Singer/actor Jackson Rathbone is hoping for a musical start to 2011 by setting up his own record label.

The star rose to fame as a vampire in the hit Twilight movie franchise, but spends his time off moonlighting as a member of 100 Monkeys, a band he formed with four of his pals.

Rathbone reveals he’s planning a string of shows with the group next year.  He also aims to launch his own music company.

He tells Zooey magazine, “I’ll be working with my band 100 Monkeys and playing shows around the south as well as setting up other productions for the future of my new company PatchMo Entertainment. Also, I’m setting up a record label.”

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I know he isn’t one of the CBA guys but I figured you all would like to read about him anyways

“Fans may come because of Twilight, but they stay because of the music,” Ben Graupner said in his interview with Blast.Graupner is a member of 100 Monkeys, a funky rock band that is also made up of “Twilight” star Jackson Rathbone, as well as Jerad Anderson, Ben Johnson and Lawrence Abrams (whom they call “Uncle Larry”).

The 100 Monkeys has rapidly been gaining popularity over the last few years. In July, they released “Live and Kicking,” a live album with tracks from their most recent tour around the country.

The 100 Monkeys are an indie band distinguished not only by their wide musical range and astonishing energy, but by their performance as well. Don’t be surprised to see the band members switch instruments and vocalists every other song during their theatrical live sets. It’s just their “Monkey Switcheroo.”

“It’s a huge party,” Graupner said about their performances. “That’s exactly what it is. It will make you smile and move. The lights come up, the energy thrums and then it’s just a bunch of fun.”

The goal of the 100 Monkeys is simple: to have fun and inspire creativity. That’s where their name comes from – the 100 monkeys affect, the idea that once a large group of people start doing something it spreads to everyone else and becomes common knowledge. 100 Monkeys aims to inspire people on this same principal.

Graupner chatted with Blast about the music, current and upcoming projects and jamming with his friends.

BLAST: What is your favorite instrument?

Ben Graupner: Oh man, that’s a hard one. It changes from moment to moment. Right now my favorite instrument is the piano. But I don’t know what it’s going to be tomorrow.

BLAST: Are you playing any new instruments?

BG: Yeah, actually we got this really great, cool…well we actually have a couple of cool new ones. Jackson (Rathbone) got gifted this five string guitar from Puerto Rico. I don’t know the actual name for it, but the thing is pretty awesome. We also got, from some fans in Texas, an instrument called a waterphone, which you play with a violin bow and it sounds like those screeching sounds you hear in a horror movie; it’s really fun. And we have a musical saw; we’ve been playing lately too.

BLAST: Some fans on Twitter suggested the bagpipe.BG: (Laughs) Oh yeah, who knows. Maybe one day someone will pick one up. But that’s one of the trickiest instruments to learn, kind of like the violin. You just have to have the time.

BLAST: How many instruments do you play?

BG: You know I haven’t really kept count. I kind of have a varied skill level on all the different ones, but we’ll really pick up anything and give it a whirl.

Read full article.

Jackson Rathbone and his band 100 Monkeys are up to their usual shenanigans in a new they put together for GoDaddy.com’s Commercial Contest. The Mustaches Make It Big commercial featuring 100 Monkeys has the highest ranking!

Visit GoDaddy to vote and keep it there!!

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Isn’t it nice to know that the Cullen brood supports each other both onscreen and off? When MTV sat down with Nikki Reed to chat about her upcoming film, “Last Day of Summer,” she was quick to talk about how excited she was about all of her costars’ current projects as well.

When asked which of her fellow “Twilight Saga” stars’ work she was most looking forward to, she answered, “I guess all of them… I don’t know! We all root for each other,” before delving into each of their current film projects, surprising herself with her ability to remember everyone’s movie names and costars.

She started off talking about her onscreen enemy and off-screen bff Taylor Lautner, who is currently filming “Abduction.” “I love Taylor so much and I’m so proud of him and what he’s doing,” Nikki said, and then referenced “Abduction” by saying, “He’s making a great movie in Pittsburgh right now.”

It’s hard to mention one “Twilight” hottie without mentioning the other, so Nikki then talked about Robert Pattinson’s upcoming project before breezing over Kristen Stewart’s equally awesome “On The Road.”

“I’m excited for Rob’s movie, ‘Water for Elephants.’ I think he’s going to be phenomenal in that and Kristen is doing something amazing,” Nikki said.

Then came her onscreen mother, Elizabeth Reaser, who apparently just finished filming a movie called “Homework.” Nikki was just as excited about Elizabeth’s involvement as she was with her friend’s costars: Emma Roberts and Kristen Stewart’s ex, Michael Angarano. Nikki referred to him as “a really good friend of mine” and ignored his other connection to the “Twilight” cast.

