After almost a decade away, letlive. are back. As they prepare to bring their incendiary, livewire hardcore to the UK, Jason Aalon tells Kerrang! how it all ended last time, why now, and the long road to their return…
On March 30, eight years after imploding without so much as a farewell smooch, letlive. returned.
They had, of course, played the 250-capacity Chain Reaction club in Anaheim many times before, as both opening an act and headliners – a rite of passage for any band in the California scene. But this show was different. That night saw the re-emergence of one the world’s most explosive hardcore bands.
Blood, sweat and beers were shed, limbs thrown, bodies projected, hearts filled. Afterwards, iconic frontman Jason Aalon found himself sat, wide-eyed, trying to compute what just happened.
“This time felt like every one of those shows we’ve played here. From the first time, when I was really excited to be there, to the last time, when I felt so confident because people gave a fuck about us. But this show was a portal to understanding what this project meant to people.”
Jason is still pondering the gig three weeks later and 6,500 miles away. It’s 7pm in Auckland and he’s sitting in a dimly-lit room. The house is silent, and so, in the tranquillity of family life on New Zealand’s North Island, is the singer’s mind.
It’s little wonder. As well as being the place where Peter Jackson filmed The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, and where billionaires reportedly plan to relocate in the event of the apocalypse, the country’s entire population, encompassing both the North and South Islands, isn’t much more than the city of Los Angeles in the grand scheme of things.
“The environment [in New Zealand] all but forces you to slow down,” he reflects, looking fit and well, with only the touches of silver at his temples belying his fresh-faced appearance. “The way of life here is just so much more accommodating to taking a break. It’s set up for families much more than Los Angeles, my home that I love with all my heart, so being here couldn’t have come at a better time for me.”
As well as enjoying the quiet life, Jason has re-embraced Eastern practices such as dharma, an organising principle in Hinduism that encompasses duty, virtue and morality. It’s not unreasonable, then, to wonder why a man who only last year told Kerrang! he was experiencing “a very real and threatening type of darkness in [his] own mind and my spirit”, having now achieved some semblance of equilibrium, would return to one of the most feral and chaotic bands on the planet – albeit for the farewell tour they never got to have.
Jason smiles. He knows there are questions to answer and a degree of cynicism to dispel. But the start of this new, yet final, chapter was more straightforward than trading on a name or making some money. It was a case of three estranged former bandmates – Jason, plus guitarists Jean Francisco Nascimento and Jeff Sahyoun – reconnecting.
“Jean, Jeff and myself kept saying that it had to happen organically,” explains the singer. “We started talking again more frequently, then got to hang out and kick it. Shortly afterwards we were like, ‘Let’s grab our guitars and DAWs [digital audio workstations] and start just fucking around.’ We quickly thought, ‘This is fun – it’s right, we love working with each other.’ We realised how synergistic it is with us, naturally.”
Although we’re loath to interrupt Jason’s flow while he’s building up a head of steam, we have to ask if this reconvening, organic or otherwise, was motivated by the feeling of there being unfinished business, given how abruptly the band halted operations in 2017.
“In the most respectful way I can say this… no,” Jason laughs. “I live my life as void of regret as I can. With letlive., I had to step out in an effort to save whatever purity there was in that project. The reason I stepped away was so that I didn’t do anything wrong with it, because I was in such a reckless place, and I was putting my idea of escaping ahead of self-exploration. So in that respect I was actually honouring the project more than I was walking away from it.”
As one of the most energetic speakers in rock, Jason’s words crackle as they come out of his mouth, sending the prospective interviewer scrabbling for their notes in an effort to try to lasso his burgeoning lines of thought. What, firstly, did Jason worry his continued participation in letlive. would cause the band – or the ‘project’ as he calls it – to morph into?
“I had a really immense and naive level of hope when I started letlive., and I maintained that throughout the entire project,” he elaborates, having first explained that this interview is his way of “working through” many of these thoughts and feelings.
A deep breath…
“And that hope was for myself, primarily, and for the music. It had nothing to do with any of the supporters of letlive. – it was what I could do for that project and, in turn, for the people. That vehicle for me was running out of gas because I was giving so much of myself, and I realised that I didn’t do what I told myself I was going to do, emotionally, in that band, which was to try to help myself.
“I think I presented an avatar to people – an idea of hope, an idea of repair – while still believing that the idea to do so was there. I thought that writing about it, performing onstage and hurting myself quite literally gave me control over a world I was afraid to be in. That’s why I seemed masochistic to a lot of people.”
Did assurances have to be made, then, between the three core members of letlive. before things could move forward?
“At the end of the day, we were all young, and we were all riding this wave – but on our own surfboards, as opposed to all riding on the one longboard,” Jason answers, grinning at the mental image. “We started to understand the project differently, which splintered the idea, and when you’re young the ego is more prevalent. We were dealing with young man shit without the proper tools or language for communication.
“Coming back into this, we had to approach all these uncomfortable topics we weren’t able to approach when we were younger. We realised we had something special and unique, and no matter what we say or do, that’ll never change. Having that as a touchstone for any conversation is a cool place to start.”
