Interview: Jaye Jayle
I don't set out to make something for pop culture, you know, something for the masses. I set out to make things for the underground, for people that are searching for something different, like I’ve been searching for my entire life. So having any kind of following and support from that is life changing.
“The beast, he keeps cool, light-hearted and fun. . .”
Clad in black denim and relaxing upon a black throne, surrounded by burning candles, incense and images of Baphomet, Evan Patterson sure looks like the frontman of Kentucky’s finest goth blues band. He’s in the Lucifer Lounge of Raven Records, Camden’s foremost heavy metal record shop and alcohol-free bar, joining E&D’s Joe Norman for a conversation, prior to headlining a show at the Black Heart down the road.
Raven Records has already become an institution of the London metal scene, providing a wide schedule of events – everything from artist signings and battlejacket meetups to mental health peer support groups and sober metal slam poetry – as well as all your metal vinyl needs. And it’s the perfect spot for holding our interview, undisturbed apart from the reassuring pulse of cranked-up Slayer records heard dimly in the background.
Speaking slowly and calmly in his Kentucky twang, Evan was instantly friendly and engaging, and happy to answer all and any of my questions – asked in my moderately Saafeest Lundun accent – with warmth and sincerity. During our half-hour conversation, we covered Evan’s musical background, the origins of Jaye Jayle, the band’s forthcoming new album, After Alter, and his many exciting artistic ventures. I was especially grateful to hear some distinctive anecdotes from Evan’s music and personal lives.
E&D: So you’re touring Europe at the moment with :Of the Wand and the Moon:. How is the tour going? Any stand-out shows so far?
EP: Well Prague and Warsaw were two memorable shows. Usually people don’t dance to us, but in Warsaw there were people like free dancing. There were some real dancing people, they were really enjoying it and knew the songs. It was nice to have that. But every show’s been great, you know. The pairing of us with Kim from :Of the Wand and the Moon: has been ideal.
E&D: Totally. You told me you guys have been bonding on tour about. . . gnomes and monkeys! (Laughs)
EP: Yeah he’s [Kim] always making jokes about gnomes and monkeys and everything else and we all cut up a bit. He’s been with us in the van. You never know how someone is gonna be in the van, if you’re gonna click, but we clicked very well.
E&D: So you are playing with the full Jaye Jayle band, right? With Kim playing solo?
EP: Correct. I was here about a year ago, playing around the corner on a solo tour with Årabrot. It’s nice to actually have the band with me. Doing shows without the band is not necessarily preferred, but sure if the opportunity comes to do a tour and we all can’t do it or afford it, then the solo tour works great.
E&D: I was at that show. You played tracks from Don’t Let Your Love Life Get You Down, right? I thought it sounded as big as on the record with just you.
EP: Thanks. I was able to run my guitar through three amplifiers. It was nice. I had two really wide stereo sounds, and one mono sound, so I could fill up the room a bit.
E&D: So, in terms of musicians and instrumentation on this tour, I’ve seen you guys a few times – most of the shows you’ve played in the UK, I guess. It looks like you’ve got the same band members still, right?
EP: Yeah yeah; it is roughly the same instruments and instrumentation. It’s been the same core musicians for, I guess, about eight years. At the start it was just me and I didn’t expect to be doing a new band. And then all of a sudden friends in town, where I was doing kind of improvised shows, where I just called people up and say, “Hey you wanna come for this show? Here’s the notes: let’s go!” A real just exciting, different vibe than anything I’ve done.
E&D: So that’s the origins of Jaye Jayle. So you had the songs but didn’t quite know what vibe you were going for until it clicked with certain musicians, right?
EP: Yeah. I had a different drummer for the first two shows. Neal’s been drumming since then, and then Todd was a little later to join. Corey has been a friend of mine since I was maybe 13. This tour is actually slightly different from the other full-band tours I’ve done. I used to play a micro Korg synthesiser live but I’ve transposed the songs to just playing everything on guitar. I had a couple of months trying to mend a broken key on the synthesiser, but now I play the songs without and really enjoyed it. The synthesiser is not really my vibe. Playing guitar, also singing and also playing synthesiser was a lot, so this is a little more comforting at this point.
E&D: I got the promo tracks of the new album (After Alter, forthcoming 2025 on Pelagic) and it’s sounding so good, as always. The single ‘Father Fiction’: can you tell me a little bit about that song? Is that one of the four new songs on the album?
EP: The record is four new songs and four self-released songs that I’ve released throughout the years on my own, only digitally. And we had these four songs that we recorded with Don’t Let Your Love Life Get You Down (2023). They’re a little heavier, more like my other band Young Widows. I hadn’t been doing that band very often, or writing new music, until the beginning of last year. So I had this like. . . I really wanna make some heavy again and it was an opportunity to get back into that. And then starting to do Young Widows again. ‘Father Fiction’ is a song that we actually worked on endlessly. We wound up working on that song two or three years off and on, trying to figure how to make it work, because it’s oddly complex. The simple arrangement that it is, it’s actually a lot to figure out the dynamics of how to go in and out of the chorus, into the verses, and wrap the song up. We actually had a friend play guest drums on this record, Chris Maggio; he was in my brother’s band Colosseum for years, and in High on Fire for a while. He’s a fantastic drummer – out of control! He played on all four new songs, and on four/five from Don’t Let Your Love Life Get You Down.
