You'd think Omaha was stuffed so full of talent that another nugget of musical greatness couldn't wedge its way into Brothers on a Saturday night. Yet here is Neva Dinova, a band whose release on Crank! records last spring has made several top 10 lists nation wide and is currently poised to become yet another reason why L.A. hipsters go to Nebraska on vacation. Singer/guitarist Jake Bellows recently took time off from his busy life of being a pool shark to talk to Jaded Times about the band, the scene, and ideas for their next record. I should also mention that Jake has a disturbing sense of humor and the tendency to leap into lengthy digressions about things like childbirth and pedophilia (a journalist's dream). You've been warned.

JT: Hi Jake. Are you available right now?

Jake: Are you asking me out?

JT: Well, yeah, because I often randomly call musicians and ask them out on dates. I find that's more successful than actually meeting them.

Jake: Well, yeah, totally, I'm ready to visit.

JT: The album that I have was released over a year ago. Do you have a new one that you are currently working on?

Jake: Yeah. We do. We haven't recorded any of the new stuff. We recorded a couple of songs with a buddy, but for the most part, we're waiting to go into the studio until October or November. We're going to try to get some more stuff recorded.

JT: How did you end up going through Crank! Records rather than the now oh-so-infamous Omaha label?

Jake: We recorded in this studio down in Lincoln with some friends of ours, and theyŠ.I'm sorry, I've got this runny nose so I sound like a freak.

JT: I'll try to ignore it, but you can just tell me that you're crying if you're crying.

Jake: Wow, I'm sobbing like a child! Why is this?

JT: I'm like Barbara Walters; I have that affect on people.

Jake: I like your style. So anyway, our friends ended up sending off our CD to the Crank! dudes. We weren't planning on sending off a CD. We were just going to make some music and then print off 1,000 CDs and sell them like we usually do. Because we'd been a band for a while we had become pretty disillusioned with the, "Hey, yeah, let's have somebody put out our record, that'll work!" You can't bank on that kind of stuff, so we just went ahead and printed up 1,000 of them and then Crank! gave us a call and approached us about putting it out, and it sounded like a pretty good deal. We went ahead and did the deal with them and they re-released it about a year later. So the album that you have, although it's a year old, it's actually so much older than that.

JT: Are you sick of it yet?

Jake: I just really want to record some new music, really bad. I mean, some of the songs were really fresh when we went into the studio, but god, none of them can be fresh now. It's impossible. There are a couple of ways of thinking about going out and going on tour and playing shows. Some people think that if you have a record out, you should play some songs off of it and support that.

JT: But you guys would rather play Van Halen covers, right?

Jake: Exactly! Play where your heart is at, and that's Van Halen! I mean, these guys have some big mouths, and that's cool!

JT: That's what I heard about you. So are you touring again?

Jake: Yeah, we're going to tour maybe in February or May, or maybe both. But in the meantime we are trying to get together a plan so we can record again.

JT: Are you recording at Presto?

Jake: I think so. Last night we were talking to A.J. [Mogis], he's our friend and worked on the last album, and he sounds kind of excited to do it and so if he's excited to do it then we are excited to work with him. Because I just bought a new microphone. See, I believe in magic, and so I bought this magic microphone.

JT: Like David Blaine?

Jake: Better! Like David Blaine with no underwear. So I bought this microphone from the Baltic Latvian Universal Electronics. I found out it was an anagram. I thought it was just blue, a blue microphone, because it is blue. I thought, "Oh, that's handy!" They made it the same color as the name, which is smart. It's easy for me to associate.

JT: That's some good marketing.

Jake: Well, they're aiming at some of the low brows like myself. Do you want to hear something sick and disturbing?

JT: Please.

Jake: This isn't another bathroom story though. I had this horrible dream last night. When I woke up, not too long ago, I was at this lake in the South West, and it was like I had been there for a long time because I had all of these friends there, and there was this girl coming to dock her boat. Have you ever driven a boat?

JT: Yes.

[Jake continued on for about 10 minutes describing some crazy nightmare involving a bomb, Armageddon, and making out with a small child.]

JT: Well, I'll understand if you are a little bit intense today, because it sounds like you had a heavy night. So, back to your band, I've noticed that with a lot of the Saddle Creek bands, the songwriter is the main focus and the rest of the band is somewhat interchangeable. The songwriter is the king. Do you think your band is similar? Is this your brainchild?

Jake: No, we're definitely a band in the traditional sense. I guess that mostly I'll come to practice with the songs and the lyrics and stuff, but it's not so much that I'm the master of ceremonies or anything. I just roll in and I have my ideas for songs. The songs usually will come with a vision of some sort. I don't mean any religious vision or burning bushes or anything.

JT: That could be a nice touch though.

Jake: Wouldn't that be so cool? I'm pretty sure that you'd be on the right track if you were to light one of those bushes on fire. No, it doesn't usually happen like that. It's more like you're guessing and trying your best to realize the vision that you had before. So really, my job is just to bring that across to the band and then they respond appropriately. Everybody has suggestions, everyone has input in the band. It's a band.

