’t think I’d find another love in my life, and it has been wonderful to find it again.

Back to the story…

These demos caught the ear of a friend of mine, Sanford, who has been in several bands over the years that have garnered local accolades. I even ran into some avid fans of his band Boxcar Satan in the gay bars of San Francisco (the Eagle, especially). They’ve toured nationally and I’m sure have many fans peppered throughout the US.

He asked me to audition for a deathrock band he was in called Veronica’s Veil, who had just lost their second guitar player. I listened to some songs of theirs that Sanford forwarded to me, and I quickly came up with some synth parts that I could use to audition.

I was asked to join the band and we perfected several original songs. It was a great time for me. Our first gig was opening up for David J (formerly bassist for Bauhaus). We also opened up for musicians I’ve heard since college, Lydia Lunch and 45Grave. It was an honor to open for them (Dinah Cancer, by the way, is a total sweetheart).

We went into a studio and recorded an albums worth of great songs that was sadly never released as the band broke up shortly after our last gig. In that studio I discovered a love of the recording process. I helped to mic up the drums and discovered I love engineering.

Around the time Veil was taking a break (and ended up dissolving), Veronica expressed an interest in getting a synthesizer of her own. I helped her look at different models, weigh their appropriateness, and select one to buy.

The very next day she came to my home studio with a song charted out on a notebook. I wasn’t sure how her unique way of scribing which notes to play and when would translate into a song, but she had it all mapped out. I helped her record it and it became the first of a string of songs she would release on her debut demo for her solo project, Death Loves Veronica, called Vampiros Electric.

She impressed me with the depth of her talent and her amazing drive. We recorded that album and an EP called In Nightmares. She wanted to credit me as producer, but in truth I at best co-produced it with her. Her vision was so complete that I could not in good faith allow her to subordinate her own production credit to mine. I did record and engineer those albums, though.

In the process I showed her how to sequence, record, and engineer simply by doing it in front of her. Her keen observation and intelligence basically equipped her to be able to build a synth studio of her own, and since then Death Loves Veronica has released several brilliant albums, including a collaboration with guitarist Tim Skold (formerly of Marilyn Manson and KMFDM). I’m very proud of her accomplishments.

Over the pandemic I began to email individual tracks with two accomplished musicians and friends of mine who also geek out on synthesizers and we released the results of those collaborations as a band. The Contracoma album is on all the major streaming sites and download stores, including Spotify, Apple Music, and Bandcamp.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I never really felt like I fit in anywhere. And I never felt like I could really keep up with professional life and my jobs. When working I only felt trapped and out of my element. I tried working in a creative place (the aforementioned photo lab), but found it to be the same drudgery that any other job would bury me under.

I quit and started my own business doing photoshop retouching for professional photographers, but ended up just training them to do it themselves.

So then I taught myself how to put graphics designs together and to build websites in dreamweaver and flash, but I found myself increasing my rate so that I could live off of fewer clients. The unrelenting chasing of new clients was just not something I had in me. I grew more insulated and I knew that I’d passed the threshold of the value I was delivering vs what I was charging, and I felt that was unsustainable.

I quit that and went to grad school. What I found there was that the industry is decided I wanted to be a part of was just as grueling (if not more) as any other. Even my professors, who had worked for Industrial Light & Magic, Pixar, and Dreamworks, had stories about what a nightmarish sweatshop the industry could be, and I lost faith that I’d ever find a place in the world.

I was already on a path to homelessness, something I’d been feeling creeping up on me since before I left for grad school, and the horror of that was so overwhelming that I sought solace in a life of meth use and constant sex. In the back of my mind I think I’d made peace with dying this way.

But I had a precious life, Jules, that relied on me. That needed me. And I needed him. That need made me reach out to my sister, who swept in and brought me home and gave me a place where I could heal.

Since then I’ve found something of a place in the world. I’m still an outsider. I always have been and I think I always will, but I’ve discovered that I can still carve my own place. Be my own man.

It’s taught me that I’m very adaptable. I’m capable. I can even quit meth on my own when, for me (I’m not commenting on any other addict’s situation, we are each unique), I found that the (crystal meth) Anonymous rooms failed to provide the support they purported to give.

I have never done anything totally on my own, there has always been friends, family, and society (through various programs) that have helped me. But I have found that I do have it within myself to recognize when things have gone wrong, and to chart a new course.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

It’s always been about transcendence. Art and music take me outside myself. They allow me to recreate myself from the inside out. They allow me to exorcise my demons in healthier ways than I would otherwise. I can even make friends with them.

Image Credits
Anthony Garcia Roi Hernandez (indicated)