His new record I Believe In You. Your Magic Is Real. is laden with lines like, ‘If you say it out loud you can make it happen’, ‘I couldn’t say no, but I learned how’, and ‘do what you love, love what you do,’ that can come across as almost sappy, but if you have the good fortune of seeing him perform, you’ll know it’s all for real. He honestly does what he loves and loves what he does and it can be genuinely infectious. The record is out May 8th on Marriage Records and its release will surely blast him further into the indie spotlight this summer.

After a packed, sweltering show at Cinders Gallery in Brooklyn, ‘Sup stepped out for some air with the former beat man from The Blow. And then sat down. On the sidewalk. Out front. With a PBR. Then this happened…

‘Sup: Hi.
Jona: Hi!
Who is this?
Jona: This is Claire.

Hello, Claire.
Claire: Hi.

Jona: She’s in Yacht. I just signed her tonight. I got some new pens so I’m all crazy about signing.

So what is Yacht?
Jona: What’s Yacht?

Yeah, where does it come from?
Jona: Oh, where does it come from… that’s a whole different thing. First question, Yacht is a band, I guess you could say… but in a somewhat loose sense of the word. There aren’t multiple players. There are no acoustic instruments…

Claire: There are multiple players.

Jona: Well there are some multiple players. Yeah ok, you’re in the band I signed you. [Claire does some of the female vocal parts on the album] But anyway, Yacht the name came from this building that was out of business in Portland, Oregon. It said Y.A.C.H.T. really big which was an acronym for Young Americans Challenging High Technology. Which, I think is one of two things: either like this weird nerd group that meets after school and hacks calculators or something. ORit was like a Unabomber anti-technology jig. I’m not sure which one it was.

Claire: It was the latter.

Jona: It was the latter?!

Claire: Yeah, Michael Buntsner told me about it. It was a weird religious anti-technology group.

Jona: Holy Fuck. I’ve never known that until right now. So the building was completely decrepit when I first saw it which was about eight years ago and the last thing that happened at the building was a birthday party. And the way you can tell, [laughing] you know those signs that say ‘Happy Birthday’ and each letter is a different color foil? It was hanging out of this broken window looking so sad like it had been the worst birthday party ever. So for some reason, I don’t know how people pick band names, but that’s where I got Yacht.

Because I noticed it used to be punctuated and now we’re not doing that…
Jona: Yeah it just got too complicated.

Too many dots?
Jona: Yeah.

Do you still make beats for The Blow? Or you did that and now you’re onto something new?
Jona: I’m kind of over it. The Blow was something I did, and we did two records together. And after Paper Television I really wanted make my own stuff and do it all with laser vision. I didn’t want to have to keep fighting with this person after every little thing. It was really just about making the vibe that I want to make and I think that happened with I believe in you. Your magic is real.

Yeah, I like the new thing. I liked the magic wand you have on the cover. You sent me one. I use it on stuff. Where did you get it?
Jona: This guy who works for the label Dog Pony is into toys and works at some weird toy manufacturer in San Francisco. So I thought of him when I needed some weird object to send out to people. Through some friends I emailed him and said I needed 1,000 magic wands. And he told me to email this other person with the most generic email address, like susan@yahoo.com, or something like that, and I wrote her and said, ‘ahhh… this guy told me you could find me magic wands’ and she said, ‘give me one week.’ And then the wands got shipped to us and we didn’t even know who to pay. She wasn’t taking any of the money. I don’t even know how it ended up because Marriage Records taking care of it, but it was only like $30 for 1,000 and we couldn’t order less. We had to order 1,000.

So you have some extra?
Jona: Yeah, if you need some more… I want to throw them out at shows and yell, ‘Everyone put your wands in the air!”

People love free stuff. You seem like pretty positive dude.
Jona: Yeah, man.

Have you always been that way?
Jona: I don’t know… why? Someone asked me that the other day, ‘is postivity back in 2007?’

Did it ever go anywhere?
Jona: That’s what I was asking. I think it’s been here all along.

Is there anything that makes you mad?
Jona: There’s a couple things.

Do you want to talk about it?
Jona: You know, classic things. Like the president and racism and sexism… shit like that. Fundamentally bad things.

Who was it that taught you to say, ‘no’? Like in your song.
Jona: I kind of taught myself, but it was more of a group effort with my closest friends. Sometimes you need somebody to just be like, ‘Dude come on.You’re being a baby.’

Well, thanks.
Jona: Thanks for asking.

Top: Yacht aka Jona Bechtolt (right) and his accomplice, Clair
Above: Yacht performs at Cinders Gallery April 14, 2007