FunkyJahPunkys

When they took the HEMPFEST stage at 4:20, the FunkyJahPunkys jammed it up beyond belief and the crowd went totally wild singing along to their stoner song "We Grow It". The vibe was so electric from 50,000 fans going crazy, dancing to the pure, raw energy of frontman Justin Gulley, and the message of the song, that you could feel there was something much bigger than music involved -- and that was unity of spirit.

--by Aaron Briese - Vegas Rocks! Magazine

Posted by Justin Moyer on Oct. 26, 2009, at 2:38 pm

In which the author converses with Justin Gully, frontman of Las Vegas’ FunkyJahPunkys.

Washington City Paper: You seem to be called Giant J.

Giant J: I try not to answer to that name. It’s grown bigger than me. I’m 5’4”, 115 lbs. I appear large when we start doing our thing. [Author's note: "our thing" refers to the FunkyJahPunkys energetic musical performances.]

How did you earn the nickname Giant J?

I’m a large character. It started from years back. I don’t wanna promote fistfighting, but I’m a little guy that will probably kick a big guy’s ass. I always wanna be as big as possible. Everything about me and what I’m doing is bigger than it should be.

“Giant J” has nothing to do with THC?

The joint part of it…no. But that would kick in at any moment because there is always a joint hanging out of my mouth.

I’m really confused about your ideology. You guys are from the Northwest, but then you were a band in Southern California, but now you live in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, you are funky, but you’re also positive punks, but also Rastas—

When you get into Black Flag or the Circle Jerks or the Sex Pistols, they weren’t necessarily negative. Maybe during their time they didn’t have a Hot Topic making their style cool. They were perceived negatively, but when you get into what they were telling kids to do, they weren’t negative. “God Save the Queen” is negative, but it is an issue for that time.
[The author contemplates possible positive meanings of the Sex Pistols sarcastic anthem "God Save the Queen" and supposes that, in a way, that anthem could be interpreted positively had the Sex Pistols not represented (and lived) total nihilism).]

So you’re saying there’s a positivity in the negativity of the message?

There’s a negativity to be found in that moment, but that negativity was spawned by…the government of their time…I don’t think they were trying to say that we need to live in a world that’s worse than the one we live in now. I think they had rightful complaints and were singing in hopes of changing that.
We have a song called “Fight the World” on our first album. People take it as a negative thing…if you don’t hear what I’m talking about, you can put negative overtones on it. But it’s not negative. I want [kids] to fight back. I’m not saying they should grab pitchforks and put in it in the chest of every guy with a suit. [I'm saying they should] be Thomas Jefferson.

But you are also Rastas—
We just happen to have dreadlocks. I am not a Rasta—I’m not an anything. My mother is a Buddhist, my dad is a Green Beret. I’m on both sides of the fence. I’m fully willing to take a deep breath and tackle problems like a logical man. If you’re a drunken asshole at a show, I will knock you the fuck out. I don’t have a religion. I don’t believe we have answers to “What are we here for?”

What about your geography?

I’m from the West Coast. I’m from Southern California…We love reggae, but we appreciate the white boy’s West Coast. Jack Johnson, Sublime…that’s reggae, but if you take that shit to Jamaica, they ain’t having it.
Our ideology is tattooed on all of our arms. “Think free, live free.” That’s a vague statement trying to do a interview about it. I know that’s a cliché, but it’s a cliché because it’s true.

So you’re a positivist. A humanist.

We’ll take that.

But what about Vegas?

This band started as a joke to open up for another band. The joke became my fantasy lived out.
Southern Cali was my home, [but] I owned a 1,000-cap venue called the Old Shipwreck in Tacoma. [Giant J relates the FunkyJahPunkys epic genesis story: the head chef of the Old Shipwreck is "Mr. Black," the FJP's guitarist. After the band formed, it relocated to Southern California.] I got home and was looking for the scene I grew up in. The scene I was looking for wasn’t there anymore. We started playing where we could—playing Vegas once a month—and we found it here.
Some of the most hippie motherfuckers that I deal with are here in Vegas. There are drum circles in Red Rock. Vegas is a huge melting pot. It’s a loving community that I dig a lot.
We don’t live on the Strip. We’re not down on the Strip hanging out looking for hookers…we live on an acre 8 miles from the strip. One of the houses is for the band, the other is for my wife, mother-in-law, and daughter. We all work together and live in one place and make it possible. Once a month, we host a PCP Family Barbecue to prove that Vegas isn’t the question you asked. [Author's note: "PCP" doesn't refer to the popular arylcyclohexylamine derivative, but to Pacific Coast Pirates, the FJP's Vegas-based record label.]

If I’m ever down on shit to write about, I just go to the strip on a Saturday night. I just go see the people that didn’t mean to spend their mortgage. When you put that much greed and sin all in one spot, you see some visible negativity. The best negativity is at the gas station at Stateline. That’s where you see the losers really losing. You see a poor guy with his wife and kids and see how bad every decision he made that weekend turned out.

I think I’ve been in that gas station a couple of times.
[Author's note: this is, literally and figuratively, true.]
I haven’t had a drunk in nine years. I was a full-blown ulcered alcoholic at 22.

How’d you get out of it?

Hitting rock bottom. Seeing as bad as I could foreseeable be while knowing I had so much love and opportunity available to me.
I grew up in a Partyville, I knew the right people. I could do anything I wanted. My brother was older than me and involved in selling everything. I partied hard. I love drinking to this very day. God, I wish I could have a drink…Alcohol owns me, bro. I drink a 12-pack of nonalcoholic beers at every show.

That’s hardcore.

We tell every venue to have it. I’d love to have a real beer, but I’d have 12 shots of tequila afterward.

