SXSW Music Spotlight: An Interview with Jobber’s Kate Meizner
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With these experiences on her mind, Meizner started her new band Jobber, featuring former Ovlov and Speedy Ortiz drummer Mike Falcone, guitarist Michael Julius, and bassist Maggie Toth. The band’s sound pulls from the greatest aspects of ‘90s alternative, from sugary, synth-fueled hooks reminiscent of The Rentals, to muscular, heavy riffs akin to bands like Hum and Helmet. Conceptually, Jobber uses professional wrestling as a jumping-off point, addressing topics like labor issues and finding parallels between the worlds of touring musicians and sports entertainers.

“Wrestlers started speaking openly about the havoc that the lifestyle was wreaking on their health and their mental health and describing being overnight in a car for six hours, eating Wendy’s every night,” Meizner explains. “I saw the exact same situation I was in. I was like, ‘Holy moly, this is really similar.’”

Meizner had a passing interest in wrestling as a kid, mostly because it was something her parents forbid her from watching. She was reintroduced to the product as an adult when a bandmate from a past project was working as a music supervisor for World Wrestling Entertainment, or the WWE. 

“It just hooked me,” Meizner says. “I’m really drawn to any form of entertainment that involves a spectacle and is campy, but there’s also a lot to unpack about it.”

Finding the similarities between her life as a musician and a professional wrestler—the hours on the road, the low pay, the potential of performing for an empty venue or maybe even an openly hostile crowd—isn’t the only thing that drew Meizner to exploring wrestling as a metaphor. Meizner earnestly believes that professional wrestling can be a sort of funhouse mirror reflection of life. 

“[Wrestling] taps into a lot of the common emotions and motivations that people experience on a day-to-day basis,” Meizner says. “So it’s really easy to connect to emotionally for me, and I feel like a lot of the things, even in the storylines, can be relatable.”

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