Very little is known about The Fever. Early this past Summer, the band swept through New York with the short but powerful 5-song “Pink On Pink” e.p. The record was soaked in raw rock n’ roll, and punctuated by an awesome cover of Glamorous Life. Now the group is presenting themselves to the masses at the CMJ opening night party, and they are ready to take over the world. Life In A Bungalo caught up with singer Geremy Jasper while he was preparing to lay down the first tracks of the band’s forthcoming record.

What can you divulge about what The Fever is working on in the studio, unless it’s top-secret?

It’s not top secret, but it’s still on its way to being made. So, I’m not quite sure how to explain what exactly we are doing. There will be some songs that will be in the same family as the e.p., but there will also be some slower songs; some songs with some different instrumentation. We are gonna stretch it out a little on this record. It will be slightly related to our old songs, but it won’t be exactly the same thing.

Can you give me a brief history of the band?
We’ve been playing for almost two years now. We’re based out of Brooklyn. We played for about a year before we hooked up with Kemado Records who have taken us under their wing. We recorded our first e.p. by ourselves, and it was basically just a demo that Kemado released in July, and we have been touring since then. Today was the first day that we’ve been recording our new record.

Do you have songs written yet, or are you just going to work out new ideas in the studio?
It’s really an ideal situation here. Kemado has just built their recording studio, and we were given two weeks to demo and write in the studio. Sanchez [Esquire, guitar] is a real studio savvy guy, so he demoed all of our stuff and it was really nice to be able to write something and listen to it right away to see if we like it or not.

How did you hook up with the other guys in the band? Was it just meeting in New York, or did you know each other beforehand?
I knew the drummer [Achilles] and the bass player [Pony] back in high school. We use to play in a band together when we were 16. We all went our separate ways and continued to play music. Through a mutual friend I met Sanchez, and we were really into each other’s songs. He is a very talented music arranger and recorder. We got together and started making tracks for about two years; just writing songs, and playing all the instruments ourselves. But there was only so far we could go, and we really wanted to get a band together. My old rhythm section came in and played, and it just clicked.

After playing live and writing for a few years, I assume you have more songs than the five featured on “Pink On Pink.” Are some of the other live songs going to appear on the new record?
Yeah, maybe about four or five of the songs we play live will make it onto the record. We have a whole batch. Some are more along the same line then others. Some are still marinating, so it will be interesting to see what we can create in the next month—what will make it on the other side. We’re working with about 16 tracks.

Being from New Jersey, the song Bridge & Tunnel holds a bit more meaning to me, having spent many hours commuting between Jersey and New York to see shows. What does the song mean to you?
I’m from New Jersey originally also. It was always a derogatory term, and everybody has a complex for a while when you’re from New Jersey. You get to a point where you have a certain amount of pride of being from Jersey, and you have to stand up for yourself. That song was about having a girl in New York, and having to make that trip to the city, and how overwhelming New York seemed to me when I was 19. It just seemed like another planet. You just feel so tiny when you’re an outsider.

What about now that you live there? If you ever talk to people from New Jersey, they say they want to take a shower after being in the city.
Now it’s home, and I’ve always liked that feeling about New York. I always liked the grittiness, the overpopulation and the frenzy of the city. Now you try to find a few days a year just to get out and catch your breath. But I really find it exhilarating. I love it, and I try not shower as much as possible.

The Fever is considered one of the up-and-coming New York bands. Which other NYC bands are you a fan of?
I like The Mooney Suzuki, A.R.E Weapons, The Rapture, and other established New York bands like Le Tigre. There is a band called The Flesh that we play with a lot. It’s always great to be surprised every time you go out to a show. Your eyes open up real wide, and it just keeps you on you toes. It’s very nutritional. You don’t feel like you’re going to see the same old band. Just when you think it’s all been done, there are new bands tucked away in a corner of Brooklyn coming out with some new stuff.

The cover of your e.p. is pink and in every picture of the band you guys are saturated in pink lighting. Do you have a fondness for the color?
That’s just some sort subconscious connection to the pink in all of us. I’m lying; I have no idea what it is. The color just stuck from the beginning.

Why did you choose to cover Glamorous Life?
It’s just one of those classic songs. That was the last thing we recorded for the e.p. It was not premeditated. We kind of just threw it together really quickly and started playing it at our shows for fun. We cut it in one day, and it was just a fluke that we even did it. We all loved that song, but none of us knew how it went. By not knowing how to play the song at all, we were able to make it our own.

Glamorous Life adds elements of new wave into your sound, which seems to be popular right now with bands like Hot Hot Heat and IMA Robot. Do you think music fans are ready for the return of new wave?
There are definitely elements of new wave in what we do, especially with the way we approach the keyboard. I think new wave is probably having a resurgence, but what all these bands are doing with new wave doesn’t sound like what old new wave sounded like. When I was in high school, I had a different idea of what punk was, because it was so ‘down the pike.’ When I would listen to a band like Television, I didn’t think that was punk. My point of reference was so down the line, and had been mutated so much that it had gotten so loud and aggressive that it was hard to see the connection between those old original punk bands and what I was listening to. That’s how I feel it is with this present new wave thing. I don’t think Hot Hot Heat sound like The Cars. They are doing something very different with it. It’s an interesting thing to go back in time and take little elements from a certain time period and make it your own.