“By the way,” Nikki added, “Jackson [Rathbone] and I are on the phone every other day because we’re trying to find a movie to do together. I’m sorry I forgot to mention Jackson, and he’s touring right now and his band [100 Monkeys] is just like sky-rocketing. It’s amazing.”

Nikki said she would be more than willing to direct one of 100 Monkeys’ music videos. “Would I ever? Oh my god!” she replied excitedly when MTV suggested it to her. “Yeah, of course. I would be honored! I don’t even want to take the position of saying ‘would I ever.’ If he would ever let me, yeah. I love them.”

Pre-Order the upcoming release, Live & Kicking: Part I, by 100 Monkeys and get a limited* autographed CD Booklet with purchase!

From of the City of Angels comes 100 Monkeys, a band described by SPIN.com as “funk rock” and by RollingStone.com as “tribal sounds with vocals recalling Jim Morrison’s baritone croon.” Beyond Race Magazine says they are “sing-along-worthy, sometimes bluesy” and MTV.com describes them as a mix of “Iggy Pop with the Raconteurs.” 100 Monkeys, however, jest that their music is purely “onomatopoetic, but for the sake of simplicity, we’ll call it funky rock-n-roll.”

This quintet of multi-instrumentalists comprises of multi-faceted artists, actors and producers such as: Jackson Rathbone (who appears in such movies as The Last Airbender, and the Twilight Saga), Ben Graupner (Trapped in the 5150, Devolved), Jerad Anderson (Wayne/Lauren Film Company), Lawrence Abrams (of Ike & Tina Turner, U.S.O., and the Artists Consortium), and Ben Johnson (of the Stevedores and music producer of Spencer Bell’s “Brain”).

100 Monkeys are known to switch instruments and vocalists nearly every other song during their raucous, theatrical live-sets, an idea patented as the “Monkey Switcheroo.” Swinging about the stage with an enthusiasm that seems to have been lost since the advent of digital recordings, the 100 Monkeys bring back that analog rock-n-roll of the 60’s, with the humor and cynicism of modern times.

When asked to describe their lyrics, the band attributes “drinking, the devil, death, and women who cheat and steal.” To further the eclectic eccentricity, the band consistently improvises a song per live-set, whereupon they ask an idea or “song title” from the audience and proceed to jam out a tune replete with verses and lyrics…another original idea from an original rock band.

100 Monkeys’ completely independent discography includes 3 EP’s: Monster de Lux (all improvised recordings),Singles (”Ugly Girl,” “Smoke,” “Wasteland Too”), and The Creative Control: Live Sessions. Their first studio album, Grape, was released in 2009. An untitled follow-up album set for January 2011!

Off the yet-to-be-titled sophomore album, 100 Monkeys released their first single, “KolPix,” with a B-side set, “Future Radio” which will be released July 7, 2010 in building up to the release of their upcoming live album, Alive and Kicking: Part I to be released on July 20th, 2010!

*Offer valid only with purchase of Live & Kicking: Part I. This special offer is valid for both domestic and international orders. Preordered CDs shipping with promotional material are limited to (5) per customer. Booklets will be available while supplies last, newburycomics.com will post information when autographed booklets are sold out.

Source via @100MonkeysMusic

Pre-Order the upcoming release, Live & Kicking: Part I, by 100 Monkeys and get a limited* autographed CD Booklet with purchase!

*Offer valid only with purchase of Live & Kicking: Part I. This special offer is valid for both domestic and international orders. Preordered CDs shipping with promotional material are limited to (5) per customer. Booklets will be available while supplies last, newburycomics.com will post information when autographed booklets are sold out.

Via @Twilightfb Source

From their 100 City Tour interview with CBA

Jackson Rathbone (aka Jasper Hale from the Twilight Saga) and the band ‘100 Monkeys’ will be playing at The Roxy Theatre (9009 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, CA 90069), for the “Even Later Show” at 11:45pm, which coincidentally is right AFTER the premiere of Eclipse.

Cast members from the Twilight Saga have been known to show up at 100 Monkeys events.

Need more info? Email: theroxy@mac.com or vicky.gorman1@gmail.com

A few short years ago, Paramore got their start on Bamboozle’s small ‘Boozle stage. This year, Hayley Williams and Co. headlined the New Jersey festival alongside Weezer, MGMT and Drake (check out our full coverage of day one and day two’s biggest sets). After two days of nonstop rock in the Meadowlands parking lot, Rolling Stone picked out five up-and-coming acts who broke out of the pack in 2010:

100 Monkeys: This eccentric Cali act have a built-in buzz magnet — bandmember Jackson Rathbone, also known as one of Twilight’s famous vampires. Their spazzy, energetic Saturday set blended tribal sounds with vocals recalling Jim Morrison’s baritone croon. The “can-this-be-real?” factor ran high thanks to song titles like “The Monkey Song,” lyrics like “free, free, free the beast” and five guys in bandanas jumping around and playing hand drums, trumpet and flute. The band’s latest release, Grape, is out now.

