Jay Brown’s Reappearing Act

Written by Tom Wilson | Sense Music Media

How were your teenage years? Awkward? Embarrassing? Imagine going through it while signed to a major label and touring the country. Aussie metal fans over thirty will be well aware of the legacy of SUNK LOTO, the Gold Coast alt. metal four-piece who, like SILVERCHAIR before them, had a record deal and chart success while it’s members were still in high school. Releasing their first LP at the turn of the century – in a strange era where new technology had record labels at battle stations – success came hard and fast, and it wasn’t without its challenges. A second LP – the uglier, more cerebral Between Birth And Death – followed, before the band splintered in 2007; a sad end to a decade making innovative heavy music. Singer Jay Brown and brother Dane pushed forward with rock troupe ELECTRIC HORSE for another five years, before calling hiatus in 2014. Now, after spending the past few years living amongst the peace and serenity of the Tallebudgera Valley, Jay is back with a four-track EP and a vastly different sound, and he took some time out under a tree to have a chat.

The Interview

You’re living in the bush. Did you have to worry about the fires over the holidays?

“It got a little close to us at one stage. It was a little hairy actually … I think the closest it got was the Beechmont area. Luckily we were safe in the end, there was just a lot of smoke for a good month or two around here.”

This year has used absolutely zero lube so far.

“[Laughs] Oh man. Yeah, it’s gone straight in.”

The fact that some people started the year by losing everything, and then having to deal with all of this [COVID-19] stuff … In what ways do you think we’re getting better at dealing with [mental health]? Do you think attitudes towards suicide and mental health are changing?

“Definitely. It’s not like it was back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, where I think people just sort of got on with life. The world’s changing too, man. Things aren’t as simple as they used to be, and I think that causes a lot of mental health issues. I think a big thing is that people aren’t really connected. I’m going to sound like a hippy here, but the lack of connection with nature I think really affects people’s mental health … The closer I am to being part of nature, the better my mental health seems to be.”

Did you grow up in the bush? [SUNK LOTO] were from the Gold Coast.

“Yeah, I’ve pretty much always lived in the hinterland of the coast. Probably ten years ago, I was living in suburbia, and I was really missing being back out here … I’ve been here for probably four years now, and it’s helped with everything – it’s helped with songwriting, it’s helped with just being at peace with myself mentally.”

It’s interesting that you bring up that it’s beneficial to your mental health. I can’t quote the exact statistics here, but instances of suicide in rural areas – as you sing about in Disappearing Act – are quite severe. In what ways do you think that is? Do you think it’s much to do with that kind of “she’ll be right” attitude?

“Yeah, that song was written about an actual article that I read about a really remote rural town, in South Australia I think it was … The story was [that] there was a scourge of ice use going on, which they seem to be struggling with out in those communities where there’s not a lot going on. That drug has made it’s way in there, and is having a real impact on those small towns.”

People always assume that drug use is an urban problem, and that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“100%. Definitely with ice … It seems to have made its way into those small country towns. It’s not good.”

EP Review - Disappearing Act

Track #1 - Disappearing Act

Title track Disappearing Act tackles suicide and methamphetamine with bleak poetry. “Suicide tsunami in a country town / Everybody knows your name and it never rains” Brown sings, painting a painful portrait of people trying to get by, not just at the mercy of our country’s famously unforgiving climate, but also crippling addiction. Here, the disappearing act is a familiar face suddenly vanishing from your life, swallowed up by a tragically permanent solution to what are often temporary problems. It’s a stunning track, and Forrester Savell’s production sounds like a million bucks.

How did you come to be working with him [Forrester Savell]?

I’ve worked with Forrester in the past actually. The first time I worked with him was in SUNK LOTO. We recorded a track called Kill Your Soul. It was leading up to putting out the third album after Between Birth And Death which never happened … We stayed in contact. He lives locally too, which is really handy. It was only like a ten- to fifteen-minute drive to his studio to record. It worked out beautifully.

When did you guys lay this down?

It would’ve been July/August last year we started tracking it, and we actually sent the tracks over to Aaron Sterling to do the drums in the States, and that sort of took a bit of time because he was on tour with John Mayer at the time … It kind of held up the recording a little bit, but I think it was worth it in the end.

Track #2 - Bottle It Up

Bottle It Up is an ode to emotion laid bare, and finally letting your guard down instead of drinking to forget. “Let go, let go now” he sings, “there’s some things that you can’t control.” What things is he referring to? That’s his business, and I felt that it wasn’t my place to ask, but regardless, it’s instantly relatable, and it’s always refreshing to hear people dealing with their shit in healthy ways. You get the feeling that Brown likes himself a bit more than he used to. Moving to the bush was clearly a good decision.

