Electro-pop artist Jaya Bremer has made Victoria, British Columbia her home for the nearly a decade. During that time, Jaya has been no stranger to the music scene, fronting and managing a gypsy jazz quintet, a Patsy Cline tribute band, and an indie-rock band called Wise Child. In 2020 Jaya struck out on her own with her debut solo album, Everybody’s Getting Married.
May 2024’s Zone @ 91-3 Band of The Month, Jaya Bremer returns with her solo sophomore release on the horizon.
After a very bright and fuzzy photo shoot with Rocktographers, Tyson Elder had a chance to chat with Jaya Bremer about calling Victoria home, her upcoming release, and maximalism.
Tyson Elder: Jaya, it’s great to see you again and congratulations on being May’s Band of the Month.
Jaya Bremer: Thanks!
TE: Before we get too far into the interview, I’ve known you for the better part of a decade working with your former band, Wise Child, but I was clueless that you were from Olympia, Washington. It’s a town steeped in it’s own music history with riot grrrl and grunge. Did that have an influence on you musically growing up? Also, what made you call Victoria home?
Jaya: It really is! I did go to lot’s of weird grunge and experimental noise wall type shows in high school, but I can’t say I really enjoyed them. Olympia had lots of music going on, but not really a scene for any of the music genres I have been making and performing over the years. I mostly wrote music alone in my room. Sounds so melodramatic, but I was 16! What can you expect?
I have been a dual citizen for almost my whole life, so I moved to Halifax a few weeks after graduating from high school…it seemed like a totally normal choice at the time! I had a great time out there! I played a lot of music, mostly busking and house concerts, but I couldn’t adjust to the weather. It’s freaking cold and windy, so after three years, I moved back to the west coast and landed in Victoria, and I’ve been here ever since!
TE: It’s no secret that I’ve been a big fan of your music for a long time. When you released your first solo record, Everybody’s Getting Married, it got added to heavy rotation at my house. If CDs warped like records, I’m sure that would have been the case after it never leaving my cd player in my car.
Jaya: Man, I love hearing that! It’s so rare that these anecdotes make their way back to me, and honestly that means so much to me to hear that you loved the album!!! If you need a new one, I have a box of them still. [laughs] Just a few days ago I relistened to the whole album for the first time in maybe a year… and I really enjoyed it! I surprised myself!
TE: How have you approached making music differently now versus when you were making music with your former band, Wise Child?
Jaya: Great question. So much of the process is different now than when I was creating with Wise Child.
I started working on these demos during the pandemic, so there really wasn’t the option of working with a band. I worked one-on-one with a local sound engineer and great musician, Chris Neal, to help me develop these songs out of my initial demos. That process was really different for me, but still incredibly creative, and I think it allowed me to increasingly hone in on my sound, which I feel like I have finally fully landed in. Without a band, these songs tend to have more electronic elements than my previous work, which has actually been really freeing, because anything became possible. They are layered and rich, with tons of synths and stacked vocal harmonies.
The downside is that now I am responsible for all aspects of recording and releasing this music, and there is a lot of decision-fatigue that comes with that and uncertainty, but also I feel really proud of what I’ve created, and I can stand behind it fully.
TE: Before we talk about your Band of the Month single, Our Potential, I’d love to chat about the first single released as part of this collection of new music, Apartment 4. It really resonated with me as someone who was renovicted in the midst of the pandemic from a home I’d lived in for about 10 years and the uncertainty of starting somewhere new. In the grand scheme of things, it might have been the best thing to happen to me, but in this seemingly unstoppable housing crisis, your song calms and reflects on saying farewell to your longtime apartment.
Jaya: Aww, I’m so glad it resonated with you. Man, this city is so brutal for housing. Writing that song on one of my last nights in the apartment was incredibly cathartic. I was so aware of an era coming to a close. It was a real sense of loss.
TE: Our Potential will be your Band of the Month feature song on The Zone @ 91-3 this month. When I listen to Our Potential, I feel like I’m in the coolest bar in town.
Jaya: Ok, I love this imagery!! I see myself in a sweaty packed dance club. It is my ode to Robyn’s Call Your Girlfriend and Dancing on my Own. I feel like it would make for an epic music video…
TE: It has a lo-fi dancey vibe similar to acts like Cannons, M83, Poolside, and Blood Cultures. The production on this song is phenomenal.
Jaya: Great references! I love hearing who people equate my music with! Austin Tufts from the indie band Braids is to thank for that! He’s an extremely talented drummer and sound engineer, and he really took them the final mile.
TE: The rumour has that Our Potential is about unrequited love – care to elaborate?
Jaya: [Laughs] Oh boy, if I must! I guess I don’t think about it as unrequited love exactly because they never knew I had a crush on them! This song is about desire from a distance, and it was an outlet for those feelings, a place where I could explore that fantasy.
TE: Recently you released a stunning music video for My Expectations, your third single in the past six months.
Jaya: Thank you so much! I am so, so proud of how the video came out! I love how gritty, and emotive it is while still being quirky and having moments of levity in it. It’s a really effective pairing for the lyrical content. If you haven’t given it a watch yet, I think you should!
TE: Can we expect an album in the not so distant future?
Jaya: Yes, which is so nice to be able to say. It’s a 10-song album titled Stay Tender. Each song represents a very unique experience from the last few years, each boiled down into a few potent minutes. It’ll be coming out in June.
TE: There are a lot of intricate details in your music. You’ve really harnessed electronic samples and synths in these songs. That’s something that I know is difficult, but not impossible, to capture in a live performance. Do you plan on performing these songs live?
Jaya: I do plan on performing them live. It’s something I didn’t worry about at all while recording these songs, and now I have to reverse engineer it all! But honestly, I think these songs would make for such a fun live show, that it just has to be done! I’ll be playing “Our Potential” live in Zone Control in late May. Fingers crossed it goes well! [laughs]
TE: When we were chatting about your vision for your Rocktographers photo session and you dropped the word “maximalism,” I’m sure it made webmeister Bud’s brain itch as much as it did mine. After a few google searches and suggestions, we landed at my studio space surrounded by hundreds of pompoms. It was probably our most colourful and maximalist photo shoot ever. It was so much fun creating those images.
Jaya: I had the best time! Rocktographers is so talented! The photoshoot really captures the essence of joy that I have for the music I’m making, this moment of being the Zone Band of the Month, and just feeling like there is some lovely flow and momentum to life right now!
TE: After our photo shoot we were chatting about your band Wise Child and how you were the last band we did a photo shoot with before pandemic lockdowns. We took those photos in Paul’s Motor Inn diner and shared milkshakes. I almost suggested we do your photo shoot at upstairs at Citrus & Cane to keep it full circle.
Jaya: That was a lovely time. It felt like we had some really great things going for us, such as being the Band of the Month and playing Song and Surf all in the last month before everything shut down for two years. So strange to reflect back on that. Time for a re-do!
TE: Jaya, thank you for taking the time to chat with me. It’s always a pleasure and I’m sincerely excited for more music from you. Congratulations again on being May’s Zone Band of the Month.
Jaya: Thank you so much, Tyson. I’ve had the best time!
May 2024’s Band of the Month, Jaya Bremer, will have The Zone @ 91-3 grooving with her single, Our Potential, all month long. The song is available for download, along two other songs, and different photos from this session, on her Band of the Month microsite.
Rocktographers is a proud supporting sponsor of The Zone’s Band of the Month program.