Jake Kiszka discussed what he feared was a career threatening injury in a Fender interview.
“I broke my arm wrestling around the eighth grade, and I was definitely scared I would never play again.”
“There’s a plate in there. I got surgery about three days after I broke it and had a cast for about six months. I would go down in the basement and tryto play, and I went to my dad’s shed and sanded off the underside of the hand but kept the back of the cast on. My doctor said it would help strengthen the muscles.
They let me keep the cast that way and by the end of the surgery, when they took off the cast, I gained an entire fret (Editor’s note: At this point, Jake displays the extended range between his thumb and pinkie finger). So, the moral of the story is if you want to gain another fret, break your arm.”
Jake Kiszka was also recently interviewed by the Orlando Sentinel.
Q: Your music has a big sound that feels like it was designed for stadiums. Did you ever feel like you should be playing more intimate venues?
A: We write in that sense because it’s what we like and what we’re trying to achieve, to make that sound big. But we’ve played in bars around our home and that’s something we expected to be doing a lot longer. But it’s cool to be in the larger venues. From my perspective, there’s nothing more powerful than being at a sound check at a larger venue and strumming a chord and hearing that ring out.
