Sorry that this page is, visually, Technicolor vomit. But it HAS to be. It's Jellyfish!

I've only been *fully* into Jellyfish since March of 2025 but I LOVE THEM SO MUCH! AH!!! I first heard "New Mistake" on October 2024, I don't even remember where I discovered it, but I immediately thought it was one of the greatest songs ever made. And I still think so. It's probably their most popular song, but it's still my favorite. I don't care. It's their masterpiece. But every other song they made isn't far behind. They have such a good grasp of what makes a song good, man.

This band has a lot of the things that I find appealing in a musical act: vocal harmonies, creative instrumentation, witty lyricism with puns and wordplay, a vocalist with a powerful voice, a fun wardrobe, and a memorable stage presence. They have a singing drummer! They have a wonderful, 90s-does-the-70s thing going on, both musically and visually, but with their own spin on it. The first era of the band is more whimsical, and the second era is more stylish.

They were a very short lived band, all things considered, they only lasted 5 years from 1989 to 1994 and frankly I don't think they'll ever reunite, but that's okay. they left us with two gorgeous albums and a plethora of side and solo projects. I think they were a really special band full of really special musicians.

I don't know if any OG Jellyfish fans will ever stumble across this page, but if any of them do, 1. I envy you so much for being alive when they were active, 2. I don't claim to be a Jellyfish expert. I've only been listening for less than a year after all... I'm just some random girl in her 20s with a website and too much free time and a mind that latches onto bands pretty hard, and I just like talking about stuff that brings me joy. And as of me writing this in June of 2025, Jellyfish is the biggest beacon of joy in my boring miserable life. 3. Let me know if there any terribly glaring (new) mistakes, and I hope all is forgiven...

A brief history of Jellyfish

Jellyfish was a band, yes, but at its core, (and no matter how much they try to insist they were trying to be a band), they were a duo. They wrote all of the songs and had complete creative control over the band. This duo was made up of Andy Sturmer (drums/vocals) and Roger Joseph Manning Jr. (keyboards/vocals), two guys in their mid-twenties who had first met way back in Roger's freshman year of high school and bonded over their music tastes. In the late 80s, when Roger was studying music in college, Andy called him up to see if he wanted to replace the keyboard player in the band he was in, a pop rock quartet called Beatnik Beatch. (awful name i know LOL). Roger accepted, and he spent that summer making tons of round trips between LA and San Francisco to study and play. After a while though, Andy and Roger realized they were having more fun writing songs with each other than with the rest of Beatnik Beatch. That band eventually dissolved, though Andy and Roger were still signed to Atlantic Records, so they set out to work and record a bunch of demos for what would eventually become Jellyfish.

They eventually recruited guitarist Jason Falkner, who had met Roger a year or so prior. Dissatisfied with Atlantic Records, they shopped around for new labels, with about a dozen of them showing interest in their work. They eventually signed to Charisma Records. The recording sessions for the first album were marked by a lot of tension between the band, especially between Andy and Jason, who didn't really get along, the latter frustrated by the fact the other two kept ignoring his songwriting ideas despite them having promised him he would get to share his songs. They finished recording their first album, titled Bellybutton, in 1990. It (both of their albums really) was produced by Albhy Galuten of Saturday Night Fever fame! After this, they set out on touring, with Roger's younger brother Chris on bass.

In December of 1991, after touring the U.S and Europe, Jason left the band, citing the aforementioned tensions between him and Andy/Roger (he says they gave him an ulcer O_o). Chris would follow him soon after, finding he didn't like being out on the road. Meanwhile, Andy and Roger ended up working with Ringo Starr for his album "Time Takes Time". They wrote the song "I Don't Believe You", and appeared on the music video for "Weight Of The World". They also had a fruitless writing session with Brian Wilson (rip :( he recently died as of me writing this). Meeting their heroes inspired them to create their definitive masterpiece album.

