Jason Hicks doing his thing
Hoping to inspire and get their music out there to as many as possible, Australian band JAYWALKER have managed to pick up US management, sell over 2000 copies of their music at live shows and help some good causes along the way. Jason Hicks, the lead singer and songwriter of the band, visited UTS to have a chat with Patrick Catanzariti about his experience so far and the band’s future plans.
First of all, how did you spend your time at uni?
I was learning guitar, studying and seeing which girl I was interested in (which varied a lot… apologies for that).
What sorts of music to you listen to outside of JAYWALKER?
Jeff Buckley vocally was somebody who made me want to be a better singer. Grace was an album which I practiced a lot over the years. It’s one of those albums, I think, which is just going to be timeless. So that’s a major inspiration. Also bands like Radiohead, John Mayer and Jason Mraz which are more suited to the JAYWALKER style of things I guess. There’s also classical music, that’s something I absolutely love listening to, along with people like Sting and The Police – all of the greats. So yeah, there’s a lot of different genres I listen to.
What do you think is the best musician haircut?
I’m a fan of the mullet, I think it’s just something that should be brought back. I’ve never had one myself because my girlfriend would disown me, but the 80s mullet is probably my favourite of all of them.
What would you say is JAYWALKER’s main goal?
I think one of the goals a lot of bands and artists have is to be able to live off your music. That would be brilliant. Personally, living off original music is a major goal and I know the other guys in the band are the same. We just love to play music. Getting up and writing every day, playing shows, hopefully inspiring people and doing some good charity causes… I think that’s just the thing around music. For me that’s what music is about. Not so much all the alcohol, the good times (so to speak) and things like that, it’s really about doing good with it. So that would be my main goal. We’d also love to get our music out to as many people we possibly can which we’re hoping to achieve through our recent US management.
How did the US management come about and what are your plans with it?
At the end of December, Koo Abuali from FireWire Music was scouting at a show we were playing at and decided to go with us which was great. She’s been fantastic so far with advice. There are so many ways that you can get ripped off in the music industry, especially with licensing. There are all these little clauses, so that’s been good in itself because there’s just some really dodgy stuff out there.
We plan to go over there in August. She’s set up a tour for us, we’ve got residency accepted and all that kind of stuff in New York, so hopefully we’ll do a fair few US shows and really get ourselves out there live.
Do you think getting a radio deal will generally change a band’s sound?
I heard Chris Martin from Coldplay say recently in an interview that after all the commercial radio play they’d had, it was so hard for them to write an album that made people want to listen to them again. That’s the thing. When you get played so much on radio, bands tend to get put into a sort of pigeon hole. I naturally write relatively commercial sounding songs, so I think our music wouldn’t really change that much. Really in the end you just write what you’re feeling and stay true to what you love.
What would you say is strangest moment you’ve ever had on stage?
In a previous band I was in a few years ago, we had a big launch planned over at Bar Broadway. Second song into the whole set, the power went off and didn’t come back on. We had a string quartet playing with us and everything. So in the end we had to go out the front and play acoustic to a crowd of 300 people. They all sat on the floor completely and utterly quiet so they could hear everything. It was probably one of the hardest things that’s ever happened but it was one of the most amazing things. You could hear a pin drop. The fact that people would sit there and do that for you was pretty amazing. You get certain people trying to come up on stage during performance and that sort of thing but the Bar Broadway gig was pretty special.
What would you say is your most embarrassing moment so far in JAYWALKER?
I break strings all the time. That’s probably just a constant thing for me. You’ve just got to try to get through the rest of the song. Apart from that there haven’t been too many overly embarrassing moments.
What would you say have been JAYWALKER’s biggest achievements so far?
We’ve sold a fair few CDs which is a really good thing as we know that our music is out there a fair bit. The Music Oz Awards were fantastic. We came runners up in their People’s Choice Award which was great because it got our name out there a lot. Our sell out show at the Vanguard was also a really special night. The US management’s a great achievement too.
What advice would you give to music artists at UTS?
Definitely work on your song writing. Before you put your songs out there really work on the songs and make sure they’re your best songs because first impressions are huge. That’s how we started, we had a lot of songs and pin pointed the ones that were the best ones we felt most comfortable with.
Obviously, the online tools out there are great for getting your name out. Setting up e-mail lists is something we’re pretty big on as well. Whatever you can do to keep people interested, capture them and get them into your music.
Who would you say are your favourite radio station?
I still listen to Triple J a lot because you do get a lot of artists on there that haven’t been discovered yet. The Triple J side of things is something that we’re going to target soon and see how that goes. So definitely Triple J. Sometimes you get a bit of average stuff but you get average stuff everywhere. I like listening to Triple J because you can pick up artists who are in the making.
Have you ever played a gig you wish you hadn’t?
Yeah definitely. We played a gig up on the central coast a little while ago which was just a scary night. The sound person didn’t turn up so the venue called in this person who I don’t think had ever done sound before and we were just on stage crying. It was pretty full on.
Have you ever had any really negative criticism?
We don’t get a lot, people probably just don’t say it to our faces *laughs*. With some of the sites where people can listen to your music and post reviews, sometimes some of those can be pretty full on. You think, you’ve given us a four out of ten! What do you mean a four out of ten!?! Though everyone’s got different ears, you can’t get angry about it, they’ve listened to your music. You just tend to dwell on the positives really.
How can people interested in your music support you best?
Definitely by coming to live gigs. People aren’t stupid, if they can listen to something online, they want to see you do it live. That’s something that myself and the band are really big on. I try to play with people who have the same love of playing live. People can also support us through the online competitions like mp3.com.au, Triple J’s Unearthed and OurStage along with purchasing our music.
Jaywalking itself is pretty big criminal offence, have any band members committed an offence or two you’d like to share?
We actually had a keyboardist that used to play with us (who is still a great mate of the band) that got caught jaywalking after a gig we played. He walked out of the venue, was walking across the road for some reason and ran the lights. A policeman stopped on the corner, got onto the loudspeaker and said “excuse me sir, you are jaywalking”. In the end they found a bit of humour in it, I think they were just trying to scare him. I’ve seen some other bands do some pretty crazy things like get angry that their set was cut short and throw bottles at the sound guy or DJ but we’re really a pretty relaxed bunch of guys. No broken laws just yet.
What lead you to a career in music?
Well, my mum’s a singer so music for me was a very natural thing. I’ve never been taught to sing or taught to play guitar. Mum and I used to sing ever since I was really little, so that was really a natural thing for me. I learnt guitar off my mate really, just by seeing what he was doing. I studied a sales and marketing degree at Newcastle University which has been great as marketing is a massive part of getting your music out there. When I’m playing music it’s probably the most comfortable I feel on a day to day basis.
You can check out and download JAYWALKER’s music for free on MP3.com.au. They’ve also recently came third in OurStage.com’s Contemporary/Soft Rock category for March 2009.
