My Favorite Scar - August 2010

Interview with

Jay (singer) of My Favorite Scar

The Dutch band MY FAVORITE SCAR has recently released their self titled debut album. Here follows an email interview with the singer Jay where he talks about where he finds inspiration and what motivates him to work with music.

Reflections of Darkness (RoD): How would you like to introduce MY FAVORITE SCAR as a band and your music to those who have not heard of you before?
Jay: MY FAVORITE SCAR is a dark rock band. This month we released our 1st album, which was produced by Oscar Holleman (Within Temptation, Gorefest). It features 11 tracks of dark music. Hard & heavy, and sometimes atmospheric & very melancholic, I think. The album was well received in the media and by fans, which is of course awesome. We're playing festivals over here in Holland right now and will embark upon our 1st headline tour this fall.

RoD: When it comes to influences, are there any bands or persons that have inspired your creative work as well as your style?
Jay: Yeah, so many. We all have very different influences, I think. As a band we're influenced by Rammstein, Alice in Chains, Tool. But also bands like Sevendust, Slipknot, Motörhead, Metallica, Black Sabbath, Down, Soundgarden, all kinds of stuff. As a singer I love the vocals of Chris Cornell, Robert Plant, Scott Matthews, Jeff Buckley, Miles Kennedy and Jan Chris de Koeijer (Gorefest).

RoD: What or whom inspires you when you write lyrics / create music?
Jay: Lyric-wise: Life really. We've experienced so many hard times during the making of this record, like you wouldn’t believe. We've lost loved ones, relationships ended and friends of ours ending up in hospital... It’s been a emotional rollercoaster ride, pfff. Every single song on the album has been taken out of our very lives, they're REAL! I write lyrics most of the time with our producer, Oscar Holleman. As far as the music is concerned, Evan comes up with most of the riffs and song ideas. We all add our ideas to that until we have a song that works. Oscar is the one who really pushed us to do the best we can and confronted us with good and bad sides when it comes to writing songs, which had a great effect on the album, as it turned out.

RoD: Do you need to be on a special mood to be able to write / create?
Jay: Yes. I need to connect on a deeper level with my emotions on a certain subject before anything worth writing down comes out. Sometimes it's kinda hard to reach that deeper level, other moments it’s easy. Sometimes it takes a bottle of wine (or 2). Haha.

RoD: Do you write mostly to express your feelings or are there other reasons?
Jay: Yes, it’s always about our feelings about a certain subject. That’s the essence, your soul. It's totally open, whatever works and feels ok, we'll try. Mind you - it has to fit the music. So no happy, happy, joy, joy lyrics for MY FAVORITE SCAR, it needs to fit the music like a glove.

RoD: What drives you and makes you keep working with music?
Jay: I don’t know. It’s just there. We need to express ourselves. And we respect each other a great deal, we each have our own part to play in this band and that works really well. We motivate each other and of course it’s a lot of fun too, when you’re on tour. But the music always comes first. We're aware that what we have is hard to find. There are not many bands who are so dedicated and who think alike as MY FAVORITE SCAR. Same goes for our producer Oscar, our manager CJ, and the people from Universal, our bookers, and other people that complete the team. They are all equally important and together we will go into battle.

RoD: If you could not use music as a creative outlet, what would you use instead?
Jay: Hmmm. Hard to say, MY FAVORITE SCAR takes up all of my time at the moment. I used to play lots of soccer before joining my first band. I just need to get certain emotions out of my system to function properly. I got great friends and I love my family, but life would be a lot less interesting if I couldn’t make music and put out records I think....

RoD: You recently released you’re in my ears brilliant debut album ‘My Favorite Scar’, what would you like to say about it? Like for example would you like to tell me something about your main source of inspiration and maybe describe the process of making the album?
Jay: Thanks, that’s very cool! A very tough question though! We worked on the album for 4 years straight. We put everything in this record. Inspiration music-wise can be found in other rock / metal bands, lyric-wise we focus on our lives, there's enough stuff to write 3 albums about, haha. No really, we have been through a lot, but that only makes us stronger. We got very good press for our album, it’s been out 2 weeks and we're in the Dutch Album Charts, which is kinda extraordinary for a metal/rock band you know. We didn't expect that, but it’s cool anyway. We wrote this one for ourselves, but it’s always nice to know when other people like it as well, of course.

