Jiants

Many athletes have a breaking point – a moment when they realize they have to abandon their sport for their own good. For Jesse Landen of local indie rock band Jiants, it was yet another broken bone.

The 6-foot-4 former pro skateboarder from Owen Sound has had ankle surgery six times. Seated on a patio on Dundas West, he pulls up his jeans to show the scars. Later, he points to his elbow, knotted over with scar tissue, which he shattered in 2011.

The accidents left him immobile, and he used the recovery time to focus on music. “I just ended up being a songwriter,” he grins.

Jiants’ song Plan, which is premiering here, comes from their sophomore record, Odd Trouble, which dropped June 1 and showcases their sun-dappled slacker pop sound. Directed by fellow skateboarder Aidan Johnston, the video follows a tour guide through the Toronto Islands. Like most of Landen’s work, it’s a DIY operation, mostly out of necessity. He, Johnston, and a tiny crew biked around the island, towing a trailer with a camera on it.

“Making a low-budget video is just idea-based,” Landen explains. “What can you show that doesn’t cost money?” The simple, collaborative video showcases the skills Johnston and Landen picked up in video and music, primarily as a by-product of their interest in skateboarding and skate videos.

“There’s this group of [former skaters] kicking around who maybe didn’t go to school for something that they’re really good at,” says Landen. “We all have these skills, and we learned a lot of them from skating.”

Jiants’ swaying, easy-going guitars and layered vocals feel pretty relaxed, but Landen describes the project as “pushing forward against all self-doubt.” In a way, it’s an extension of his former career.

“What I was the most into with skateboarding was almost scaring myself,” he says.

Landen left Owen Sound immediately after high school to pursue skateboarding. He wound up crashing on couches in Southern California, competing and attracting major sponsors, until injuries brought him home.

“After I got done with [skateboarding], I felt shell-shocked,” he grimaces. “Everything seemed so boring and easy. I think in a weird way I’ve dulled my senses from skateboarding.”

That thrill-seeking can easily turn self-destructive. “I’ve seen a million skateboarders who turn to alcohol abuse and stuff like that.”

Landen says he still loves skateboarding, but certain aspects of the culture no longer resonate. “With skateboarding, you just stay in your own dude-bubble,” he chuckles. “I definitely needed to get out of that.”

Now 34, he’s basically started over. Between Jiants, which started in 2016, a solo electronic project called Balmy Beach, and a film production house he runs with his brother, Landen is making sure he doesn’t waste any time.

“I try to use every minute now,” he says. “I don’t know when that changed, but I think I saw a lot of lost time. Maybe everybody feels that way in their 20s. You feel like you’ve got all the time in the world, and then you don’t.”

music@nowtoronto.com | @lukeottenhof - Now Magazine

FROM THEIR SOPHOMORE RECORD ODD TROUBLE
By staffNew Videos04.07.2018

Toronto-based indie outfit Jiants are fronted by Jesse Landen, a former pro skateboarder whose numerous ankle and elbow injuries led him to a life of songwriting while undergoing some lengthy recovery. Landen and Co. unveiled a new video for “Plan,” off of Jiants’ sophomore effort Odd Trouble.

Odd Trouble, was recorded at Candle Recording Studio with musician and producer Taylor Knox, who has previously worked with the likes of Alvvays, Sloan, and Owen Pallett. Landen enlisted fellow skateboarder Aidan Johnston to direct the video for “Plan,” which follows a tour guide through Toronto Islands. NOW Magazine premiered the video earlier this week.

“Making a low-budget video is just idea-based,” Landen told NOW. “What can you show that doesn’t cost money?

“There’s this group of [former skaters] kicking around who maybe didn’t go to school for something that they’re really good at. We all have these skills, and we learned a lot of them from skating.”

Check out the latest video from Jiants below. - Indie88

Toronto's Jiants, with ex-pro skateboarder Jesse Landen, Adam Kesek and Michael Tilley, just released their first LP this past August. [Listen to the full album here.] Hot on its heels is the band's first single, Paralyze, with plenty of fuzzed-out sounds that will transport you back to the best of 90s indie rock.

Aidan Johnston, who directed the band's first video (and who has written for NOW in the past), uses that nostalgia as a jumping off point. A young woman looks back on a summer fling, complete with night-time pool-hopping, skateboarding and bike-riding dates, gradually seeing it for what it really was.

"When I first started making the treatment, I was thinking about it like a road movie where couples are on the run and holed up together," Johnston says. "My elevator pitch would've been, 'It's Bonnie & Clyde with public pools instead of banks and pilsners instead of guns!' But really it's just about the highs and lows of getting swept up in something that's right for the moment but not meant to last."

Enjoy. - Now Magazine