Fastest Land Animal's Screamin' Jack Novak Explains Band's Origin

On Tuesday night (Oct. 24), Screamin' Jack Novak joined Loudwire Nights as the show's latest Artist Spotlight guest. In addition to sharing one of the best concerts of his life and what he thinks he'd be doing if he wasn't making music, the frontman dove into the origins of his latest band, Fastest Land Animal.

"It started out as a COVID lockdown side project with some members of my prior band called The Cringe," Novak — also known as John Cusimano — told host Chuck Armstrong. "We couldn't tour, we couldn't play gigs, but we all had home studios and we could all connect and record remotely."

Novak's "brilliant idea" — said as he rolled his eyes and laughed to himself — was to come up with a completely different band with different names and characters. And they did just that.

"This is more just like punk rock," Novak explained, comparing Fastest Land Animal to the more classic rock sound of The Cringe. "The rule was every song had to be at least 150 beats per minute. We made up alter egos and created backstories, [which are] in the liner notes of the first album."

Fastest Land Animal have since grown from a side project to a legitimate focus for Novak; this year, they released their second full-length album, East Coast, West Coast, In Between.

"We ended up getting invited to go back on tour with Tesla," he said.

"It went really well. We were having so much fun with this new thing ... We stayed out on the road and we're still out on the road. We're doing a European tour with Buckcherry in February — it's just the snowball effect that never ended."