The first songs the members of letlive. – Jason, Jean and Jeff, now with bassist Skyler Acord and drummer Sage Webber – played when they got in a room together, perhaps unsurprisingly, were Le Prologue and The Sick, Sick 6.8 Billion, the first two tracks from 2010’s Fake History, the record that explosively announced them to the world at large.
“To be super-real, it scared the shit out of me,” Jason recalls of the experience of relighting the touchpaper. “But then I quickly thought, ‘Oh, that dude’s still there.’ It was interesting to engage with this sense of self that I didn’t deal with, or had utilised for not-so-savoury behaviour, so doing that was frightening. But realising that [my bandmates] were there for it and they understood where I am on a personal level was really comforting.”
Comfort is something that can still be in short supply for Jason when it comes to those minutes and seconds before letlive. hit the stage.
“I still deal with my propensity for future-driven anxiety, where I go, ‘Oh, okay, when we get up there I’m going to be like this.’ So it’s a real battle with the narrative for me, but when I’m in it, I understand why I started this band. I really give that moment to myself and to the craft. It is the purest moment – you get to be whoever you want, good or bad.”
These endeavours mean something to Jason’s two sons, too. Neither were born when letlive. had their first go around, back in the days when Jason didn’t think he’d even get married. His eldest son is fascinated by the idea of his dad as a creative person and regularly watches footage of concerts – his father’s and otherwise – asking Jason about the many locations he’s played and fellow musicians he knows.
“When I was a kid, I had no connection and no road into this world,” says Jason. “But for him, he just seems so naturally interested. And my youngest son just has the fire – he’s loud.”
The plan is for the two boys to see letlive. when they play Australia in early September, as it’s only a hop from New Zealand, and could offer what parents often call ‘a teachable moment’.
“[My sons] getting to see me like that might actually be beneficial, if I’m able to do this right, to show them how to express themselves in a way that may seem bellicose until you explain it. Before we play Muther, when I’m talking about why I do this – I was so afraid to express any sense of vulnerability, because of my environment and my household growing up, that I make a point to encourage it in my children.”
That task would certainly be helped by listening to The Blackest Beautiful Revisited, the remixed and remastered version of letlive.’s third album, originally released in 2013. The Blackest Beautiful wasn’t the last record letlive. put out – that was 2016’s If I’m The Devil… – and it’s not celebrating any kind of landmark birthday, so why the reappraisal?
“When we released that album, there was a lot of contention about the mix,” Jason explains. “And I said, and still say, that what you heard was the band back then. We were super fractious, internally. We were fucking arguing. And whether it was to our detriment or not, the record was a rebuttal to the relative scene around us – the sort of sterilised, homogenised approach. After we were able to step away from [the record] for 11 years, though, we were curious to know what it would sound like with a new mix. But I still stand by the belief that there’s an onus on all of us to kowtow to a trend in order to sell records. Fuck that – that’s crazy to me.”
Given this revisiting of the past, is there anything else in the letlive. archives that might see the light of day?
“I’m interested to see how this tour goes,” he says, cautiously. “I think we’ve got a pretty cool foundation to return. So I would like to offer [unreleased tracks], and we definitely do have them, so that would be cool.”
The rest of the year is going to be a busy one, with shows in Europe and the UK, Australia and the United States. The highlights among this busy schedule include a long-awaited UK appearance at 2000trees in July, and the latest instalment of When We Were Young in Las Vegas, on a bill that includes Panic! At The Disco, blink-182, Weezer, The Offspring and many more. The stages for letlive.’s return aren’t lost on Jason.
“To come back now as this iteration in this era, I don’t even know what to expect,” he admits. “I just feel so blessed and so lucky to be able to do it. It blows my mind that this thing you thought of in your best friend’s garage in LA has people across the world buying tickets – it is truly some type of magic.”
Those fans snapping up tickets will have certain expectations from a letlive. show, having seen in the flesh or via videos what Jason puts himself through when he steps in front of a crowd.
“I’m just going through it, and I have to go through it. And that does bring a level of volatility to who I am as a person and a band member. I had to be super-honest with Jean and Jeff and say, ‘This is who I am. This is what you’re getting.’ For the first time in my life, I have completely shed any expectation, even of myself. I’m just doing what I feel I’m supposed to be doing.”
Finally, then: given how much his role in letlive. has put him through the physical and psychological wringer, what does it say about his personal development that he’s been able to confidently step back as the real Jason rather than his aforementioned ‘avatar’ counterpart?
A moment of visibly deep thought, then an answer. Apparently it’s a case of crossing that bridge when he properly comes to it…
“I actually can’t even speak to the growth,” admits Jason, rubbing his hands together. “I can speak to the attempt I will make to grow. That’s finally what I’m going to do. I think the impediment to all this is still there.
“In order for me to get to [be] that person, I need to do this. I need to play letlive. songs again. And it goes beyond just saying it, right? It’s embodying it. It’s walking through the pain as safely as possible with each other.”
So, as ever, you should expect the unexpected. Whatever letlive. bring to 2000trees, though, it’s going to be the muther of all returns.
This feature originally appeared in the summer 2025 issue of Kerrang!. Catch letlive. headlining London’s Electric Ballroom and appearing at 2000trees this month.
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