Gentle Jones, also known as The Dark Lord Of Prices Corner, is a musical artist and skateboarder from Delaware. His new album Wonders Beyond Belief is full of humor and amazing music, it might be one of the best releases of 2024. There is nobody in the world like this dude. Recently Gentle sat down to talk with SK8 COACH ZINE about his influences and experiences growing up in the United States.
SK8 COACH: Monstrous greetings from Perú, Gentle! How are things going out there?
GENTLE JONES: Howdy, Diego! Things are going great in beautiful Prices Corner, Delaware. Hello to everyone in Peru who is reading your blog!
SC: Brother, tell us how you recorded this killer project called Wonders Beyond Belief and how did you get started as Gentle Jones?
GJ: I've been performing and recording as Gentle Jones for over 30 years, putting out new music every year since I began. I've done shows with Murphy's Law, The Wailers, Sadat X, Condemned 84, Cappadonna from the Wu-tang Clan, plus many others all over the country and overseas. The most insane show I ever did was with Bad Luck 13, when they hit the stage they threw fireworks into the crowd and then a dude jumped in the pit and started swinging a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire with nails in it! This shit was total mayhem! The whole building was so full of smoke from the firecrackers and roman candles you couldn't see the dude standing next you, you just hear explosions and see fire shooting everywhere! The club owners shut them down after like 2 songs and threw everybody out into the streets! Show over! It was an amazing gig, for sure the most dangerous concert I ever performed at, seemed like anybody could of got killed at any moment. I was a blast! Not too long ago I did a concert in North Carolina with MC Homeless and The Emotron, that was spectacular. The Emotron is great, his music is dark and heavy and kind of trippy. In between songs he does tricks you would not believe. At one point during the show Emotron strips all the way down to his underwear. Then he takes off the underwear and there's another underwear beneath, he wraps one of the underwear over his head and around his arm, then he takes off another underwear and there is a third underwear still there! He takes the second underwear and wraps it around his leg and his elbow, and he keeps taking off one underwear at a time and wraps it around his body and I swear he must have taken off like a hundred underwear to where his arms and his legs and his body are all tangled up in underwear and he is hopping on one foot. Then he lit his balls on fire! The audience went crazy!
My new album Wonders Beyond Belief is my finest moment, I am super proud of how it came out. I recorded it with some of my best and oldest friends, dudes I've known for decades. This is the record that really captures the range of songs I perform live. Because I sing and I rap and I don't stick to a particular genre. I love music of all types and I respect all sorts of songwriters so my perspective on music is very broad. So I got to experiment with some new styles and this record turned out to be my greatest artistic triumph. I had so much fun with this project. The first single is called The Day I Became A Robot and I did a music video that turned out funny as hell.
SC: Since Gentle Jones is a mixture of styles, tell me what are your influences?
GJ: When I was a little kid I sang in church and my grandparents played country music. My gramma played guitar and sang, my granddad played the fiddle and piano, and he called square dances too. I listened to the radio alot and I knew all the pop bands. But when I went into Middle School I was maybe 13 or 14 and I started to hear about punk rock bands and metal bands and rap music and I really got into underground music. As a teenager I was into thrash metal, New York hardcore, I loved hip-hop music too. At the same time I listened to alot of jazz music and big bands. Basically any record I could find I would check out because there was so much music that I discovered that would blow me away. I never would have guessed that one day Metallica would be the biggest band in the world and Ice Cube would be a movie star. That seemed so impossible to me back then because most people thought underground music was for maniacs. But now so many of those albums are considered classics, when back in the day they were not big records at all.
When I learned about punk rock I saw there were cats making their own music, getting it recorded themselves, doing their own artwork, getting the money together to press the record up themselves and then going out doing shows with friends. That really made the lightbulb turn on for me, I realized I could do anything I want, write any kind of songs I want, and do it exactly the way I like. That was an inspiring time, it set me on the path I am still on today.
SC: Do you like horror movies? What are your Top 5?
Dude, I love horror movies. From all eras too, I mean I will watch anything with Vincent Price in it, I think the Evil Dead movies are hilarious, but also I enjoy more modern stuff too like Pan's Labyrinth, in fact I am a big fan of everything Guillermo Del Toro does. I also dig alot of Sword and Sorcery flicks like Conan the Barbarian and the Lord of the Rings movies which have some excellent dark moments.
It's hard to pick a Top 5 because I've seen hundreds, but these are 5 horror films I can watch over and over:
5: Evil Dead (1981) - Evil Dead 1 and 2 and Army of Darkness are a total blast, they never get old to me.
