JayMay is one of the many artists to come from New York's anti-folk scene, which breaks the mold in the traditional coffee house-singer/songwriter idea. This unofficial consortium also produced Regina Spektor, Nicole Atkins, Jeffrey Lewis and Paleface.
Ironically, I had to go to London to discover her expertly written and executed songs about living and loving in New York City. Her self-produced debut album for Blue Note, Autumn Fallin', chronicles her time in NYC. She'll be taking her songbook across the U.S. for her first headlining tour this Summer.
She goes by the name Jamie Seerman when not on stage, so I would like to welcome Jamie to this space.
You come from a family of six siblings, was it a particularly musical family?
Absolutely not.
So you were the only one.
I started playing violin when I was in third grade. I just kept at it. My parents were not musical at all. My older siblings had a hand in introducing me to what they were listening to on CDs.
When did you decide that you wanted to pursue the life of a singer-songwriter?
When I was eighteen, I bought a guitar. I guess I didn't really learn how to play until I graduated college in 2003.
So when you decided to be a singer-songwriter, those must have been some lean years? Did you have to sleep on friend's couches and eat Ramen noodles for years?
Let's put it this way -- I didn't wake up one day and decide that I wanted to be a singer-songwriter. It was more like, I got a guitar because I was writing songs. When I moved to New York, I was eating Ramen noodles and sleeping in my sister's kitchen with a shower curtain as a partisan. I made money by cat sitting and dog sitting. I was really, really poor.
What's your songwriting process, do you have to sit down and focus on writing or do you walk around with scraps of paper in your pocket?
Oh yeah, the later. I'm very spontaneous. You don't need an instrument to write a song, you just need something in your hand. It's funny how it works.
Since you worked on your first EP, Sea Green, See Blue, by yourself, you, in turn, worked on this album by yourself. Is it because there's a comfort zone there in that you can work with whomever you want or is it just intimidating bringing in outside people?
It wasn't that I set out to make an album. I was really experimenting with ProTools. I had all these songs, but I didn't have a laptop. My bass player had ProTools and knew how to use it. So I wanted to make this EP about colors. We ended making five songs in Brooklyn with musicians we knew. We were just comfortable with ProTools. We ended recording more songs with other musicians. I ended sending a bunch of songs to Heavenly Recordings, and they wanted to put all the songs out. Actually, if I knew they were going to release the full album, I wouldn't have put the songs from EP on the Autumn Fallin'.
In my mind, it's not really a debut album because it's not dramatically my vision for an album. There's not an intended theme to it. I wrote them all in the same time period. I was living in New York and they are songs about living in New York. It's about the music scene, the guys I was falling in love with and the weather. That's all it is.
In the end, I just don't give a shit. I just want to put out music. When I make a song, I just want to throw it up on iTunes.
What makes your songs so great is that you know what the songs are about. There's no hidden subtext. Is it rough having to quote-unquote "expose a vein" to create these deeply personally songs?
For me, it's not difficult at all. I think everyone goes through the same emotions. It's a coping mechanism and I feel better after writing a song. I don't feel vulnerable at all. If anything, people don't know who I am talking about, so it's abstract in a sense.
Did you work out the string arrangements before on "Blue Skies" or did you do it on the fly?
I based it on the humming part of the song. All the strings were added after by a guy named Robert Kurby after I recorded it in England.
"You'd Rather Run" clocks in at just under ten minutes. Did you envision that as some sort of epic song or did the song just sort of evolve?
That song took two years to write. That last verse of that song, "Sometimes at night I stare at the ceiling," I just loved that line. I kept on e-mailing myself other phrases I liked. I then put them in order so it would make sense. I really became more excited about it over time. That's just a fun song.
It reminds me of a carnival or Italian circus music that Nino Rota would make.
Yeah. I'm just agreeing with you [laughs].
How did you go about finding a record deal? Were there aspects you were looking for?
Heavenly saw me perform the songs from the EP at SXSW, and I was a very poor person. Also, it was an opportunity to expose my music to a European audience. That's all I really needed and they would pay for tour support. Basically, it was a chance to play in France. They just really appreciate music and they don't compromise their artists. They let me do what I want to do.
You moved London for some time, why the big move?
Basically, since Heavenly was located there, it just made sense. I would be promoting everything in the UK. It's not that I lived there, it just I toured there for a good year. I was never in one place for a long time.
Is there a difference between being a singer-songwriter in New York as suppose to London?
That's a tough one to compare. In New York, I started at open mic nights. When I went to London, I had a record deal and booking agent in place. I had an agenda already. I don't know what it's like starting grass roots style. I am curious what's it's like to start out from the ground up in London.
You got to be on a few late night talk shows like Conan O'Brien and Craig Fergusion -- scary, fun, exiting, weird?
It's real cool to meet the hosts, but you spend the whole time waiting. It's more nerve racking than anything. You feel like a bull waiting in a pen, just waiting to be released. It doesn't feel glamorous at all. It's a stage, you have to perform. It's just that there's so much energy built-up for three minutes of stage time.
You got to open up for Goldfrapp at the Beacon Theatre. How does it feel being the lone person on stage in front of so many people?
For me, the bigger crowd isn't that daunting because I've done it before in the U.K. It's when the room is really quiet and there's ten people in it. Then, they are a foot from your face and you can hear them breathe and what they are saying, that's tough.
You knew eventually that the people you write about in these songs are going to hear them. Have you gotten any feedback?
I think they have heard the album, but I haven't heard from them. I'm not friends with them anymore -- the people that I slander [laughs], but I don't consider it slander. I don't use their names.
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