This LA synth group recorded music 40 years ago. Now, you can finally hear it. – OCRegister

The band Grey Factor recorded music in 1980-81. Now you can hear it in a new collection. (Photo credit: Lloyd Butterfield / Courtesy of Grey Factor)

In the late 1970s, Jeff Jacquin and Joseph Cevetello were young musicians in the San Fernando Valley who connected over a shared affinity for groups such as Throbbing Gristle, Human League and Pere Ubu. They formed a band called Grey Factor, performed at CalArts, Madame Wong’s and Hong Kong Cafe and appeared on the first episode of the local TV program “New Wave Theatre.”

They also recorded two EPs of material, neither of which were released during the band’s all-too-brief existence.

“When I heard it 40 years later, I thought, ‘This stuff actually holds up to all the stuff that we were listening to at the time and I wasn’t… confident enough to put it out,’” says Jacquin.

Earlier this year, “Grey Factor: 1979 – 1980 A.D. – Complete Studio Recordings” brought the work of this little-known L.A. band to fans of early synth-based music. Put out by Damaged Disco, the label founded by producer and The Mekons musician Dave Trumfio, the release combined the EPs “The Perils of Popularity” and “The Feel of Passion.” Vinyl sold out quickly in Europe. The U.S. vinyl was en route to stores when founding members Jacquin and Cevetello convened on a recent video call.

Cevetello, still a teenager when Grey Factor formed, had a music teacher who introduced him to the EMS Synthi AKS, an early 1970s synthesizer that was favored by innovators like Brian Eno.

“I was just fascinated by it,” says Cevetello. In fact, he got his own Synthi, which led to the band’s distinct sound.

“You had to know what you were doing,” he says of the instrument. “If you didn’t know how to assemble a sound, you couldn’t do anything with a Synthi.”

Jacquin describes the synthesizer, which was housed in a suitcase, as looking like a game of Battleship when played. Using other synths and a drum machine, Grey Factor made music that was out of step with L.A.’s hardcore punk moment and performed at local venues on nights that weren’t reserved for punk shows.

“Otherwise,” he says, “we would have got killed.”

Jacquin recalls that crowds ignored them in the beginning.

“Since there wasn’t a lot of electronic music in Los Angeles, people didn’t know what to make of us at first,” adds Cevetello. “Eventually, people got into it and understood it.”

Working with analog synths posed technical challenges. “We had to have minutes sometimes in between songs because we had to rearrange everything that was on every synthesizer,” Jacquin explains. So, they created interludes that played in between live song performances. One of those pieces, “Four Hours in a Metal Box,” is included on the album.

Also unusual for a band of this time is that Grey Factor was able to record early on in its existence. “My dad was a recording engineer and producer, so I grew up in a recording studio. I guess right around the time that Jeff and I met, my dad died suddenly,” says Cevetello. “Because I grew up in a recording studio and knew the people there, I had access to a studio and it was a very natural environment for me.”

Jacquin and Cevetello, along with John Pospisil and Paul Fontana from the band’s first lineup, recorded the first EP at Eldorado Recording Studios with Dave Jerden, then an up-and-coming engineer. Jerden later worked on albums like Talking Heads’ “Remain in Light,” David Byrne and Brian Eno’s “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” and Herbie Hancock’s “Future Shock.”

They had access to the studio, but actually releasing the music was another issue at a time when indie labels were few and mostly interested in punk rock.

“There was nowhere for us to go with those recordings unless we did it ourselves completely,” says Jacquin. “For whatever reason, we never did it.”

Plus, their priorities were changing. “By the time we ran the gamut of what we were doing with Grey Factor, I wasn’t even 18. I’m like, Wait a minute, I’m going to go to college,” says Cevetello. “We’ll come back to this eventually.”

Decades passed, but the two remained friends. Jacquin spent many years as a music manager, working with bands like Medicine, Hole and Skinny Puppy. He now runs musician James Hood’s label Edible Sounds. Meanwhile, Cevetello has spent the past 20 years working as a chief information officer.

During the pandemic, Jacquin came across those old Grey Factor recordings and shared them with Cevetello, which led to the full-length retrospective and their first show in over 40 years, held at Hollywood venue Gold Diggers this past February.

“Jeff had to basically bend my arm to do this,” says Cevetello. “I hadn’t really played keyboards in probably a decade. I told Jeff, ‘I’m not going to do this if we suck so I’m going to spend the time to make sure that we don’t.’”

There’s talk of more shows in the future.

Grey Factor’s setup has been modernized too and the band no longer has to spend minutes rearranging synthesizer sounds in between songs.

“I went from not wanting to do it, to being worried about it to just really enjoying it,” says Cevetello. “I thought it was hysterical that we were up on stage playing to a bunch of people 40 years later.”