Jason Ayres faces his desire for change

After many years as a solo performer Jason Ayres is rocking out with a band and will launch his new single, Desire, on Saturday, March 29, at Lyrics Underground (tickets via Oztix). BOB GORDON chats to Ayres about the changing sounds of his new career chapter.

You’ve long been the classic singer/songwriter-styled musician and performer, but I believe you have entered a new era…

COVID changed everything for me and had me questioning a lot about music and what I was doing—the acoustic singer/songwriter thing. About a year ago, I was asked to do the Fabulous Caprettos support at the Astor, and I thought, ‘I want to do something a bit different.’ So I got another singer to join me onstage, and that opened the door to go, ‘Hey wait, I don’t need to be the solo guy with an acoustic guitar anymore. I can change things up.’

I’ve been playing with a bunch of different artists this year around the country, and my live show has just become art again. It’s become creative and fun and exactly what music should be. Free, you know? So you’re 100% right. It is a new chapter. It is a new everything. And I can feel it. I feel like I’m a kid again, making music for the first time.

I guess things might weigh on your mind over a period, but it comes to a point where the time to shake things up is right now?

Exactly, I was booked the Fabulous Caprettos around 12 months ago, and for the Ravo Blues & Roots. I got the bug, and I started playing with other musicians, and the new sonic possibilities led to more new songs… rock songs, country songs. I just went hell for leather around the country going, ‘Oh my god, this is the best thing I’ve ever felt.’ A new album started coming together, and I’ve just been delivering a show that I loved being a part of.

Does it feel brave? Or does it just feel like something you have to do?

There’s a lot of boundary pushing. There were a lot of boxes that I put myself into. So stepping out and being an electric lead guitar player was daunting for me… is daunting for me, but it’s so fun and challenging and exciting that it’s opening new doors and textures up. It’s definitely fighting and learning the ropes as I go.

Running a band that’s my own band—a bunch of guys turn up and are willing to dedicate themselves to travelling around the country and putting their faith in the show that I do and the songs that I write.

What’s the makeup of the band?

Right now, it’s a trio for drums and bass and myself switching between acoustic and electric, and then probably looking at having different fly-ins as we go, but that’s the core of it at the moment.

You’ve done a lot around the country with your own gigs but also theatre supports for high-profile artists. Have they opened you up to wider audiences who may come back to your own shows?

They’re big stages, and you get to deliver a big show. It’s not a background pub gig where you sit back and relax. It’s passionate audiences that are engaged in the performance, so it’s challenging but rewarding to try to lift your art and artistry night after night.

So it’s developed your skills as a showman as well as your craft…

Absolutely… and resilience and toughness. These guys that I’m touring with, they’ve been doing it their whole lives. So they’re used to rigid and rough schedules and putting their best foot forward night after night. And here’s me, coming up 20 years behind them, going, ‘All right, I’ll keep up with you and learn as I go.’

This is the first taste of a new freedom when it comes to writing songs, so tell me about the new single, Desire.

Well, the song itself was written—or at least parts of it—while I was driving the coast somewhere between Queensland and New South Wales, late at night between gigs. I churned through all the driving songs that I knew and just thought, ‘What would I want to listen to?’ And I had this desire to get into the city, to see someone, just to get there already. And the song just kind of started coming to me while I was there.

So it’s literally a driving song that was written on the road—upbeat country rock with lots of catchy pop elements, which would lead to a place where I allowed myself to be a freewheeling guitar solo maniac. I’m bringing back extended guitar solos. The whole song ends with wailing guitar solos, because I don’t care; this is fun (laughs).

It’s me finally discovering just the freedom of writing and recording, and most of it was actually recorded in my own studio; aside from drums and vocals, the rest is all kind of home. So there’s like a magnificent freedom involved in the song from beginning to end.

So it’s basically a smaller window of the large picture that’s happening with you.

The next few singles I have planned are definitely closer to rock than they are to country. I feel like this is a great sort of halfway between where I’ve been and where I want to go. This is me being country, being as pop as I get. And then I’ll be bringing the electric guitar in, going, ‘We’re on the way. Come with me.’

How has your new material been going over live?

I’ve been doing a fair bit of the new stuff live the last few tours, and I think what’s been garnering more and more attention is the funk, rock, and country elements that are just jumping out a bit more, as opposed to that singer/songwriter role, song after song. There are stories; there’s entertainment in the songs. We’ve got some grunt and grit to them now, which is a lot more real and raw.

What are the plans for the rest of the year?

Following the Lyric’s Underground show, I’ll be doing a solo show at The Gov in Adelaide in April. Then I’ll be touring and supporting Wendy Matthews and Ross Wilson in May, and in July I’ll be supporting The Fabulous Caprettos around Australia. And after that, it might be the perfect time for the next single to drop.