The Judex is Coming to Get You (But Maybe You Want to Get Them...)

You better run when The Judex comes.

If you’re in France, this advisory doesn’t need much explanation. But it’s about to become good advice everywhere else, too, especially on the East Coast here in the U.S.A. Perhaps it doesn’t make sense to you right now, but here at Garagerocktopia we’re about to tell you why you aught might want to pay attention.

In France, the Judex is a fictional but fabled anti-crime crusader. In the City of Brotherly Love, though, it’s a brand-spanking new band that’s planning to kick some behind on a massive scale. Singer William Byron gets it right down to beans and weenies.

“Our motto and mission statement is this,” declared Byron. "’The Judge’ is coming for all suckers, suckers being self-indulgent bands, emotional manipulators, and all the bullies, poseurs, and emo bearded hipster mother you-know-whats of the world. You heard.”

And to our ears, the Judex has exactly the right sound to back all this up. The band dishes up a brass-knuckle blend of garage, proto-punk and psychobilly, with maybe just a dash of country thrown in, ingredients acknowledged by Byron. But he had a few more in the pantry, too.

“There’s some of that, some consciously and some of it not, as well as the usual elements of soul and glam,” explains Byron, who along with bassist Sean Patrick, responded to our queries by email. “I myself find it difficult to describe our music accurately, which is why we usually settle with the all-inclusive 'Rock and Roll'. We are, at heart, a garage band playing a very relatable type of rock and roll... a greaser ethos with working class heart.”

The other members of the Judex are guitarist J and drummer Dalton.

Byron and Patrick listed a variety of influences for the band’s music, most of whom, by our thinking, are required listening for anyone thinking of putting together a punk or garage band, a set of artists and bands that are mournfully under-appreciated by the mainstream.

“It varies for each member of The Judex,” said Byron. “For me, right now, there’s a lot of Jesse Hector, Link Wray, Little Richard, Lacey Spacecake, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, The Monkees, Otis Redding, Shangri-Las. I've also been scouring for obscure garage bands who put out records on fly-by-night labels.”

“I share a lot of the stuff I discover with J because he and I share that kind of stuff with each other the most in the band. Whenever you talk to Dalton, you're inevitably gonna hear about prog rock. Our secret is out.”

“Black Sabbath and the original Misfits- with Glenn Danzig are also inspirations,” added Patrick.

While the band the Judex is new, its members are veterans at cranking out high-octane rock and roll. Their previous bands have come and gone, but make no mistake, Byron says – with this combo everyone is here to play for keeps.

“We were in bands before together, and in bands apart,” explained Byron. “There was a conscious effort with The Judex to describe it as "not our next band, but our last band." For each of us, we're putting all of our good faith creative energies into The Judex, and it represents all the things we wanna do that we may have held back on or compromised before. And that approach and philosophy seems to be working for us.”

“All four of us played together in different variations as teenagers- and we had some regional success. Being kids in Delaware, we would gig every week and we built up early stage experience. We also did some touring up to Florida and appeared on college radio. I hadn't met Dalton (drums) until he joined The Judex, but he played with Sean and J on another project. I had heard that and was aware of him.”

Patrick, Byron and company understood that they had the option of making music-by-numbers, earn some change doing so, and maybe even have fun doing it, a common conclusion for many. Instead, they figured a better thing to do was to channel all that hard work into building their own musical vision.

“I had spent a year singing in a rockabilly band in New York and I loved it,” Byron recounted. “The guys in it were absolutely fantastic, some of my favorite people and players. But you know, it wasn’t a band. It was a project. There's nothing wrong with a project that plays covers of those old Memphis songs and, in fact, I loved doing it. But I started to realize my heart was yearning to write and record and be myself again, rather than just this aspect of myself.”

“Sean was a guy I always had great chemistry with and great respect for, so we started talking and we discovered we had the same philosophy on where musicians and where the general state of our bands were at.”

Patrick recounted that he, Byron and J and Dalton had all played together before, and that they all shared similar feelings about the music scenes of which they on occasion were part.

“William and I started talking again about two years ago and we wanted to do something to change the face of today's scene,” said Patrick. “All four of us caught the tail end of the old way of music scenes, before it degenerated into what we have today, a scene devoid of all the things that drew us into music in the first place. It wasn't long before I brought in J, and then J in turn brought in Dalton.”

That anyone would name a band the Judex immediately piqued our interest. Besides the French crime fighter, “Judex” is also the Latin word for “judge.” Members say that the naming of their new group went beyond having a nice ring.

“It fit the overall personality of what this band is about, how we perform, what we should sound like,” said Byron. “We recognized a long time ago that people were going to misconstrue and misunderstand us anyway. By that, I mean that we come off as judgmental. But as I often say, there's a difference between an judgment and an observation.”

“We have a real gang mentality and code, and it describes us as a faction. We want people to think  ‘there goes The Judex’ rather than ‘those are the guys in The Judex.’”