RoD: Which song or songs are favourites at the moment and why?
Jay: I have several myself. All songs are special though, ‘My Favorite Scar’, because me and Evan wrote this for our mother, ‘Save Me’ because it stems out of a very, very black period in my life, ‘This Poison Love’ because we wrote this song with Ben Moody (Evanescence, We Are The Fallen) and I’m very proud of the end result. All songs are special, because they are very personal, really.

RoD: How does it feel to be out on tour with your debut album in the baggage where many people hear the songs for the first time live? What are your expectations and hopes for this tour?
Jay: We're playing festivals in Holland right now, bigger and smaller ones really. We love to play live and for as many people as we can. After the festival tour we're starting out on a headline club tour in September to December, about 25 shows all in all. In 2011, we're going to be on tour as well, and hope to do some touring abroad as well. This all depends, but that is one of our goals, to take our music out to foreign countries as well. Can’t wait! In September we will release the video for ‘This Poison Love’, which will be our next single (1st 2 were ‘Waste’ + ‘Kingsize’).

RoD: Would you like to tell me when your love for music begun and how you have worked to achieve your goals and become the musician you are today?
Jay: Oh that's happened really early on! I and my brother Evan started our first band when he was 13 and me 15, some years back. Before that we always were listening to our parent’s records. But it wasn't until we got interested in rock and metal music before we started our own band. We were totally into Thrash, Death and Black Metal. We still love the heavy stuff, as you can hear on our album! But we also learned how to put other emotions into music, such as melancholy, sadness and pure raw energy, with lots of dynamics.

RoD: When you listen to music, what is the most important for you, I mean do you listen and read the lyrics or just enjoy the music part or kind of take it all in at once?
Jay: Hmmm hard to say. I first listen to the song or songs itself first. I’m broad minded music-wise and can get goose bumps from listening to Led Zeppelin or Celtic Frost, or some cool singer / songwriter to Entombed or Slipknot. I take it all in. When I really like a band I start focussing on the lyrics more. They don't have to be brilliant, but when the songs make sense lyric-wise, they become more special to me. As a writer the lyrics to a song are the key. I have to sing them many times, so they better make sense, haha. On the other hand - I couldn't sing a song if the lyrics are crap. That's why it’s sometimes hard to sing a certain song, because of the lyrical content. If it describes something very important to you, its sometimes hard to re-live them.

RoD: How has your own taste in music changed through the years? What do you listen to today?
Jay: It hasn't changed much. Like Ozzy once said: "There're two kinds of music, music that sucks and music that doesn't suck". I am kind of broad minded, but I’m not as looking out for new bands as I used to be. I tend to rely more on the old masters, don't know. Albums that I am listening to right now are the new Deftones, Valley of the Dead (SWE), Rammstein, the latest Katatonia, Dark New Day and the last album by Scott Matthews.

RoD: What did you listen to when you were younger?
Jay: My taste did not change much over the years. As long as the music touches me and it’s sincere and honest, it’s ok. Even in my real death metal days I used to listen to cool ass bands as The Cult or Soundgarden as well.

RoD: If you were hit by a car and lie dying on the ground - but you got to sing one song that people would remember you for, a song that would sum up you, which song would that be?
Jay: Cool question - although I hope that won’t be any time soon ;) A lot of songs will qualify, there's so much great music... maybe ‘I’m on the highway’ by Frank Sinatra (a new version of ‘I did it my way’), haha. I hope that when I die people will remind me for my music and the person I am, really.

Thank you Jay for taking the time to answer my questions! For further information about MY FAVORITE SCAR please visit http://www.myfavoritescar.com/ and www.myspace.com/myfavoritescarofficial

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