They spent about six months writing and demoing songs for this next album, and then they spent another six months recording it. The album went over schedule and over budget, but the result, 1993's "Spilt Milk" consolidated their vision as a band. It is, indeed, their masterpiece. With a new touring band comprised of Eric Dover on guitar and Tim Smith on bass (who also helped record the album), they set out for another round of touring in support of Spilt Milk. However, the album flopped on the charts and tensions between the band members were at an all time high, with Andy and Roger becoming increasingly distant as friends and musical partners.

In 1994, they recorded a cover of "Think About Your Troubles" for a Harry Nilsson tribute album. They also began to write songs for a third album, but their music tastes, much like their friendship, were drifting apart. Roger was getting more into high-energy glam rock, and Andy was getting into country ballads. Not being able to find common ground on the songwriting process (while still not letting the other members of the band contribute to it), paired with financial struggles and Andy's growing discomfort over being the band's frontman (he was apparently very shy and hated the spotlight), all collided in the 4th of April, 1994, when Roger called Andy over the phone to officially break up the band.

Andy and Roger never spoke to each other personally again. (aside from like, one email in 2011.) Nowadays, they don't seem to harbor any resentment towards the other, and they seem proud of what they did together, but they will probably never collaborate on music ever again.

Where are they now? I hear you ask. Well, Andy wrote many songs for Puffy AmiYumi, and now he works as a composer in cartoons. If you've watched Cartoon Network or Disney Jr. from the mid-2000s til the present day, there's a big chance you've heard his work. He's very reclusive and hasn't given a public interview in over thirty years. Roger has kept himself busy with a bunch of side projects (I will list them below), but he also works as a session musician and is also in Beck's touring band alongside Jason, who after forming and breaking up a band called The Grays, found himself more comfortable as a solo artist. Chris is a sound engineer, Tim has also toured with the likes of Noel Gallagher and Sheryl Crow, while Eric has fronted Slash's side project Slash's Snakepit, and played with Alice Cooper. They're all fairly successful, but they now have more lowkey roles in the music industry. But once you start noticing them, they're in more places than you think.

Most members of Jellyfish, except for Andy (who seems to want to be left alone and no one wants to work with him anyway) and Chris (who doesn't really play music he's a sound engineer now) have reunited with each other in various ways. Roger and Eric formed Imperial Drag after the Jellyfish breakup, Roger and Jason had a project called TV Eyes in the 2000s, and in the 2020s, Roger, Eric and Tim reunited as The Lickerish Quartet. (they are indeed not a quartet.)

The members

(I'm listing the instruments they played live onstage, I know they played a lot more stuff in the albums)
Chris Manning
Bass/Vocals
1990-1992		 Jason Falkner
Guitar/Vocals
1989-1991		 Andy Sturmer
Drums/Vocals
1989-1994		 Roger Joseph Manning Jr.
Keyboards/Guitar/Vocals
1989-1994		 Eric Dover
Guitar/Keyboards/Vocals
1993-1994		 Tim Smith
Bass/Vocals
1992-1994


The studio albums

Bellybutton
1990		 Spilt Milk
1993
The Man I Used To Be
That Is Why
The King is Half-Undressed
I Wanna Stay Home
She Still Loves Him
All I Want Is Everything
Now She Knows She's Wrong
Bedspring Kiss
Baby's Coming Back
Calling Sarah		 Hush
Joining A Fan Club
Sebrina, Paste and Plato
New Mistake
The Glutton Of Sympathy
The Ghost At Number One
Bye, Bye, Bye
All Is Forgiven
Russian Hill
He's My Best Friend
Too Much, Too Little, Too Late
Brighter Day


The music videos

Post-Jellyfish Projects

(disclaimer: only listing the projects where they were primary songwriters or frontmen)
Andy Sturmer Jason Falkner Roger J. Manning Jr. Eric Dover Tim Smith
Puffy AmiYumi The Grays Imperial Drag Umajets
Solo album demo Solo albums The Moog Cookbook Slash's Snakepit
Cartoon soundtracks TV Eyes Sextus
Solo albums
The Lickerish Quartet

Their wonderful aesthetic

The guys from Jellyfish grew up in the 70s, and it shows. And, well, I LOVE IT! I love the way the 70s look, both in the real world and in the whimsical cartoons, movies, advertisements and art movements of the era. So, of course, Jellyfish is, visually as well as musically, right up my alley.

