Jeff Rosenstock, opening up for Andrew Jackson Jihad on Sunday at the Granada, talks being DIY on the Billboard charts

Jeff Rosenstock’s solo album, We Cool?, debuted on the Billboard charts when it was released a couple of weeks ago on SideOne Dummy Records. For those familiar with the former frontman for the Arrogant Sons of Bitches, as well as long-running basement favorites Bomb the Music Industry, this might’ve come as quite a shock. Rosenstock is the king of DIY, releasing albums for pay-what-you-want downloads on Quote Unquote Records long before the likes of Radiohead or Girl Talk.

But when you get to talking with Rosenstock, you see that he’s still a musician who’s absolutely psyched about everything. While he might be selling a bunch of records, he’s still the guy who’s willing to chat enthusiastically about weird things.

We spoke with Rosenstock by phone as he got ready to head out on the road with Andrew Jackson Jihad, the Smith Street Band and Chumped.

The Pitch: Congrats on We Cool? debuting on the Billboard charts.

Jeff Rosenstock: Thanks, man. It’s insane.

Is it a strange thing to see your album on the charts?

Yeah, of course it is. There were no grand expectations when I was writing this record or even when we were recording it, or anything like that. It’s cool for us, because ever since we were kids and listening to music, that’s something you’d hear about, but it’s also really rad that it legitimizes it for people who we’re buddies with who don’t really have any grasp on what ten years of DIY touring means. Like, “What the fuck are you doing?”, you know? It’s rad.

It can summed up like this: I didn’t go to my high school reunion, but I went to a wedding this weekend with a bunch of people from high school I hadn’t seen in a while, and they were all like, “Holy shit, man! You charted!” and I was like, “Hell, yeah!” – not like the last time I saw them, which was like, “Still doin’ music, huh?”

But, yeah – it’s rad. It’s neat to be on that thing. It kind of feels like we infiltrated the real world a little bit. Kind of in there with our middle finger.

And you’re still able to release your music the way you have been on Quote Unquote Records.

I thought that was pretty cool, too, and that’s something I actually stoked to do. First of all, SideOne Dummy was down to do that, which is good, but also: the fact that it charted, even though it’s available for free? Nothing’s louder than it doesn’t matter that it’s online for free. All that does is just help people hear your music and it’s still going to be on the fucking thing that tells people that your record is a real record. It’s rad. I’m stoked on everything right now.

Listening to We Cool?, you explore a lot of the topics that you especially explored on Bomb the Music Industry’s Vacation: aging and playing music, but in a more positive light.

It’s seems like I’m always touching on that, but I’m generally writing about what’s going on. I tend to write in the moment, and those themes seem more consistent. That’s the thing: I’m always getting older. We’re all always getting older. That’s why I keep coming back to that, or it seems like I keep coming back to that. The only thing that remains constant throughout all the records is that I am aging. We’re getting older as we’re having this conversation, you know?

And I’ve been playing music, so that stuff’s just natural. I’m glad you see it in a positive light, because I see it as that, too, but I feel that a lot of this record had to do with the breakup of Bomb [the Music Industry], and what do you do after this thing that you were building kind of collapses? There’s a lot of that in there: just floating around, lost, trying to make sense of everything, but I think in the end, it all kind of comes out on top.

How do you end something like Bomb the Music Industry, which existed for so long, in so many iterations?

Starting around Scrambles – so, 2008-09 – once I moved back to New York and Matt Keegan joined the band, it was the same band for years. With people coming in and out, but it was the same five people. Matt wanted to move to Australia, and I’m always worried about anything that I’m doing – I think you can hear that, if you listen to any of my songs! – I’m always stressing out about stuff, not just skating by or spinning my wheels or any of that stuff.

It just seemed like we could either be the kind of band that goes on forever, and has a rotating cast of people, or we could be the band that just, like, on top, for lack of a less-lame way to say it. I feel like we ended with our strongest record, and that our last shows were awesome. I don’t think that we ended having compromised anything. We definitely never compromised musically, or performance-wise. Nobody was ever phoning it in, we were all friends to the very end and still are – I just thought that would be a way-better end than just having it fizzle out.

Jeff Rosenstock plays the Granada with Andrew Jackson Jihad, the Smith Street Band and Chumped on Sunday, March 29. Details on that show can be found here.