For anyone who’s been following the Seacoast music scene long enough, “Insane Shack” will sound both new and nostalgically familiar. “Insane Shack” is one of three tracks that have been released so far by Diamond Jets, the new band masterminded by local legend Jay Fortin. The new music represents a gleeful blend of the styles Fortin has been purveying in various bands since the 1980s.
“It’s just straight-up punk stuff and garage-y stuff, and some heavy kind of riffs-based stuff, and maybe a little twang in there, a little rockabilly-ish kind of thing,” Fortin said during a recent chat. “So, it’s pretty all over the place, which I like. … I mean, I guess it’s rock and roll in general, but there’s a lot of different influences.”
Diamond Jets’ first official gig is coming up at The Press Room in Portsmouth on Thursday, Aug. 20. Opening the show are guests Muddy Ruckus and Alma June & The Persian Cats. Aside from a short impromptu set in Amesbury last month, it will be the group’s debut performance before a live audience.
But the band members are no strangers to Seacoast stages. Fortin was a founding member and lead guitarist of Portsmouth metal band Scissorfight, which built a strong regional following in the mid-1990s and 2000s. Diamond Jets drummer Rodger Shosa and vocalist Butch Heilshorn played with Fortin in the pre-Scissorfight outfit Bobhouse, as well as the later punk and country band Them Dewlap Boys. Shosa has also been a member of such legendary local acts as The Bruisers and The Queers. Bassist Cam Gunn’s resume includes stints with Genderfits, Hümpmuscle, and ShuttleCock.
After playing mostly covers with Them Dewlap Boys, Fortin said he wanted to get back to writing original songs. With Diamond Jets, he writes the musical arrangements and Heilshorn comes up with the lyrics.
“I’ve always got tons of material to work on, so coming up with songs was easy enough,” Fortin said. “So [the band] came together really quickly.”
By Fortin’s estimate, the quartet has already written between 20 and 25 songs. They’ve recorded three of them at Gunn’s home studio, and hope to put out a full album in the months ahead.
But first they’ll test out some songs in the live setting. The Press Room, where they’ll play their first full show, has been a favorite spot of Fortin’s since the 1990s — and one of the few Portsmouth venues from that era that still regularly hosts live music. Thirty years ago, he said, there were more venues, more rehearsal spaces, and more active bands in the area.
“I mean, there’s still a lot of bands around here and people are making it work,” he said. “But I would say it was probably a little more robust back in those days.”
A number of Seacoast bands seemed on the cusp of blowing up in the ’90s and early 2000s, and Scissorfight was no exception. Known for such hard-hitting ditties as “New Hampshire’s All Right If You Like Fighting” and “Blizzards, Buzzards, and Bastards,” Scissorfight won the Boston Music Award for best Hard Rock Band in 2003 and 2004. They played at the River Rave festival in 2000 alongside Stone Temple Pilots and Cypress Hill. They toured nationally with popular rock band Clutch.
But Fortin has always kept his expectations in check. Even before Scissorfight, his band Bobhouse had flirted with major commercial success and never quite achieved it.
“It seemed like something big was gonna happen and it didn’t, and it was just this back and forth, back and forth, day after day, you know? It’s gonna happen, it’s not gonna happen. So, we’d kind of been through the ringer of the music biz.”
But that’s just fine with Fortin. He’s still happy just to get out there and put on a rock show. He’s been playing with Shosa and Heilshorn on and off since they started their first punk band together back in high school, and he believes their musical chemistry is better than ever. In Diamond Jets, they bring all their collective experience to the stage.
“It’s almost like a mix tape of different bands,” Fortin said. “Like, we have a song that’s pretty heavy, and people might think, ‘Oh, that’s like a Scissorfight riff.’ Or, we have a song that pretty much sounds like a Dinosaur Jr. song. Or we have a song that’s got funk elements to it. So it keeps it interesting.”
Following the show at The Press Room, Diamond Jets will aim to book other gigs around New England, including in Portland and Boston. But for now they’re looking forward to their Portsmouth debut.
Is Fortin nervous about the band’s first concert?
“I don’t get butterflies. I never have. So, I’m pretty comfortable with it, whether it goes right or wrong,” he said with a laugh. “It’ll just be fun to get out there, you know? And The Press Room’s great. I love playing there.”
Diamond Jets performs with Muddy Ruckus and Alma June & The Persian Cats at The Press Room in Portsmouth on Thursday, Aug. 20, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15-$18, available here.
