I first met Jay back in 2015 when I was recording some demos for a few labels (which actually came around through opportunities I discovered on The Looking List!).
I had some great songs, but my voice didn’t suit them at all – I needed a much more tuneful and positive sounding singer.
Now – Jay and I live 300 miles apart, so he recorded his vocals in his own studio. Just a few days later I was blown away by what he sent back.
Not only were his vocal takes brilliant – but they were tracked to perfection. And he’d gone more than the extra mile – he’d added his own harmonies to all 3 tracks – which just took them off in a new direction.
Often you’ll find that this kind of input is a distraction rather than offering any value – but with Jay’s incredible understanding of musical composition, combined with his pitch-perfect voice, this was a case of adding reverb and a couple of volume tweaks – it made my job far easier.
But Jay’s talent doesn’t end there. He’s an accomplished writer and performer, somehow equally comfortable in seriously credible Rock & Indie bands (John Peel championed his old band ‘EleMenT’ – getting them in for two sessions on Radio 1) as writing the music for a children’s cartoon!
Because this is the internet, I’ll attempt to condense Jay’s huge list of accomplishments into information you can soak up quickly.
Louder Than War sum up Jay’s band “All Hail Hyena” perfectly:
“brilliantly off-kilter” and a trio who “cram more ideas into one song than most bands have in a whole set”.