Is folk and country mainly where your head is at these days? Have you always wanted to do this kind of music and just not been given the chance?

Yeah … I think even back in the SUNK days … I understood that that was our style, we were a heavy band, but I wanted to incorporate slower, mellow stuff, but it just didn’t work with where we were as a band. I’ve always wanted to write and record mellow tracks. I just think it’s what I’ve been listening to in the past ten years … more of a country/folk influence has come through in the music now. In saying that, I’ve been working on a lot of stuff. I’ve probably written another 20+ songs since that EP was recorded, and it’s sort of taken a little bit of a different direction again. I find that I write maybe four or five folk-y/country acoustic songs, then I’ll branch off into a sort of Bowie style and just sort of experiment and play around. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Track #3 - Back To You

Back to You is gloriously country, with shuffling drums and a guitar twang that wouldn’t have been out of place on Blue Heelers [anyone else remember them name checking SUNK LOTO in an episode? Just me? OK]. Letting his voice truly open up over the chorus, Brown is very comfortable in this musical terrain. The bush literally seeps out of the sound. Unlike his previous bands, Brown is in complete creative control here, and he’s sharing something that is 100% his.

Can you see yourself returning to heavy music, or is this just more where life is at for you now?

“There’s still a place in my heart for playing heavy music. When I say that I experiment a lot in my little studio, sometimes I’ll just get over writing acoustic stuff, and I’ll just start writing heavy tunes again. So yeah, there’s always going to be a place for that, and if things sort of line up in the right way, you never know. I may end up doing something heavy down the track.”

You’re in your thirties now. It’s rare for people to make a living off music these days. How much time do you get to dedicate to music? What kind of balance have you had to strike with other parts of your life?

“It’s hard … Getting home after a ten-hour day, it’s really hard to have the energy to get in the studio and write … Sometimes I find I’ve got to take a couple of weeks off work, take some annual leave to really [head down] and have that time again … It is a thing with me that when I start writing, it just keeps going and going, and I just get a roll on, and that can go for up to a month, just every day writing and recording. You really do need your slate clean. You need time.”

The artwork for Disappearing Act really struck me … I actually checked out [Cate Pepper] on Instagram and looked up the work she did for COG and whatnot. It’s a really vivid piece. How did it come about? Was it an existing piece, or did you generate it and work on it with her?

“I looked up some of Cate’s work, and pointed in the direction of some of the stuff that she’d done, just to give her a reference, but it was just an idea. I really like that landscape-y sort of stuff, and it was an idea that I had in my head for those songs, it just sort of painted a picture of the music … when I’m writing these songs, like I said, connection with nature for me, there’s always something to do with mountains or moons or trees. It just comes along with the package, I think.”

Track # 4 - Ghosting Away

If you were to visualise these four tracks as colours, Ghosting Away would be the darkest. A lonely guitar comes to us through the night, as a distant storm flashes on the horizon. “There’s no way back from here” Jay sings, painting pictures of loss and heartache in various shades of black. “No one comes back from this.” When the chorus comes, his voice swells, powerful and brimming with undeniable melancholy. Strings rise behind him, restrained and atmospheric, and you realise two things; Brown’s song writing skills are outstanding, and Forrester Savell’s production job is immaculate. Through headphones, it sounds like he’s playing in the room with you. You can almost hear his fingerprints pressing down on the strings with each note. The longing in his voice is equally vivid. Whoever this song is about, he clearly misses them dearly.

[Ghosting Away] is a really beautiful track, dude.

“Yeah, thanks man. That’s a really cool song. A lot of people have written to me in the last week since it’s been out … I think that’s a song that a lot of people have connected to, and it really is a song about loss and mourning of someone who’s no longer in your life physically, but you can still feel the presence of them around. Again, that’s another theme that I keep coming back to with my songwriting. We all lose people in life, and it hurts a lot, but … you can still feel their presence. That’s what that song is about.”

The Verdict

Jay Brown’s opening salvo as a solo musician is a mature EP dripping with polish and sheen; four heartfelt tracks that are, as Thanos would say, “perfectly balanced, as all things should be”.