How did you guys get involved with Ice-T for the song “Corporate Takeover?”

One of the bands on PCP—a band called Colombyne—has a 400-pound rapper Pauly Mac used to be with 187. He lives in Vegas…he’s a nephew of Ice-t. Ice put him through college. That was the personal connection that made this possible. Ice-T gave me a small chance for people to notice…if not for Ice, you wouldn’t be talking to me from Washington, D.C.
[Author's note: Giant J is right. The author---a huge fan of Body Count, O.G. Original Gangster, the film New Jack City, and the survivor of a mosh-related injury incurred at a Body Count show at the Trocadero Club in Philadelphia in December 1993---received a press release from PCP Records in re: Ice-T's appearance on the FJP song "Corporate Takeover," contacted Giant J in the hope of interviewing Ice-T, and only requested to interview Giant J after finding his lifestyle, ideology, and general modus operandi, if not his aesthetics, diverting. In this small way, Giant J is a postmodern American hero: He, an artist who desires attention, has found a found a way to get it, and received it.]
- Washington City Paper

8/21/2008
by Jeremy Adams


The first time I walked into the house that hosts the Funky Jah Punkys’ weekly barbecue concert, SpongeBob SquarePants was playing on the TV. The next time, it was Scooby Doo. Seemingly odd associations for a band with songs titled “Fight the World” and “Third World War.” But that’s the FJPs’ secret.

“We’re positive, man,” singer Justin “Giant J” Gulley says. “We’re rebels.”

Rebels with ambition. After meeting at a seafood restaurant in Tacoma, Washington-Gulley owned the joint; guitarist Scott Vaughn was its head chef-the Punkys made their way to Canyon Lake, California, and eventually to Las Vegas. Initially a punk-rock outfit, the group quickly diversified its sound to include ska, reggae and funk, not unlike a young Red Hot Chili Peppers. “Diversity is our key,” says Vaughn, who goes by the stage name “Mr. Black.”

Though the Punkys share in the subversive politics of SoCal punk forefathers like Black Flag, X and Social Distortion, they’ve managed to retain a sense of fun. They throw the barbecue every Sunday at their Vegas home, and they’re proud that their music has attracted a growing local following. “We found a scene,” Gulley says. “We have friends in every city that touches the beach.”

They scoff at the notion, however, that the band and its fans are merely goofy, harmless hippies. “We eat meat, bro,” Gulley notes. Beneath their stoner façade lies a marketing machine, inspired partly by Gulley’s two famous partners: adult-film star and Playboy television personality Inari Vachs (his wife) and celebrity snowboarder Shawn Farmer (his close friend). “We’ve attacked this,” Gulley says.

At present, the FJP brand includes their Pacific Coast Pirates record label, a self-published fanzine entitled IOE FREE and a night-club in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica, called The Beach Monkey.

Still, a recent show at Zia Record Exchange was all about the music, with the band playing tracks from its newest album, Third World War, along with material from older disc Corporate Takeover. Mr. Black, bassist Chris “JahBassy” Zerchot and drummer Chris “O’Klaus” Olthoff proved a cohesive launching pad for the Iggy Pop-esque stage antics of Giant J, and musically, the group sounded solid. They still need to find a more coherent identity-ideally one that allows their political messages to caome across more powerfully-but for how, they’re just having a good time.

“We basically do as we like,” Gulley says. Even if that means watching SpongeBob in their spare time.
- Las Vegas Weekly

FunkyJahPunkys on lessons from The Hoff, memorable tour moments and New Year's resolutions

By JASON BRACELIN
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL


They describe it as "Rage Against The Clashing Peppers," but that doesn't even begin to encapsulate the (barely) controlled chaos that is the sound of the Funkyjahpunkys. Their shows are manic outbursts of energy, their tunes are boundless and they always seem to be having the time of their lives. Read on as the band lets us in on the fun.

What do the FunkyJahPunkys sound like?

"We sound like a 'damn good time' as once described by a drunken redneck man. It's hard to say how punk, rock, reggae, funk and anything else we're into when we're writing is described as one sound. Other bands you've heard of, that use this level of diversity, are the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, the Clash, Oingo Boingo, but they did it throughout whole careers. We try it on every album."

You guys list the immortal David Hasselhoff as an influence. What life lessons have you learned from The Hoff?

"Since we all help raise (frontman) Giant J's daughter, we would have to say the best lesson we've learned from The Hoff is don't get belligerently wasted and let your kid video you making an ass out of yourself for a YouTube premiere. He's one hell of a marketing wizard, too."

You toured Central America in D.I.Y. fashion, which is quite a feat for a self-sustained band such as yourselves. What kind of experience was that?

"We also list ourselves as being partly from Costa Rica, which sits in the middle of Central America. For us, it's a home away from home and J's daughter is a Tico (person from Costa), so it's cool.

"As for the other parts, things can get weird to say the least. The moment that stands out best would have to be the Cultural Center show in downtown San Jose. It's the old facility where they used to make the national liquor, guaro. There were bike jumps and skate ramps set up all around the stage (in a fashion that would make a U.S. insurance company poop themselves). And the riders used it all while we played. The news camera, crazy children and overall controlled mayhem made that show quite memorable. We even changed 'Let's Go' to 'Vamonos' for the Spanish folk."

'08 is almost over, any New Year's resolutions for '09?

"To keep going! We have built our own label (Pacific Coast Pirates), gotten national distribution, we successfully tour the Pacific Coast at will and are poised to build a true company that can help these places we live in. We're ready for an investor at PcP Inc., so if some grubby lil' rich dude is reading this ... bankroll us."
- Las Vegas Review-Journal