If you know nothing else about American East Coast cities like Philadelphia, you have probably heard these metropoli can be very tough places, where milquetoasts need not apply. Yes, that’s a stereotype, but like some, contains much truth. And Byron makes it clear that the Judex is not some artsy-fartsy combo. This is a group of guys whocan’t wait to get their hands dirty.

“The Judex isn't middle-class and I say that with no bitterness about it,” Byron makes clear. “We're very blue-collar in this band. Two of the guys work construction. They risk hand injuries and the like. Our work and our schedule can be exhausting and demanding. I have a lot of respect for these guys. They don't complain when they have to come straight from concrete work and then rehearse for two hours.”

The Judex applies that working-class attitude to making themselves known. While perhaps they haven’t yet scored a “Coolest Song in the World,” the band is building its base of support, winning accolades from garage rock and punk blogs, podcasts, and gaining airplay on internet radio stations.

“Promotion hasn’t been too tough yet, but it also hasn't started yet,” Byron commented. “I'm hoping relentless promotion and performing begats word of mouth and so forth, the general route of the underground rock band.

“We have great supporters in broadcasting who clearly have impeccable taste. Greg Lonesome with ‘Rock N Roll Manifesto’ has been regularly playing our records since the beginning, simply due to his own enthusiasm and belief over what we're doing. ‘Radio Free Brooklyn’ has our stuff in regular rotation and we just guested on their show ‘The Rodent Hour,’ so we have no complaints. There's been a great response from great shows about The Judex and we're very appreciative about it.”

“We've been fortunate to have some coverage by some very cool blogs and sites that we're regular readers of and that we support. I believe most bands can relate though, that things never happen as fast as you'd like. We purposely held off performing throughout 2017 and have no regrets about it- we're hoping to gig non-stop throughout this year and build up a reputation as a fierce live act.”

“I completely believe in our songs and I completely believe that there are people who are waiting for such music and simply aren't getting it. We'll see if I'm right.”

Helping the band turn a few ears has been a little less challenging than expected. Patrick gives credit to the band’s ability to keep it real.

“Surprisingly, promoting the band hasn't been as difficult as I had originally thought it would be,” Patrick observed. “If I had to guess, maybe it's because William is relentless and tireless when it comes to promotion. I also think people are ready for something ‘real’ and are just sick to death of garbage music and half-hearted or dead scenes.”

“Yes, we have to work day jobs. It's soul crushing and keeps us exhausted. Yet we refuse to give up!”

We are old enough here at this blog to have actually come up during a time when it was normal that rock and roll bands wrote and performed their own music, maybe once in a while tossing in a well-chosen cover or two. Over the last few decades, though, bands have copied other bands more and more, to the point now where, if it’s bookings they’re looking for, they have to become a cover band or, in one of the more unfortunate trends in rock and roll of late, a tribute band, playing no originals at all.

Here at Garagerocktopia, we personally know musicians who make obscene gestures at this game -- and pay the price for it. But the Judex say, in no uncertain terms, that they’re not going to participate in this nonsense either.

“There's never a temptation to play covers or be generic in any way,” Patrick confirms. “We do what we do, like it or not. If we fail to make money, so be it. At least we made some cool (effin’) records to be proud of, for the few with good taste and passion to enjoy. I will, though, add that I find greed to be the most deplorable of all human defects. It never ceases to disgust me.”

“It wouldn't work for this band anyhow,” Byron adds. “There's a notable divide over this issue, I've observed many working musicians playing covers now, as it's the only way they can get booked and I understand that and certainly wouldn't judge it, especially as I shared that I was in a rockabilly cover band last year. But it really connects to what you're expecting from playing in a band anymore the climate has changed, sure, so you adapt to it however you can.”

“We're in The Judex because we have no choice. As pretentious as that sounds, the artist is compelled. Each of us plays rock and roll because we have to. We'd be doing it alone in a room if we weren't doing it in a studio, so we might as well go into the studio.”

“We're concentrating on the whole of the East Coast and will go anywhere,” Said Byron. “New York, Connecticut, Boston, Baltimore, D.C.- we intend to stay proactive and the travel doesn't phase us.”

“The only real challenge is that many clubs want to know your touring experience and things of that nature, and we inevitably have to explain that we haven't performed live yet, which then inevitably makes it sound as if we're some sort of amateurish, unprofessional project. That can work against us to a degree if the club isn't aware we all have years of live and touring experience and have been slowly building a following by releasing our material.”

The Judex are planning to make 2018 a breakout year and are pulling out all the stops to make it happen. The band already has lots of stuff in the works.

“We’re planning to take over the territories and consolidate the regions,” said Byron. “Our goals always remain staying busy, staying active, and having a steady release pattern of singles and eps- as long as we're working, we're good. If we can get to Europe for a tour before the year is out- that would be the biggest goal for sure- but we have some good supporters in the UK ready to assist.”

Adds Patrick: “Our goals are releases and tours- both stateside and overseas. We have singles, another EP, plus a full-length album in the works.”