Jr. Anti-Sex League hasn’t disbanded.
At least, not officially.
Although members of the popular local quartet haven’t played a show together since November—and recently went two months without logging into their MySpace page—the youthful rockers say they haven’t closed the book on JASL entirely, terming the current situation an “indefinite hiatus.”
“We’re on a break, but I don’t think it’s done, necessarily,” singer and guitarist Brian Cantrell says. “We just got too busy, and ran out of places to play that we liked.”
Offers drummer Brett Bolton: “I don’t know if we’re calling it quits. We’ve just decided to do other things. We all had some new ideas, and we’re just not that into [Jr. Anti-Sex League] right now. We kinda got burned out on it.”
Founded by Cantrell and bassist Jason Parker while Cantrell attended Walter Johnson Junior High and Parker attended Palo Verde High (they’re now 20 and 25, respectively), Jr. Anti-Sex League quickly became a favorite among area teens, playing more than 250 all-ages shows at now-shuttered venues such as the Huntridge Theatre, the Castle and the Alley.
The group survived several lineup adjustments, one of which saw Cantrell and Parker put the breaks on JASL in 2005 to join Bolton and new frontman Ian Shane Tyler in Red Light School District. That band opened for The Killers at the Hard Rock Hotel and completed a never-released full-length album before dissolving and prompting the return of Jr. Anti-Sex League, with current guitarist Eric Zellner on guitar and keyboards.
“When we put it back together after Red Light broke up, maybe it was a little too hurried,” Parker says. “We had grown up and grown out of it a little bit, even at that point.”
Upon reuniting, JASL attempted to reach an older audience, making inroads into the Downtown bar scene. But efforts to preserve the band’s legacy with officially released recorded material were less successful. “That’s a bit discouraging, that we never came up with a finished product,” Cantrell says. “We’re ready to move on, but we never really finished what we started.”
Though plans to practice or perform remain on hold, the four members of Jr. Anti-Sex League say they remain in close contact—“We’re still really good friends,” Bolton insists—with Cantrell currently working with Parker on one new musical endeavor and jamming with Zellner on another. Bolton has launched a new project of his own, Kid Meets Cougar, with girlfriend Courtney Carroll of Love Pentagon and The Clydesdale. And Parker can be found spinning records around town under the name DJ Va Jay Jay.
myspace.com/jaslmusic; myspace.com/kidmeetscougar; myspace.com/djvajayjay