Trust and communication make music and friendship flourish
by Wayne Bledsoe
From the outside, it seems like Illiterate Light suddenly has taken off. After performing all across the East Coast for the past three years, the group has become a buzz band, celebrated and shared on social media and performing at bigger venues and festivals. And on Oct. 11, the group will release its first full-length album on Atlantic Records.
“From the inside, that’s what it feels like, too!” says drummer/vocalist Jake Cochran. “Suddenly, something just shifted and everybody started paying attention. We’re like, ‘We’re doing the exact same thing. What happened? What changed?’ … There’s a feeling of just being whisked away.”
The two-piece band comprising Cochran and guitarist/vocalist Jeff Gorman has spent the past three years establishing itself as a favorite in Richmond, Virginia, Nashville and many points in between.
The origins of the group go back more than a decade when Cochran and Gorman both were attending James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where they still are based. A casual friend of both asked Cochran and Gorman, who didn’t know each other, to back up a vocalist who was performing a one-off show at the college.
“It was at the campus coffee shop, very low key. I think we had one rehearsal and showed up,” says Cochran. “Our mutual friend didn’t know either of us that well, and they asked me to play bass and Jeff to play drums.”
The two both agreed just because they were anxious to play anything. While Cochran says Gorman is now a good drummer, he was not impressed at the time.
“I remember thinking, ‘This guy on drums is not all that good, but whatever. It’ll be a fun band for this one time, and I’ll move on.’”
When the singer decided to do a cover of “Summertime” in a jazz vein, Cochran told the singer he didn’t know how to play a walking bass line for it.
“Jeff said, ‘I can walk a bass line.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I can play drums better than you!’ So we swapped and we both started making eyes at each other at some point!”
The two became buddies and started a band together the following school year, with each trading instruments for different songs. The band, called Money Cannot Be Eaten, expanded and then contracted to a trio. When the third member quit during a tour, the group disbanded. Cochran and his wife moved into a more rural area and became carpenters building tiny houses. Gorman stayed in Harrisonburg and continued writing songs and playing cover shows to pay the bills.
When Cochran and his wife moved back to Harrisonburg, Gorman was ready to give it another shot.
“He said, ‘I’m gonna do this, and I’d love for you to do it with me. But if not, I’m ready to go,’” says Cochran.
Cochran was ready. While the two had aspirations for a large group, once again they settled for a trio. When the group’s bassist, Jake Golibart, was told by a professor that he would fail the semester if he took off for a couple of days to tour, Cochran and Gorman made a quick decision to carry on as a duo. The two tried various amps, loop pedals and drum machines to figure out how they’d make their music minus a member.
“It was just a big experiment,” says Cochran. “We did that for a month or two, and we got back and rewrote some songs and came up with new material.”
In short order, the group discovered that less sometimes can be more. Gorman now controls a bass pedal while playing guitar, but it’s not constant.
“It’s a funny thing: When you start stripping stuff away, other things just become more important. … We’re learning more and more. The bass sounds bigger when it’s not there for half a song, and then when it comes in, people’s heads explode. The tension you can create, the feeling of something raw and ‘Oh, this is missing something.’ And then when that thing comes in, it’s powerful. We’re learning how to use our limitations in a way that we’re loving rather than being held back by [them].”
And Golibart remains a good friend, as well.
“It turns out that having a bassist at the beginning was a longtime ploy for Jeff to meet that bassist’s sister, who he’s now married to,” jokes Cochran.
Cochran and Gorman are in it for the long haul, and their friendship is as important as the act. Outside of music, the two ran an organic farm together for a few years and organized various community events together.
Trust and communication, says Cochran, is the key. He says a string of disappointing shows a couple of years ago was a turning point. The two discussed the situation backstage before a show and realized they were both trying to win over the audience separately, not as a team. The two made a pact that night to always work together.
“When we’re onstage is a good example of what it’s like offstage,” says Cochran. “It’s very clear there’s two of us. It’s very clear that maybe neither of us is really in control, but we’re very aware of the other one. If Jeff is going to take the song somewhere, I’m going to follow. I’m not going to do something that makes him look like an idiot because I think he’s wrong or I want to do something else. I trust where he’s going to go, and I’m going to support that. And the same goes for me. If I pull it a different way, he’s going to follow because of that trust. That’s how we treat the stage, and that’s how we treat our lives together.”
Cochran says he can’t exactly explain why the group’s recent set at the Newport Folk Festival affected him so deeply, but it did. The two were performing a new song, “Sometimes Love Takes So Long,” which was a last-minute addition to the band’s upcoming album. Cochran says he knew it was going to be a great song when Gorman had only a chorus written.
“We wrote the verses of it in our Airbnb the day before we recorded it, and we had never played it together the day we went into record. At the Newport Folk Festival, it was probably the fourth time we had played it live, and we were just singing this one lyric in the chorus. It goes: ‘Sometimes love takes so long. Here’s my heart to write on. Every word is bittersweet. Sometimes love takes so long. Come on sweet tooth, stay strong. Circle back to you and me.’ For some reason when we sang ‘Sweet tooth’ I had all these connections in my head. It was a very overwhelming moment being at Newport Folk Festival and seeing a massive crowd gathered at 11 a.m. on a Saturday. Just everybody keyed into that moment. It hit me in a way that it hadn’t before, and I felt this connection that was super special. I choked up a little bit.”
Cochran says he feels a lot of joy right now. While he and his wife had looked at houses in Knoxville after enjoying playing at the Pilot Light so much, they decided on moving to Nashville to be closer to family. He finally feels financially stable enough for his wife to be able to start a new career or go back to college.
“I’m just blown away and grateful every second that what’s going on is going on,” he says.
And the upcoming appearance co-headlining Second Bell feels special, as well.
“Knoxville holds a very special place in our hearts, and being part of Second Bell is really exciting for us. I’m a big fan of Devon Gilfillian, and he’s the other headliner. I’m stoked to feel welcomed into that scene.”
bledsoe@blanknews.com
