Jason Pollock sits down for an interview in clothes that wouldn’t have looked out of place when he was the lead guitarist for ’90s rock band Seven Mary Three–gray graphic tee, layered with a worn black hoodie and a flannel. It’s easy to forget that Pollock left the spotlight of that platinum-selling quartet more than 25 years ago.
For the past 18 years, he’s been “blissfully toiling in obscurity” in North Garden with his band The Pollocks. After the release of the group’s first full-length album in 2015 (which followed five unofficial recordings and countless gigs), the band produced two more records without fanfare, and grew a loyal local following owing to regular Batesville Market shows, but didn’t tour widely, and mostly “went by the wayside,” Pollock says.
The Pollocks will look to change that on May 30 with a concert and proper release party for Love You, the band’s fourth official LP. “We’re actually giving it the attention that it’s worth,” Pollock says.
Recorded at Sound of Music Studios in Richmond with Dan Deckelman, the newest effort features a sound bigger than The Pollocks have attempted in the past. Where the first three LPs—Johnny Sunshine and the Rainbows, Set and Setting, and Rock House—were captured in a small studio, Sound of Music is essentially an old warehouse, lending Love You a natural reverb that grows the instrumentation, particularly the percussion. “We’ve been missing that big drum sound,” Pollock says.
The new record, naturally, is a collection of songs about love. If that sounds cliché, Pollock doesn’t mind. “There are only so many emotions you can write about, you know. It’s like love, death, money, no money,” he says. “Paul McCartney said the thing he was most proud of about The Beatles was that most of their songs are about love. I feel the same way about these songs.”
According to Pollock, his five-piece band has entered its most creatively productive period, with another record all but completed alongside Love You. The Pollocks’ roster has steadied in the past nine years, and band members have looked to enhance their online presence alongside the songwriting proliferation. “We’re just thriving and making great music,” Pollock says. “We honestly can’t wait for shows to be over so we can hang out together.”
Pollock wrote Love You with collaborator Thomas Gunn and credits the rest of the five-piece—his wife, Maryline Meyer-Pollock, bassist Randy Mendicino, and drummer Nathan West—with rounding out The Pollocks’ evolving sound.
“Before, Thomas and I were saying, ‘Here’s how the song goes. This is what we want, and play this,’” Pollock says. But after the COVID-era brought the members together in unexpected ways, “everybody started to have their own voice, and it became much more of a band.”
The frontman hopes Love You marks a turning point for The Pollocks. Well into his second act as a musician, he knows that turning point won’t be toward fame and fortune. But he hopes it will be toward putting the music he and his bandmates are passionate about in front of new audiences.
“It’s really something that we do because we love it. We love the human connection,” Pollock says. “There’s nothing better than going to play a show where there are a lot of people who have never seen you play, have them sit down, stay and watch you, and come up after the show to say, ‘Wow, where have you guys been?’”
The Pollocks will host a release party for Love You, the band’s fourth official LP, on May 30 at the Rivanna Roots concert series. Details at frontporchcville.org.
