Start Listening To: Retail Drugs

Jake Brooks on grief, tape machines and turning chaos into catharsis.

Retail Drugs is the solo project of Ridgewood-based musician Jake Brooks, also one half of dream-pop duo Laveda. While Laveda leans toward a more polished, widescreen sound, Retail Drugs is scrappy and instinctive, driven by loss, intuition and the raw immediacy of tape. On rECKless dRIVing, his second full-length (out August 1st via Angel Tapes / Fire Talk), Brooks assembles lo-fi b-sides, demos and new songs into a fully-formed collection that captures both the freedom and emotional weight behind the project. In this interview, he talks about the origins of Retail Drugs, the influence of Albany’s DIY scene, his chaotic writing rituals, and the strange liberation that comes from not overthinking it.

For those unfamiliar with your music, can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?

I’m Jake Brooks. A musician that grew up in the Adirondacks and now resides in Ridgewood, NY. I make a lot of different flavors of rock music. I’ve been playing in different bands since I was in middle school. I played in a cover band based in Saratoga when I was in high school. Eventually I started writing pretty bad music. I then went to college for music comp/theory and started writing stuff on my own. My romantic partner and I started writing together and have continued doing so as Laveda since 2017. I started writing as Retail Drugs after my mom passed away from breast cancer. It marked a turning point in the way I created. I stopped caring so much. Retail Drugs was a creative practice in first thought = best thought. I refused to get bogged down by small details. The Lofi qualities of my music are a direct result of my impatience. When I write for this project, it’s like being really hungry and just devouring your food as quickly as possible. I try and make creative choices confidently and quickly. I record everything myself. I don’t “demo” necessarily. The “demo” is the thing I release I guess.

How did Retail Drugs first come together, and what sparked the move from Laveda into this solo recording project?

I didn’t move from Laveda to Retail Drugs. I’m still very much in both projects. Retail Drugs is my solo recording project. It didn’t exist until I made an intentional shift in the way I create. My partner, Ali bought me a 4 track tape machine one year for my birthday. While learning to use that, I wrote a huge chunk of “i love you so !”. I felt so free writing and recording on the fly without having to look at a screen. 

"Person A" feels both chaotic and calculated, how do you strike that balance between spontaneity and structure in your songwriting? 

I just try to do everything as quickly as possible. I’m usually writing as I’m recording. This will typically lead to some spontaneous moments. The structure however is always in my head before I start recording. I guess you could argue this creates a controlled or calculated form of spontaneity in my recordings.

You’ve described “Person A” as being about wanting to Irish goodbye at a show you paid to go to. What made that feeling worth immortalising in a track?

I think it was just what was on my mind at the time. I was at a show but the energy that day was just off for me. It could’ve just been me in my own head. Sometimes you build up this idea of a show in your head and it turns out different when you go. It’s kinda like how I felt about the live action Avatar The Last Airbender movie that came out when I was a kid.

What was the process like self-producing the video for “Person A” with Josiah Martuscello? Did anything unexpected happen while filming around NYC?

It was all Josiah’s brainchild. We had been putting off making this video for weeks and we kinda panicked realizing we had not much time left to make it. We met up at Hart Bar during a jazz show. He got a Guinness and I got an espresso martini. He had me hold his phone in one hand with a go pro in the other and had me run up and down Bushwick. We looked like crazy people. It took us about 45 minutes altogether to film. He finished editing it the next day.

You mentioned cooking pasta while writing parts of “Person A” and “Dubl Vision.” Does food regularly intersect with your writing process, or was that just a chaotic one-off? 

It was a chaotic one off for sure. The ideas were just festering at that moment. I felt like a gargoyle.

Fire Talk seems like the perfect home for Retail Drugs. What drew you to the label, and what has the partnership meant so far?

I’ve always been a fan of their releases. Especially the post punk stuff like Deeper and Dehd. Jon Carlo from Angel Tapes came to one of our shows at Hart Bar and I liked their vibe. We chatted on the phone and found we have very similar opinions about the industry. Super happy to be on the roster with so many sick bands/artists. 

Your live shows have a reputation for bordering on performance art. What kind of experience do you aim to give the audience?

I want to scare them.

There’s an intimacy to tape recording that’s hard to fake. What draws you to that format, and how does it shape the sound of Retail Drugs? 

feel like it allows freedom and spontaneity. So much of what I put in there sounds sick and unique right off the bat. It’s a moving target sometimes but I love it. Tape can be so explosive when you need it to be. I just really like the way my 4 track sounds.

You’ve been described as NYC’s premier home-tape recording entity. Do you feel connected to a lineage of lo-fi or DIY artists in the city? 

no. I like Guided by Voices though. Are The Strokes or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or LCD Soundsystem lofi? I like that song by The Rapture.

How has your background in Albany’s DIY scene influenced the way you approach making music and community now in New York City? 

I met some of the most talented people in Albany. Two of them, Joe Taurone and Daniel Carr play in Laveda. They are the goats that showed Ali and me GBV. The tape machine that Ali got me was actually Joe’s to begin with. They really inspired me in how they recorded to tape for a lot of their own projects. I look up to those guys for sure. I heard so much great music out of Albany when we were cutting our DIY teeth with Laveda. We played our first show in a basement with Bruiser & Bicycle and our roommate, Lone Phone Booth. Those two projects have gone on to incredibly influence my writing as well. The community up there is strong and I feel like we have found something very similar here in NYC. However, the city is sprawling unlike Albany. While it’s not as tight knit, it’s been very welcoming to both of me and Ali.

What do you love right now?

spending quality time with my partner and cooking yummy salmon.

What do you hate right now?

the goverment, the healthcare system, genocide, bad drivers, people that take advantage of others.

Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s still important to you?

It’s gotta Demon Days by Gorillaz. It has such a specific bloated sound that other records don’t. Super fun and unique record with bangers and even some slow and sad moments.

What’s next for Retail Drugs? Is there more music already in the works, or are you focusing on shows for now?

I think I’ll always be working on something for Retail Drugs. A lot of stuff is in the pipeline for sure. It’s a project that’s meant to be fun so as long as it stays that way I’ll keep doing it.