KMXT 100.1 FM Public Radio in Kodiak, Alaska
Kayla Desroches/KMXT
A band that plays contemporary tunes with a retro, jazzy twist will visit Kodiak next week.
Postmodern Jukebox bass player Adam Kubota says the band is a collective, which means that band members cycle through.
“And it’s just some of the most talented people out there. People who’ve been on American idol, the voice, Broadway, who’ve played all over the world, there’s some of the top jazz musicians out there.”
Postmodern Jukebox came into the public light via YouTube.
Kubota says in 2013 they uploaded a jazz remake of Mackelmore’s Thrift Shop. He says that video went viral.
“It got like 100,000 views every night and Huffington Post and Buzzfeed were picking it up and I think within in a month it had like a 100 million views, and that was pretty mind-blowing to us.”
He says they’ve never been signed to a label, and that allows the band’s founder, Scott Bradlee, more artistic freedom. Kubota says he met Bradlee for the first time in graduate school and they met again in New York City.
Kubota has been playing bass with Postmodern Jukebox since its beginning and says he likes performing a lot of different styles of music, from hip hop to tango.
“I always thought it was really fun to sort of drive the rhythm and be the part of the band that’s responsible for being sorta shaking their booties, but also I like the versatility of it. I like that it gets in every type of music.”
Kodiak is the first stop in the band’s Alaska tour. After dropping by the island next Wednesday for a 7 p.m. performance at the Gerald C. Wilson Auditorium, the band will head to Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau.