Congratulations guys!!!!

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It’s true! Jackson Rathbone and the 100 Monkeys get all wet for their swimsuit calendar! Unfortunately, these are no longer available, unless they print more, I guess. You can see more info on their site.

They are wearing the same style swimsuits as the newborns in Eclipse. New fashion trend?

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No New Treatments for Adrenal Cancer in 51 Years!

Did you know that?

But thanks in part to money raised by Jackson Rathbone’s 100 Monkeys and others, there is a new drug to test! Quoting Tony, ” …a relatively minute group of people had a collective voice loud enough, donated enough time and resources that this orphan cancer got …a major drug company to do something.”

Tony, Deborah, and Angie, who attended the Spencer Bell Legacy Concert held Saturday in Dallas TX, tell all about the concert, Jackson and the power outage, and more. Tony’s story, especially, will bring you to tears. What an amazing event!

From Tony:

When the passion was new and shameless
I knew that in time my persistence would be rewarded.
So- to insure those rewards, I condemned myself to the life of an
artisan.
I did it swiftly as I could so that I didn’t have a chance to think it
out long enough to change my mind.

Plan A: Make good art for money for food
Plan B: There is no plan B
- Spencer Bell

Spencer Bell? I know most of you reading this may have no clue who
Spencer is. I do know, that after this weekend I consider myself to be
squarely in the billions of people worldwide who did not have the
pleasure of knowing this amazingly talented young man. Spencer Bell was
an artist, poet and a musician who was diagnosed with Adrenal Cancer, on
Thanksgiving Day in 2006, at the age of 20. December 3, 2006, Spencer
Bell passed away due to this orphan cancer, and the 7.5″ tumor in his
abdomen.

What does all this have to do with me? (I’m sure my family and friends
are asking), well it’s not because I have Adrenal Cancer! It’s how I was
moved by the friends and Family of Spencer Bell, so this, is probably
going to end up much longer than I wanted, but please read anyway.

So, Friday I had plans to go see a concert at a club called “Poor Davids
Pub”, it’s an inde band, most of you have never heard of. They are
called “100 Monkeys”. They are in town for a benefit simply known as the
Spencer Bell Legacy (http://spencerbellmemorial.ning.com/). So, imagine
my surprise when we get there, that it just isn’t them but them and 4
other bands (Tin Tin Can, Steveadores, Drew and the Medicine Pen, and
The Kissing Club), all bands involved with the legacy show. The show
starts and the music is good, better than good all the bands were simply
great! We bump into friends from out of town who insist that we go to
the benefit on Saturday, we get home around 3am Saturday morning,
discussing if we should go or not.

We wake up at 9, do our wake up routine and decide that if we are going
to take part in this, we have to go to the 1st showing at 12:30, as I
had to work at 0100 Sunday morning. So we quickly get ready, make sure
the animals are fed and watered, and head back to downtown Dallas, for
the Spencer Bell Legacy. It’s six bands now, adding a band from
Philadelphia called Evro. They were cool, kind of like Evanesence. The
entire show goes until, with a second concert starting at 7. So, Trees
starts kicking everyone from the first show out, we slip through the
cracks (probably because we are hanging out with our friends from ASCC
Now who made the entire thing possible). So we idly talk, and we have
decided that we have to leave at 8, mainly because that’s when our
parking expires, but also, I have to work very early in the morning.

So the second show is going to start, it’s just after 7pm, when Bill
Bell (Spencer’s Dad) shows up on stage to kick off the show. He’s
talking about Spencer, and the legacy show, thanking everyone for being
there, you know, the normal cordial stuff you would expect. Then things
all started to change for me, a man is introduced, Dr. Gary Hammer, from
the University of Michigan, who is obviously very passionate about
Adrenal Cancer and finding a cure. He gives a brief history of Spencer’s
last week on Earth, the pain, and how the only option they had was a
chemotherapy drug called Mitotane, which is derived from DDT!, which was
approved by the FDA in 1959. Apparently Adrenal Cancer is so random, and
rare, that there is no money in curing it. So there has been nothing new
in 51 years! Dr. Gary Hammer, then again, thanked everyone for being
there, because due in large part to the Spencer Bell Legacy, the friends
and family of Spencer, and raising awareness, later this year a new drug
will be put on trial, world wide, Dr. Hammer was obviously very excited
about the new trial, and the fact that a relatively minute group of
people had a collective voice loud enough, donated enough time and
resources that this orphan cancer got attention from a major drug
company to do something. I guess you had to be there, but a man I do not
know, had friends and family that I also largely do not know, and I was
near tears, hearing of the advancements they have brought about. Dr.
Hammer referred to them as a movement, and I, for one, was moved!

Read more of Tony, Deborah, and Angie’s stories!