JT: Speaking of band members, do you have a new drummer, or are you still working with Bo Anderson?

Jake: We haven't really been working with Bo very much. He had to move out of town. He's a lawyer you know!

JT: I know.

Jake: And he's got a couple of pups. Actually, he has one pup and I think he's in the hospital while his wife is pooping out another one right now.

JT: Is that what they do? They poop them out?

Jake: I don't know! It's a mystery! Is that what happens? They put the curtain up on television and I never know what's going on. "Did that kid come out of her butt?! This is weird!"

JT: It's painful.

Jake: I know, I've had problems with just regular products, you know.

JT: No, uh, I don't know. We're back in the bathroom again.

Jake: Sorry, it's bound to happen. So yeah, Bo has been busy. He played in this tennis tournament... he's just so busy. So it's become pretty tricky to try and pull out everybody's efforts, to synchronize practices. So we've been working with Roger [Lewis, of The Good Life] and he went out on a tour with us and we had a good time. It's been really cool, the only trick is that we go out and play shows and sometimes, if we happen to have a fan in the audience (which doesn't happen all the time), they ask for a song and we're like, "Roger doesn't know that one." They're like, "What band is this?! Whose band is this?! It's your band, now play your songs jerk!"

JT: You have angry fans it sounds like.

Jake: They're tough. It's a shirtless, white-hat bunch. Rough and tumble.

JT: Do you have a pretty big fan base? Or do you notice that it's growing?

Jake: It may be growing, but it is like watching the plates shift. It's not all that sizeable. I think that it's kind of a select crew, a special club. It's like, uh, the Free Masons for example! They're just as secretive. I think people only listen to our CD in the bathroom actually. That's where all this bathroom humor comes from, because that's our normal venue.

JT: I read your extensive press kit and I saw that a lot of what you have been getting attention for is your lyrics. Is that an essential part to you? Are the lyrics as much a priority as the music?

Jake: To me, it is really important. I've always, this is going to sound a little fruity...

JT: Be fruity.

Jake: I've always liked poetry a lot. I would love for our music to be as affecting as some really good poetry. I'm always striving to do better. Many times you can get close and that is pretty much as good as you can do. It's like a medium for a message, and you try to get it through without screwing it up.

JT: So are you really that sad, or are you just trying to get chicks?

Jake: I don't know. My favorite emotion is sad anger. I believe in tragic stories and I think truth is always half sad and half hilarious and always kind of enlightening. I like to see that replicated in art, that's all. I don't know if it necessarily represents me. I guess I wouldn't sit here and pretend that all the songs are written about me and that this is my journal, my diary. It's not. They are like poems: the lyrics themselves aren't always autobiographical. Sometimes I don't think they are at all and people are coming up to me and slapping me in the mouth saying, "How dare you!" And then I'm like, "Hey, it's not about me and it's not about you." And then two years later I look at it and think, "Oh yeah, I can see how they might think...as a matter of fact it might be about you." I call them back up two years later, after they were able to let it go, and open that wound back up. "That thing festering at all? Nope? Let me see it."

JT: But that's every fan and audience member's fantasy, that everything is autobiographical.

Jake: Yeah, I know. Luckily for us, we don't have much of a front man or figurehead, and that may be why we lean away from it a little more than other groups. Because with a group like Bright Eyes, what else can you assume? And even with him, it probably isn't true all the time, but that is how you would take it. With us it is definitely not true all the time, and half the songs are written from somebody else's point of view, like Lucifer's point of view.

JT: I know that you have been asked about this a lot, but there is a lot of religious imagery on this album. I take it you are somewhat spiritual?

Jake: Like I was saying, I am kind of attracted to tragic stories, and I think that some of those religious stories are archetypes for some of the tragedies that go on in everybody's lives all the time. I don't follow it that closely. When you look at the songs closely, the songs aren't really evangelical in tone, but maybe more nasty.

JT: Musically, everyone talks about the three-guitarist thing. Now a day everyone has two drummers, but three guitarists is a lot of guitars for what they say is a pretty mellow band in general. You don't have all that many rockin' guitar solos, you know.

Jake: [Laughs] Yeah, we don't usually light guitars on fire or swing on a rope across the stage.

JT: Is being somewhat more down tempo just part the overall aesthetic of the band, or do you think that you will evolve and explore different styles?

Jake: Some people start other bands for the other styles of music that they like. A lot of people do that. And that is one of the things that I really like about this band is that all the guys are pretty open-minded, and I bring whatever strange song to the table and they are all willing to work with it if they think it has merit as a song. It doesn't have to be a style. I don't feel that I am willing to limit or curtail the songs. You don't get to choose the songs that come into your head, so it is your responsibility to get them out accurately. So if you just sit around saying, "Hey, that's not our style," then you are kind of fucking up. So we play whatever. I like the idea of evolving as a band, but I like to do it song to song and make them all exactly what they are and not change them into something that sounds like our band. I don't care if people know it's our band when they hear a song. Is the song decent, and does it speak to you? Hopefully it does.

