askmeificare

It’s tough for a new band to build an audience when it’s playing in a new town. The members of Jacksonville trio Askmeificare think they might have a unique solution: They’re bringing loyal fans on the road with them.

The band has purchased an old school bus, painted it black, stripped out the seats and customized the interior, creating an RV/tour bus/equipment hauler that has room for 16 fans.

“We have a core of fans that go everywhere with us,” said singer Jamal “Raw” Oakes. “Now they’ll ride with us.”

The bus — which the band has named “Las Vegas” — now has four bunk beds and room for the band’s equipment in the back. Oakes and drummer Jessie “J. Lee” Lassiter have done nearly all of the work on their own, pulling out 18 rows of seats and installing interior walls decorated with photos of the fans. The fact that Lassiter is a cabinetmaker has helped a lot.

“J. Lee’s really the foreman of the whole operation,” Oakes said.

One thing the bus doesn’t have is air conditioning, but that will have to wait. “We have no budget,” Oakes said. “We are really winging it.”

The band, which also includes bass player Joe Rocher, plays a loud and aggressive mix of alternative rock and hip hop. There is no guitar player in the band. Instead, Lassiter said, Rocher plays a distorted bass that holds the rhythm and the lead roles at the same time.

Oakes, with long dreadlocks and a mouth full of gold teeth, is an imposing frontman in the band’s videos, but in person he’s polite and soft-spoken. He said the band just released its first CD, “Middle Fingers Up,” and plans to take the bus on the road to play around the state.

“You can’t beat the fact that it’s definitely going to get our name out there; you’re definitely going to see it,” Oakes said. “We live in a society where you don’t have to do nothing, you just have to get your name known.”

He said the fans, who call themselves Askmeificaricans, mean everything to the band, which is why a collage of their photos has been added to each of the interior walls that divide the bus into sections.

He had the collages printed on huge sheets of paper and he and J. Lee tried different methods to stick them to the walls. In the end, wallpaper paste seemed to work the best, even if the result wasn’t exactly smooth. “We might just live with the wrinkles,” he said.

The 1988 Bluebird bus, which has 91,000 miles on the odometer, was purchased from a local church. “They’d probably be a little upset if they knew what was gonna be done with it,” Lassiter said.

It needed a little mechanical work — finding a replacement carburetor proved to be the most difficult part — but now it runs well and, with a fresh black paint job and the band’s name emblazoned on the side, it’s ready for the road.

Fans and all. - florida times union

The band's name is a challenge, a dare.

We're a sucker for a good dare.

When Folio Weekly sat down with the punk-rap group, Raw — the frontman, real name Jamal Oakes — tossed his knotted dreadlocks, ran his tongue over his golden teeth and explained, "It's not that we don't care about anything. Ask us our opinion, ask us what we think. We're going to do what we want, and if you don't like it, well, ask me if I care."

Their sound is as uncomplicated and unapologetic as their attitude. With only a drummer, bassist and rapper, Askmeificare has churned out several thumping anthems in the past year. It's a sound borne of necessity as much as ingenuity.

"We're poverty funk," drummer Joe Rocher says. "We can't afford other instruments."

And so their music is dense, charged and heavy, like punk-rock syrup pouring from your speakers and melting your ears like butter.

"When we started, we couldn't find a bass player," JLee Lassiter says. "So, I said ‘fuck it' and picked up the bass. When I heard the distortion and feedback, I loved it."

The members formed an unlikely trio spawned, like many dubious things, from a Craigslist ad. Jam sessions followed, and soon all hell broke loose. They'll tell you that the only thing they agree on is a mutual love for coitus and Moon River Pizza.

Armed with songs like "So We Fight," "Wiped Out" and "S.L.U.T.," they've rampaged every stage possible in Northeast Florida, becoming one of the hardest-working local bands out there.

"The bands in this scene are like ducks in a row," says Raw. "It's too safe. No one wants to shake it up."

Askmeificare is the antithesis of the shiny, heavily produced pop acts that put Jacksonville on the map (we're looking at you, Yellowcard). The bandmembers' hunger to be heard has landed them on festival stages, where loyal fans, branded with the band's question mark logo, swarmed and moshed, feeding the band's merciless ambition 
— and cocksure swagger. What they lack in polish they make up for in willpower.

"When we came out at first, no one was there for us," Raw says. "Every show, we were building that fan base. We pull people in and they get hooked. We like that. That's how music should be."

