JBNG, the musical project of Surrey, Canada-born artist Jaben John Groome, pairs grunge-rooted guitar intensity with deeply personal songwriting. His single “Many Moons” — which we previously featured here — explores enduring love, loss, and the cycles of life through a dynamic blend of melodic hooks and distortion-laden rock. We caught up with Groome to discuss the song’s creation, his musical influences, and what’s ahead for JBNG.
How did you arrive at this combination of sounds, and how did the arrangement evolve during recording?
It was about listening over time and having new ideas rather than coming in with a finished song.
“Many Moons” connects enduring love and loss with the cycles of the natural world. How did the idea of astronomical cycles help shape the song’s perspective on time, change, and acceptance?
New cycles come and go and with each one we live that cycle evolves and it grows with time.
The track moves between melodic, bouncing passages and heavier, distortion-laden sections. Do you tend to approach these dynamic shifts instinctively, or do you carefully map out how a song’s intensity should develop?
It’s basically all instinctively and by hear after playing it acoustic at home and growing it in the studio.
Your connection to music stretches back to childhood, with early influences ranging from The Beatles, Buddy Holly, and Elvis to the grunge movement. How have those different musical eras shaped your approach to songwriting today?
I like all eras of music and remembering where sounds evolved from then keeping an open mind and blending them in together.
JBNG has explored several formats, from the bass-and-vocals approach of Sub to the acoustic Run Unplugged and the live energy of Live at the Biltmore. What do these different recording approaches reveal about your music that a conventional studio album might not?
Try to do something different raw with unplugged and an idea of what the live show might be like.
JBNG combines deeply personal songwriting with a prolific release schedule. How do you maintain that creative momentum while ensuring each new song reflects something meaningful to you?
The momentum comes when you work on it everyday and get the creative juices flowing. I play every song everyday just once and then whatever new ideas I keep, if they stick I’ll be playing them the next time and just adding until it’s done
If you could collaborate with any artist, alive or dead, who would it be, and what kind of music would you hope to make together?
This is a different answer at different times in my life but right now I would like to play with Courtenay Love or a female screaming playing with the grunge sound even more.
What’s on the horizon next for JBNG? Are there new releases, collaborations, or musical directions you’re particularly excited to explore?
The next album is unplugged release in 2027 and has Chersae Laing on vocals and Dave Martone on guitars, I stayed right out of it and thats just getting the final masters. After that it’s the new album called Panic that I’ll start to work on soon in 2027 with as well which is planned to be released in 2028.
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