4: Dracula (1931) - Bela Lugosi as Dracula is just too good. I love all of the classic Universal monster movies too. But this one might be my favorite Universal horror picture, the tone is perfect. I do like the silent film Nosferatu and the Shadow of the Vampire movie with Willem Defoe from 2000 as well, Dracula is just a timeless character to me.
3: Bad Taste (1987) - This flick was made by Peter Jackson way before the Lord of the Rings movies. It's an absolutely ridiculous film full of jokes and gore. Back in High School me and my best friend would rent this movie every weekend and laugh our asses off.
2: Gremlins (1984) - This is my favorite Christmas movie of all time, we watch it every year. I think it's perfectly made.
1: Night of the Living Dead (1969) - I saw this movie at a drive-in theater when I was a little kid and it scared the shit out of me. The movie is so nuts on the big screen and it made me fall in love with crazy stories from the fringes of society. It's a stone cold classic.
SC: Tell me about where you live.
Where I live is Prices Corner in Delaware, just a few miles from U.S. President Joe Biden's house. We are on the East Coast of the United States just at the edge of the Appalachian mountains, where the mountains turn into rolling hills. It's a region called the Upper Piedmont. Basically right up the street from me is a forest and in the other direction is the City of Wilmington, which is right on a river. My house is just near what's called the Mason-Dixon line, which is basically the border of what is considered the North and the South in the United States. It's a beautiful place, you would love it. To me it's the finest place in the world.
I've never been to Peru but I've seen plenty of pictures and it looks amazing, I'd love to visit Peru someday.
SC: How long have you been skating?
I started skateboarding in 1979 when I was just a little kid and never quit skating. In 1992 I had my photo in Thrasher and then in 1995 I went to California and skated in contests for a couple of years, won trophies in most of them. In fact, 1996 I got first prize for the whole year that season as an amateur. Got my name in Thrasher and Transworld a handful of times for those contests. I still skate and we have a great scene in Delaware. We finally got a few good skateparks close to my house. Since I live right between New York City and Washington, DC there have always been tons and tons of street spots for 100 miles in any direction. Also, I've designed several skateboards over the years and I've got a new board out now, pressed up by Paul Schmitt. I think Paul's skateboard board factory is the greatest there ever was, so its a real honor to get to make decks with him.
Living in California for those couple of years I skated with so many of my old skate heroes while they were still ripping. I skated a bunch with Hosoi and he was such a powerful skater, truly amazing to watch. One time in 1996 I was skating at this perfect ditch out in Las Vegas when Tony Alva pulls up by himself and we just session the shit out of this amazing fast and super long ditch, just me and him. I don't think we even talked for an hour, we just were tearing this ditch apart and stoking each other out. At the end of the session Tony told me I was ripping and he gave me the shoes off his feet. What an honor! And guess what they fit me perfect! They were black suede custom sneakers that had ALVA embroidered in Silver on the tongue, I never saw a pair before or since. For me they were lucky shoes, I skated so good when I wore them. I tore those shoes to bits. I wish I had saved them because they are probably rare as hell, but to me they were like Cinderella's magic slippers. I skated the shit out of them. And Tony was in his 30s at the time and he was still ripping so I was totally inspired to keep skating until I can't skate anymore. Now that I am over 50 everything is so much different for me but skating is still just as fun as when I was a little kid. I wrote a song about it called Ballad Of A Fifty Year Old Skateboarder which you can find on my new album from any streaming service.
SC: Where can people find you online?
GJ: If you want to check out my videos you can see them on youtube.com/gentlejones and if anybody is looking for records or skateboards I have them up at gentlejones.bigcartel.com
SC: What are you working on in the future?
GJ: The past few months I've been recording with some amazing jazz musicians, Paul Woznicki and Ron Pecqueur, we've been getting together and laying down some wild stuff. We've pretty much got a whole new album finished but we might record a few more songs before it's all complete. It's going to be a bugged out record, I think you will dig it. For right now I am working on some new videos from Wonders Beyond Belief so if you stay tuned into my youtube channel you will see more of that soon.
SC: Thanks GJ for your time chatting with SK8 COACH ZINE!
GJ: Diego, thank you so much for chatting with me, it's a real pleasure! Glad to know Peru has a cool skate community of folks that love underground music just like my friends out here in Delaware!
CONTACT: https://gentlejones.bigcartel.com/