The song is just a tease of the religious figure of. . . God being our father, lord and saviour and kind of just being like, “Where is he?” We’ve all just been told he is there. But there’s no proof or evidence. . . he’s not around.
E&D: Did you have a religious upbringing?
EP: I did. I grew up Methodist. My first instrument was the bells in a church choir, singing in the choir. At a pretty young age, maybe ten, I remember going to Sunday school and then walking and going outside to the playground. . . and I was kind of starting to get the whole cultish vibe of it. I didn’t even agree with it back then when I was a kid.
E&D: Similar for me, but Church of England. So was that your first musical experience, singing in the choir? Do you come from a musical family?
EP: My father has a massive 60s’ rock record collection; as a kid we had, you know, Zeppelin, The Doors, Pink Floyd records. . . he’s a Beatles mania guy. He had Beatles’ dolls when I was a kid. We broke Paul’s bass at one point and he just lost his mind! I can’t believe you broke this: I’ll never find another one! (Laughs) But his influence is really massive, just because we’re kids crawling around on the floor and seeing his record collection.
It kind of went from there. Discovering punk rock from my brother, who’s four years older than me. He discovered hair metal, shit like that, but then discovering Diskord records and Wire and all these punk rock bands – Gang of Four, seeing The Decline of Western Civilisation, GWAR – seeing all of that footage when you’re a kid, you know; I was probably nine or ten. Then I started going to punk shows an hour north of me in Kentucky where was raised. I’m in Louisville now but I was raised a little further South which was a little more of a Bible-belt place. It was a dry county so there’s no alcohol. It’s now wet, but when I was a kid it was dry. . . I remember going on beer runs with my father half an hour away. We discovered there’s a music scene in Louisville and there was a massive hardcore scene. That really just changed our lives, to think that we can be in bands and we can play guitar and we can write songs and go play shows and people will come see shows. As that point in time there was, you know, 1500 to 2000 kids coming doing shows every weekend; high school kids. Just seeing that and having an opportunity to be a part of any kind of music culture was fucking thrilling, man.
Fast forward years later, that was such a good education, discovering so much more music. I’ve always wanted to constantly change and explore and experiment with music. . . still sticking in somewhat of a rock band format, but definitely exploring different sounds and experimenting a lot.
E&D: We can see that in Jaye Jayle. I guess, most obviously on Prisyn [Sargent House, 2020]. So, bringing it back to the present. The final track on After Alter, ‘Bloody Me’. Am I right that was the first recording you made in Jayle Jayle?
EP: That was an early one, yeah. That was before most of the records had come out; one of the first songs I wrote, in the first batch. When I first started, I recorded 10 or 11 songs and wanted to release them on 45-inch, singles. There’s no jackets, no covers; I just wanted them to be like a random 45s’ pile somewhere. And that song was written back then. We’re actually playing that song tonight.
E&D: That’s great! You recorded it at Third Man Records, is that right? We’ve got one in London. I’ve seen the recording booth there; such a cool idea
EP: Yeah, just they have a little guitar set-up there. I was in Nashville where the Third Man Record is, going to see Bob Dylan. It was the first time I’d seen him play. I was like, I should do this! It sounds incredible. It’s such a unique sound, you know; it sounds like an early Roger Miller track. Squashed and lo-fi. . .
E&D: Warped. . . What about the other old songs on After Alter?
EP: So ‘Bloody Me’ is on there twice: the full version, and me on my own. Then there’s the Beatles cover of course [‘Help!’] which goes back to my father and his Beatles’ mania, his collection. His car has ‘Eight Days a Week’ as the licence plate!
E&D: (Laughs]) Go ya, right!
EP: [Laughs] He’s a fanatic! I’ve always thought about kind of teasing him and exploiting the Beatles a little bit. For some reason, that song was on the radio and it just kind of hit me: I can really fuck this song up; really make it something that it was never intended to be. So that was a fun thing to do. And I got to play with a drummer in Louisville, Britt Walford of Slint. That was such a pleasure. The other song ‘Small Dark Voices’, that’s a leftover song from the Prisyn session, and again its an all-electronic song that I made on my phone on GarageBand. It was one that I could never figure out how to wrap up or how to end. Then one day it hit me, like, just have it go on forever; just make it really, really long. It’s a very long song; I think it’s 12 maybe 13 minutes long.
That song deals with a traumatic family situation. My mother attempted suicide two years ago. . .
E&D: I’m sorry to hear that. . .
EP: . . .but she’s okay. She was in a coma for three days and came out of it. That song has to do with that. Depression has been very constant in her life, also in my life, and my family’s life. . . kind of talking to her about it when she came out of the coma for three days. Just the idea of voices in your head telling you that you’re not good enough, that it’s your time to die, just to do it now. . . even though there’s nothing remotely physically wrong. It was a big shock to my mother; she’s such a sweet person, to go through that kind of thing; that she felt she had no point in living anymore, all of a sudden, for no reason. . . just internal feelings. So that song kind of deals with that. . . kind of conquering that.
