Fresh off a win at the 2018 Philadelphia City Council’s PHLlive Center Stage annual music award for the Country/Folk category and a debut at both the 57th annual Philadelphia Folk Festival and the 35th annual MusikFest, The Jayplayers have delivered their latest EP, Little Bit Country.
In this interview spotlight, I chat with The Jayplayers about their latest project, motivations, challenges, technology and more.
Full Q&A along with links and music below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
We are based in Hershey, PA and best describe our music as Americana, for it is a good mix of Country, Roots-Rock, Folk, and Blues.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?
Our first rehearsals were in a local park; something of singing outside, in summertime, for no one in particular, that speaks to the natural ease of our collective relationship with music. The Jayplayers have been together for over five years now, but music has been a part of our individual lives long before that. From very young ages we were drawn to it like an old friend, there to turn to whenever and however we needed it. The passion for making music, great timeless music, is rooted deeply in each of us – the driving factor that allows our band to grow immensely and hopefully infinitely.
How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?
This release is a Country EP (hence the title, The Jayplayers: Little Bit Country) on which we grouped three of our new, distinctly Country songs – Smiling Back At Me, Know Me, Home. Since our music is such a varied mix, we aimed to streamline this sophomore project in making it a sub-genre specific EP.
Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?
Cutting through all the chatter to connect with our fans and yet not bombard them, can be quite a challenge at times. And yet although our digital presence is no substitute for the in-person interactions we have at our shows, it helps us to establish those experiences. Finding venues, booking shows, updating fans of when we’ll be in their area next and delivering our new music to their ears, is a lot quicker of a process in this technological age if not always easier.
What was the last song you listened to?
It’d be an epic answer if we were to list them all, as we are always listening to so much music new and old across most genres! So here are a few artists that we’ve been listening to a lot lately, for the mutual connection between they’re recent releases and our own: Jason Isbell, Dawes, Chris Stapleton, Margo Price, and Lukas Nelson.
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
It depends on which band member you ask – Keeley keeps a slew of CDs in her car, Chris has a large collection of Vinyl, and we all listen to a lot of music on our devices. Really we would say there’s a benefit to each form.
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
Spotify seems to be more universally used between all of us to quickly find, share, and stream a song. However, we’d much rather and more often buy the full album (digitally on iTunes and/or physically on CDs/Vinyl) to support the artists whose music we love!
Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?
Check out our website for all of our music, our full show calendar, and much more: www.thejayplayers.com We’d also love to connect with you on www.facebook.com/thejayplayers or @thejayplayers on Twitter and Instagram.