JT: The album itself is pretty ecclectic.

Jake: That's what we are hoping for. We aren't trying to do that, but it is kind of how it works. We use the three guitarists sparingly. We just use them as more orchestration than wall of sound, Phil Spectre style, big, loud, hippy rock. We might have three guitars, but in a way that you will be able to hear what everybody's doing and make it compliment the song, hopefully.

JT: Are you going to try to stay as ecclectic on the next album?

Jake: I want to put together an album that makes sense as an album, in the classical sense. Rather than just a bunch of songs that happen to be ours, I want them to make sense together. I want it to feel good together. I'm pretty excited, really. I feel like we didn't hem ourselves in too much with what we've done in the past, so we're able to do whatever we want. It's funny, you get so excited at first because you are on a record label and so you read all the reviews, and I read the Buddyhead review, and all they did was write "Emo." That was our review, just a one word review, but with 16 Os and 5 Es.

JT: That sounds more like "Emu," like the bird. Maybe they meant that.

Jake: Maybe, or the keyboard. In any case, I think that maybe they went that way just because the record came out on Crank!, and maybe they didn't take the time to listen to it. I thought it was okay, but I stopped reading those things because some people just don't give you a chance. It's like playing chess: you don't like to win and you don't like to lose.

JT: Yeah, well making it on the critic's top 10 list at the L.A. Times is not exactly losing.

Jake: That was lucky I think. It was. It was nice. I hope we ever get the chance to go west, which we haven't gotten to do because the last couple of times it's been foiled.

JT: Well from the sound of things you have half of L.A. out in Omaha already. I have three friends who have recently moved from L.A. to come to Omaha and be a part of things. You people are recruiting musicians left and right. Have you noticed a big influx of people from outside?

Jake: Yeah, and you know, the thing that I find is the most common thing people say once they move into town from somewhere else is that they think the people are nice. And they say that people really laugh hard, and there are more dance parties where people actually dance here.

J.T.: Yeah, people don't dance in L.A. It's ridiculous.

Jake: And they don't dance in Chicago either! People tend to cut loose a little easier here. And I think we are just lucky to have a bunch of cool people running around and a lot of good friends who are easy to talk to and you feel comfortable to go ahead and strip down to your boxers or whatever and have your dance party.

J.T.: Everybody I talk to from out there mentions the people and the friends and the whole community, which is why it is getting so much attention from the press.

Jake: I think that is the phenomenon that deserves the attention: that you have a bunch of bands‹-not just bands,artists in general--who, when somebody does decent, extend a hand. It is just a little different way of doing things than the typical record label way of doing things. It is just like you are extending your hand to your friends and helping to pull them up so that people can recognize them for what you recognize them for. They are something special. That's what I love about this scene and I would like to see it happen everywhere. I would like to see that become the new force to be reckoned with when it comes to artistic ventures. To have people be respected by artists in order to get some sort of respect from fans and whoever else.

J.T.: Do you see the Omaha scene as being on its way up, or do you think that it has peaked? Because there have been some pessimistic articles recently about Omaha, and I just wonder how you feel about that.

Jake: I think pop culture is so fickle and so predictable. It happened here too: somebody got an underground copy of the Strokes CD right before it came out last year. Everybody is going like, "Holy shit! These guys are awesome!" And then as soon as they do well, you should have seen people jumping off that wagon! People were hurting themselves to distance themselves from that band. I thought it was embarrassing.

J.T.: That's how the whole music scene is, to anybody.

Jake: Anyone who does well. I think it is embarrassing, and it is a weakness in the art scene. So yeah, I can see a lot of people saying that. And you know, the phenomenon has never been Omaha, it's been this way of doing things, like we were talking about earlier. It wasn't Omaha in the first place. There are great bands in every city across the United States and probably all over the world that don't get heard, and the reason that they don't get heard is because it's a cutthroat, bullshit business where the bands actually step on each other to climb rather than pulling each other up. Pulling each other up is how you climb mountains, and it makes everybody's success a little slower. Yeah, you can stomp on somebody's face and jump up to another rock and yeah, you would go faster, but I think it's embarrassing to expose yourself as that kind of a person. People are always asking me about the Omaha phenomenon and I think that, like you said, people are misreading the phenomenon and thinking it has something to do with Omaha, and it doesn't. Lincoln, that town I was talking about, has a bunch of great bands too that are not getting any attention, and I can see why, if they were too bitter I could see why. I can see why a lot of people would get bitter, because people are running with this phenomenon in the totally wrong direction. They don't realize what it really is.

J.T.: I hope everything continues the way it is and, like you said, I really think that this should be the way it works in all the artistic communities around the country.

Jake: I know that it won't change for me because I believe in this way of doing things, and I know that we've got a bunch of friends that believe in it too. So I think around here it is going to stay the same. And whether or not it is the indie-darling city for eternity, who gives a fuck?

[At this point, Jake digressed once again to talk about bowling trophies and his friend's dog]

Neva Dinova's self titled album is currently available from Crank! Records.