JVK singer Jo Krieger discusses Boston band's tour, 'Body Double' single, more ahead of Pittsburgh show

Putting together the first cross-country tour for Boston-based rock band JVK has definitely been daunting for founder/frontwoman Jo Krieger.

”We’re very ambitious and we’ll do absolutely anything and everything to get to where we want to be. So we were coming up with this tour and all the dates, we’re looking at it, I’m like, is my car gonna be able to handle that?” she said with a laugh. “So far, it’s been good. It’s been great.”

For a band that’s mostly played in the Northeast, there have been some interesting shows across the country as they look to get their foot in the door, such as an outdoor show under a bridge in Jacksonville, Florida, and a sweltering garage in Phoenix.

“It’s definitely unpredictable because you really never know what you’re walking into,” Krieger said. “There’s been some shows where I’m like, oh, we’ll see what happens. It ends up being amazing and a huge crowd, and there are other times where it’s just truly you don’t really know what you’re walking into. Other than that, it’s really been such an incredible experience.”

Their Spoiler tour will bring JVK to Pittsburgh on Sunday for a show at the Mr. Roboto Project in Wilkinsburg. This will be their third show this year in Pittsburgh, including a stop at Picklesburgh earlier this summer.

In the three years JVK has been around, the band has experienced an ever-evolving lineup, but this iteration of Krieger, guitarists Atticus Crowley (a Pittsburgh native) and Kay Kwiatek, drummer Ricky Kraby and bassist Liv Barcohana has been together since April.

Their “Hello, Again” EP dropped in 2022, followed by the “Who is JVK?” EP last year, with their latest single, “Body Double.” Festival appearances at Louder Than Life last year and Boston Calling this year have helped Krieger learn more about the band and what it should be.

“That was a big course on how to handle stress in those situations,” she said. “I feel like this has been the experience that’s really taught me like, OK, who is JVK, what’s the direction we’re going into and how we’re gonna do it. It’s almost like the biggest thing has been wanting to apply what I’ve learned, but I’m still in the lesson. So, yes, I’m definitely learning who is JVK now.”

In a call Friday from Portland, Oregon, Krieger also discussed the new single “Body Double,” what’s next after the tour and possible themes for the new album.

Have you gotten to know each other even better on this tour, or have you learned too much about each other?

(Laughs) It’s funny because our drummer Ricky and guitarist Kay I’ve known for like 10 years now and Atticus I’ve known for a few years and our bassist Liv, she’s like the newest. I met her back in December. But it’s like, you think you know someone super well, and then you drive around the country with them for two months and then you really know someone super well. (laughs)

“Body Double” is your newest song. Is that the first one that you and Kay and Atticus all collaborated on together?

Yeah, I would say so. Atticus and Kay, they did some of the recording with me, but the thing is that I write like 99.9% of the songs. I write the songs, I come up with everything and then I bring it to them, and we just kind of come up with an arrangement together. But when “Body Double” was being written, it was like a brand new phase of the band because we had kind of been going back and forth on certain members. Kay became an official member and so the three of us just sat down and we were like, OK, let’s try and write something all together. I had a riff and then that got morphed into what “Body Double” was, so that was really our first big collaboration together like that.

Does “Body Double” feel like the direction that the band is going, or do you feel like it’s still a work in progress?

It’s still a work in progress, I would say. I think for a long time I have tried to kind of put myself in this bubble of hard rock, and that’s it. I feel like I’m starting to realize that I have a lot of natural pop influence and ’80s influence, so I feel like the next steps for JVK is going to show a lot of these other influences that I haven’t shown at all in my music, which I’m very excited about.

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So I assume that you’ll be going into album mode after this tour is over?

Like the second we get back. (laughs) … We’ll get home, we’ll sleep and then it’s just wake up and go. That’s all we do.

A lot of the inspiration for the “Hello, Again” EP came from “the bad men I’ve dated.” Is there still more material left on that topic or have you mined all of that?

Honestly, no. I think I’ve got it all out of my system. I feel like a lot of the things that I’ve been really thinking about, a lot of the stuff that’s been really motivating me recently, has been the internet and the societal standards within the internet. And also just kind of how things are typically, certain situations or so many situations, seen as so black and white, with like nothing in the middle.

And I feel like a lot of the stuff I’ve been writing is about everything between the black and white. So there’s been a lot of stuff about forgiveness and a lot of stuff about just my personal feelings about being a musician on the internet. And so I’m really diving into a lot of topics. I branched out of the bad men. I’m like, all right, there’s only so much I can say before I start to sound redundant. (laughs)