8/10

SUNK LOTO - Anthems In the Year 2000

JAY BROWN on Growing Up as a Rock Star | An Extended Interview

Written by: Tom Wilson | Sense Music Media

SUNK LOTO came in at the tail end of a decade marked by a booming alternative music scene. The festival circuit was thriving, with the Big Day Out getting bigger every year, and bands like KORN and DEFTONES had inadvertently created the Nu Metal genre. Heavy, sonically eclectic, and with distortion and angst for days, SUNK LOTO were a band in the right place at the right time. But the internet was changing everything, and trouble was on the horizon.

The Interview

How old were you when [SUNK LOTO’s 1999 debut EP] Society Anxiety came out?

“Man … I might have been sixteen?”

Dane [Brown, drummer and Jay’s brother] was like 13 or something, wasn’t he?

“Yeah, he was super young, man. [Laughs] It’s crazy.”

Did you have a lot of record execs saying that you guys were going to be the next SILVERCHAIR and whatnot?

“Not so much … yeah, probably. We were on the same label as SILVERCHAIR, so they didn’t want to sort of drive that too much … Sony wanted us to be our own sort of thing.”

You were exposed to the ups and downs of the music industry from a very, very young age, and it was right at the cusp of when people were able to make a living from music to Napster and the record labels going into panic mode. What lessons did you take away from how you guys were treated as teenagers? And if you could give advice to your younger self, what would it be?

“Yeah, you’re right about the change with Napster. That really was at its peak when we released our first album [Big Picture Lies (2000)]. I think the data that the record label had was that we were one of the most downloaded things in the world at the time. It hurt record sales a lot. Yeah, as far as advice to my younger self … man … I don’t even know who that guy was! It seems like another world away. It really is a bit hazy, all those days.”

People of our age, our teenage years and our childhood is a couple of blurry analogue photos that you’d have to dig out a photo album for. What’s interesting for you guys is that your teenage years are on Youtube. It was captured – it was [in] the public eye. Was that weird? How big an affect did that have on you being a teenager?

“It definitely did. It was pretty scary. I’ve always been a pretty shy, private person, and I didn’t cope real well, to be honest, with the public attention side of things … I wanted to be a musician, and I wanted to play in front of people, and that was a great part of it … But dealing with fans I always struggled with, and I think a lot of people thought I was probably a bit rude, but I was just totally anxious, basically. I didn’t know how to deal with people. I struggled dealing with people even outside of being a musician. I didn’t know how to talk to people, and I did a lot of my communicating through my songwriting and lyrics. That’s how I sort of spoke, I think. There were times where I really … I didn’t want to go places. It was pretty confronting. I remember, looking back on it, it was almost like panic attack sort of stuff, when we’d do signings and there’d be hundreds of people lined up wanting to meet us, and if you’re not in the right mood, the right headspace, and you’re young – 16/17-years old – and you struggle with talking to people, it can be really hard. You sort of go into a bit of a shell, and they wonder why you’re not responding. It’s because you’re just freaked out, [and] you can’t get your words out almost. The older me … I’m different now, definitely.”

What was it like touring while underage, playing in all these clubs when you weren’t able to drink?

“[Laughs] Yeah, we weren’t supposed to drink, but … it was happening. It was weird. I think by the time we were sort of 16/17, people were turning a blind eye to that a little bit. Yeah, we were definitely drinking underage! [Laughs]”

Between Birth And Death, as far as heaviness goes … did the label freak out when you guys turned in the first couple of songs for that?

“Yeah. They knocked back … we probably wrote maybe two or three albums worth of music in the writing of that album, and they knocked a lot of it back. The first and second batch of demos, they were just, like, “we can’t market this.” It was much more abrasive, and it was heavier, and it was probably a little bit all over the shop, structurally … We almost got the ultimatum off Sony, saying “Look, if you guys can’t come up with something that we can comfortably release, we don’t know where we can go with this.” The end product was us going back to the drawing board for the last time and going, “OK, how are we going to pull this thing together and make it marketable?” In the end, they had the singles that they wanted on that album, and they were happy with that.”

If I don’t ask this, the next guy is going to, and you would’ve seen this in your comment sections everywhere – is SUNK LOTO going to reform? Or is it better left in the past?

“It’s been very close in the past couple of years, and it’s fallen over … Probably twice it was on the verge of happening, but it fell over. I’m always open to it, but I’d never totally dismiss reforming and touring … It’s all got to sort of line up and happen, but at this stage I’m totally focused on writing my own music and hopefully touring that soon.”

So what’s the take-home message? Keep an eye out for Jay Brown. His solo work is sensational and the future is an open book.

Download

Listen to JAY BROWN’s Disappearing Act on Spotify

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JAY BROWN on Spotify