E&D: I’ve listened to After Alter today and it sounds coherent. If you told me you’d written all those songs last year then I’d believe you. It sounds fresh. What was it like going back to those old songs?
EP: Honestly, I’ve been sitting on them for three years and I just wanted them to see the light of day because I felt so strongly about how exciting they were and how special. I feel like there’s a whole group of people who will probably like these songs, more than any songs we have made. There’s a bit more of a growling heaviness to this batch of songs, than there is in any other Jaye Jayle songs, and I’m happy to share it.
E&D: I’m looking forward to the full release. It’s a great video you released for ‘Father Fiction’ with your illustrations on there. . .
EP: I actually made that several years ago. I thought about using it for projections and never did it. Then I thought that this is the time; all of this devil imagery is very fitting for this video. . .
E&D: . . .and for your heavy album. Can you tell me a little bit about your imprint, Future Heart Works?
EP: I released the book of illustrations [Songs Without Words or Sound ] and I’ve been toying with the idea of releasing records. I kind of wanted to leave it open-ended. . . without calling it just a record label, ’cause I’m hoping for it to do much more than that. I even talked to some friends about releasing short films, doing all kinds of things. The big thing for me is I found it a struggle and disappointing working with a lot of record labels. It becomes so business-like in the rollout of the record and releasing the singles and doing the things. . . I have wanted an outlet to just be able to put things up, really quickly.
Also there’s a whole group of friends in Louisville that don’t have the same wheelhouse that I do with putting out records; so I’m releasing five records I’m putting out in the next three or four months for friends. There are people who are like, “no record label’s responding; I don’t know what to do; where should I press the record?” And I can help them out. For some reason I’ve also decided to do this when I have a nine-month-old baby!
E&D: Yes, congratulations!
EP: Thank you! My partner’s like, “you’re starting a record label now?” (Laughs) It kind of works because my responsibility brain is like. . . I’m taking care of so many things it’s kind of easier. It’s occupying creative time. . . I honestly don’t have much time to be writing music right now with a baby, so it’s nice to be able to help others.
E&D: I was gonna ask you about your illustrations. I assume you’ve always drawn?
EP: Yeah, as a child I took art classes outside of my public school, at a young age. It’s funny looking back: I was nine or ten, I was taking this art class, and my teacher said pick out something from this magazine you wanna draw. I picked out Jack Nicholson from The Shining, with his face to the door! (Laughs])
I did that for about eight years to the point where I was helping teach students, also. Then music started to kick up a bit and I was touring more. . . it takes a lot of work illustrating; it takes a lot of time, a lot of mental power, a lot of isolation. It’s difficult to do with distraction. The pandemic – the lockdown – was a nice time to really just sit there and be able to draw for nine or 14 hours. I discovered a style I’d always want to do, because I’d never really illustrated in a stippling, pointillism style and that was a fantastic discovery.
E&D: Are there any particular visual artists or other illustrators that you draw influence from?
EP: Richie Beck is a friend; he was really inspiring and helpful, just talking with him while I was kind of starting up. And John Baizley – friends reaching out, saying these are great. Raymond Pettibon who did the old Black Flag covers is a big influence. Virgil Finlay who did a lot of the early Sci-fi illustrations, with the stippling of fictitious characters; all the depth and black-and-white. His artwork just really speaks to me. Tattoo culture was a pretty big influence of course: the heavy outlines and shading is a part of their influence. I actually bought a tattoo gun – maybe one day I’ll start tattooing – but it’s still sitting in the box. It could be part of the imprint: Future Heart Tattoos!
E&D: Ages ago at one of your shows I bought a sticker: Todd Is My Co-pilot. I guess that’s a band in-joke?
EP: It was actually a joke that started with a band he [Todd, Jaye Jayle’s bassplayer] was in before Jaye Jayle called Kings, Daughters and Sons. The keyboard player surprised him with these stickers. Todd doesn’t drive, okay?, so everyone’s always going to pick him up – so he’s the co-pilot. He’s also just one of the most incredible people that I’ve ever known. Everyone in this band is truly a best friend; it’s not just a musical relationship. Corey I actually work with when I’m home, every day. We’re together a couple of times a week, just hanging out. We’re very close, we’re family. My son actually has the same birthday as Corey. We were like, this doesn’t make any sense; it shouldn’t be allowed! The closest person next to my partner is Corey and our baby is born on his birthday. It’s odd, it’s cosmic!
E&D: It must be great knowing you can rock up on tour and know you’ve got solid guys with you.
EP: We’re always gonna be close.
E&D: Are there any last comments you wanted to make?
EP: I just appreciate all the support and encouragement with everything. We would be doing it regardless, but the support and encouragement, and how well this tour is going, is even more inspiring. I don’t set out to make something for pop culture, you know, something for the masses. I set out to make things for the underground, for people that are searching for something different, like I’ve been searching for my entire life. So having any kind of following and support from that is life changing.
After Alter releases January 31, 2025 via Pelagic Records and can be pre-ordered HERE.