The fashion is a no-brainer. I mean, come on. The bellbottoms, platform shoes, peace sign chokers, colorful coats, jackets and vests, the corduroy and velvet and patchwork and stripes... Oh the stripes. Stripes on stripes going in opposite directions! It's so gaudy, it's so wonderful. Love love love looooove it.

But of course they don't stop at dressing up cool. Their stage show was also decorated a bit. In the Bellybutton era, they decorated their set with a white picket fence, fake flowers, string lights and they had a bubble machine too! I've seen this one concert from this era, where Roger has a Les Paul with cute smiley faces aaaaall over it. I love that!! There's also this MTV interview where they're all eating lollipops, and Roger has one of those big swirly ones. At some other point in the interview, Chris has a smiley face lollipop too. (pictured here in this gif.) I just love smiley faces!

During the Spilt Milk era, they really toned it down, music critics didn't seem to take them too seriously :( it sucks that people hate whimsy! But still they dressed stylish, but more toned down with reds and browns and greens and yellows. They decorated their stage with this Lite-Brite display with the Jellyfish logo on it (pictured behind Tim here) I just love how quaint it is. I've also seen stars made of glittery cardboard hanging from their instruments which I think is cute. While the Bellybutton era to me had a stronger visual style, the Spilt Milk era doesn't lag behind, it's just more... Grounded in reality I suppose.

Why do I love them so much?

My favorite songs are New Mistake, Bedspring Kiss, Russian Hill, The Man I Used To Be, He's My Best Friend, Now She Knows She's Wrong, and Brighter Day. And if covers count, I love their rendition of Jet!!! My favorite album is Bellybutton, my favorite member is Roger. Though everyone is awesome, of course. My favorite stage clothes were Jason's pants with the flowers with a smiley face in the center, Roger's yellow velvet suit with heart buttons from the Baby's Coming Back video, and the silver flower necklace I've seen Andy and Roger wear in pictures.

Here's a list of more specific things that make me love Jellyfish.

Another random musing: In their history, they remind me a little bit of XTC... I mean they do cite them as an influence, and Roger has said the reason he answered Jason's newspaper ad (which is how they met) was that Jason had mentioned XTC in the ad. So yeah of course there's some XTC influence. But I mean like... Both bands had a core songwriting duo, made up of a guy named Andy (they both have a butt chin too...) who people say was dictatorial in the studio, and a dark haired guy whose last name starts with M and ends with -ing, both duos had a falling out and they stopped speaking to each other... Both bands were signed to Virgin! (Well, not really. but Charisma was a subsidiary of Virgin.) Kind of specific coincidences like that, LOL.

I still haven't read Brighter Day: A Jellyfish Story. I want to, I do want all the juicy details about this band, haha. I just can't shell out forty bucks plus international shipping for it right now. But I hope to get that book one day. Fingers crossed that copies of it still exist whenever I can allow myself that luxury. There's just so little information about the band, and I want to know what's in that book! As much as I hate reading out of screens, I wish it had an eBook release or something like that.

Anyway, here's some art I made of Jellyfish :o)

Jelly-links

Listen on YouTube Listen on Spotify

Interested in more Jellyfish? Check out these pages, some maintained by band members and others by hardcore Jellyheads who've been there since the 90s.

Jellyfish Archive. Exactly what it says on the tin. Really an invaluable resource for anything Jellyfish media.
(Also the reason why I made my page Bellybutton themed, because theirs is Spilt Milk themed.)
Chris Manning's website, tons of Jellyfish pictures there.
Zenandjuice.com's Jellyfish page, it's been up since 1994!!! Interview archives, images, etc.
Jellyfish tales, and its modern incarnation over at Yer' Doin' Great.
Roger Joseph Manning Jr.'s old website. It's kind of broken, as most archived Flash websites are these days.

Jellyfish - Joining a Fan Channel
The Lovetarians - a Jellyfish tribute band

Roger's Instagram
Jason's Instagram
TheJellyfishArmy - an Instagram fanpage with an IMPRESSIVE collection of memorabilia.

Pictures