Rocher agrees. "We're like dope dealers out here. Making it one deal at a time."

At their core, there's a refusal to be marginalized, to be commoditized or packaged into one neat category or another. They also don't like to follow rules.

This led to antics like crashing First Wednesday Art Walk last year. The guys brought their equipment and a PA system into the crowd and began blasting out music and taunting the cops. They couldn't be bothered with things like application fees, wristbands and the other accouterments necessary for a performance to be approved.

"We have music people need to hear to better their lives," Raw says.

You might call that arrogant. They'd call it punk.

True to that genre, Askmeificare's songs run the message gamut from getting wasted to political injustice. Raw says that if they sing about sluts, they're really talking about relationships. If the lyrics are about getting wasted, the real message is about the dangers of a reckless lifestyle.

(Could have fooled us.)

"For us, it's about putting on a good show and getting people involved," Lassiter says. "We want our shows to have a good atmosphere for the fans."

But that isn't enough. Askmeificare wants to be more than just your buddy. They won't settle for less than the world. The timeline looks something like this:

2013: Blow up the Jacksonville scene.

2014: Take the show on the road across Florida.

2015: Embark on their first national tour.

2016: God help the rest of the world.

"We want to go further, faster," Rocher said. "We're not trying to be only a local band in four years. We want to get to the masses."

Those poor, unsuspecting masses. o - folio weekly

There’s a band out of Jacksonville, FL called Askmeificare who made a little bit of local news recently. They came up with a unique idea to shoot a music video for their track “Up In The Club.” That idea was to sneak onto a train on the Jacksonville Skyway with all of their instruments, film a couple of performances of the track, and piece it all together! They were able to perform the song twice before police stopped them. No charges were filed, but they were asked to get off of the train on the next stop. Check out the outcome: - faygoluvers.net

ASKMEIFICARE

Every once in awhile there is a band that comes forth and rocks the stage as a pioneer of a totally unique sound that you’ll always remember them for. ASKMEIFICARE is one of these bands, and they’ll be rocking out with us for The Day After Show! They touch on many issues, some being super relevant lately such as police brutality and how poorly the media handles it. Other times they keep it straight up punk while emitting that powerful “THIS IS WHO WE ARE!” attitude that was prominent in the 90’s.

Yup, they really set up on a moving train in Jacksonville, FL and performed a guerrilla show while in transit! I told you that they like to keep it punk! They’re going to be bringing their highly charged and super energetic performance towards the end of the festival to help make sure that we end everything with a BANG that you won’t soon forget! Trust me, after 4 days of non-stop music, you’ll need the hyper energy charge!!! - news central

Local rock/rap trio Askmeificare chose a distinctly Jacksonville location to shoot a video -- the Jacksonville Skyway.

The band, based on Jacksonville's Westside, took its instruments and a group of fans onto the downtown monorail to shoot a video for "Up in the Club." Some passengers boarded the train during the shoot. "Some people jumped on when they say the band on there," said Jamal "Raw" Oakes, the singer in the band.

The lyrics are kind of profane, so we can't show it to you hear, but you can find it on YouTube by searching "rock band sneaks on train and performs."

Oakes said they were able to run through the song twice before police showed up and told them the next stop was going to be their last. They intended to shoot more but were cut short, which is why bass player Joe Rocher doesn't appear in the video even though he's playing. - jacksonville.com

Ask me if I care? A way of life for Jacksonville’s three piece punk hip-hop band simply titled Askmeificare. They are one third hip-hop, one third punk, one third metal. Each member bring in their own style and really making it work as a whole.

Their most recent album, Middle Fingers Up (MFU), released September 2014 really shows how many fucks they give. The answer is zero. With raunchy hip-hop songs like ” S.L.U.T. (Sexy Little Undercover Throwaway)” and “Rawmantic”, to more punk oriented songs like “Upindaclub” and “Wiped Out” the band really brings in a different role for an M.C. and shows how well it can work on this album. With fast flowing bars brought by vocalist Raw, to punk rock drum beats from Jlee, and heavy groove metal bass riffs its amazing how there is no guitarist on this album yet there sound is very big. “Middle Finger Up” really shows why they call themselves Askmeificare.

Find them on bandcamp and make sure you catch a show you will not be disappointed.

For fans of Bad Brains, Body Count, and Public Enemy - zero warning