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 JEREMY JAY is tall and young. He grew up and still resides in Angeltown, California, along with his other three bandmates. The handsome, alabaster young gent talked to RICHARD MACFARLANE about his debut album, just released on K Records/Popfrenzy.
The record, called A Place Where We Can Go, is the aural equivalent of trees hanging over streets at night, dappled through with streetlight. Jeremy likes diners, rides in cars, romance, and Buddy Holly. Based around a fairly stark working of piano, guitar, bass, and drums, his nocturnal pop is modern in it’s own wonky way. Yet Jeremy’s classiness is balanced by a post-punk sort of disaffectedness, held afloat by an unbridled romanticism.
His debut 2007 Airwalker EP was audibly dancier than this latest full-length effort, but then, as he reveals, the album is a particularly special and personal record for him.
“It’s serious for me. [The song] Heavenly Creatures is in the third person, but it’s not supposed to be distant. It’s a very philosophical record. It’s very important to me and I wanted to put it out because of the poetic significance to me and because of how important it is to me. To me, poetically, it’s really strong.
“Airwalker sounds a lot more modern and dancey and everything, and the next record, well, we’ve already recorded the next record; it’s just a whole new world from A Place Where We Can Go. I think looking back at these records ten years from now, when they’re all together, A Place Where We Can Go will make sense because it introduces Jeremy Jay as a person and as an artist, and it shows his background and it shows his dreams and his love and romance or whatever. I feel really strongly about it.”
There’s a big sense of self-reflection across the album; the awareness (and style) derived from the third person narration on a lot of the new record’s songs. Two tracks, Heavenly Creatures and The Living Dolls, put this to particular use. Laid on top of Jeremy’s unabashed romanticism and love for the ‘60s can be found a unique and skewed type of songwriting that sticks in your mind for ages. He produced it with Calvin Johnson at Dub Narcotic studios, and it’s a very K Records release, that’s for sure. Yet there’s also a Jonathan Richman (solo) vibe on there too, as well as a sense of Hunky Dory-era Bowie.
Jay works with a band of three musicians who actively share and feed off each other, letting things flow in naturally. That’s how things work for Jeremy and co. – honesty is the best policy.
“It’s upfront, it’s honest. It’s not holding back. The thing that’s important in human documents is to be honest, for prosperity’s sake. It’s better to be honest with yourself and others than to not be, and I feel like, ‘why waste your time not being honest?’. If you love a girl, then that’s what happens, and that’s what you say to her. Or, like, if you feel this way about yourself then that’s how you feel. And that’s what you put down on the record; it’s a very practical way of working with it. In ten years or twenty years I will look back at this record and know its something special because it’s honest, and it’s [been made] with people that I really care about and it’s a document of time. It’s my diary”.
A PLACE WHERE WE CAN GO is out now on K Records/Popfrenzy.
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