Reprinted from OUAS Online Magazine (www.openupandsay.com)
April 2000
by Wes Royer, Editor

Jaye Foucher is, sadly, a rare breed of the virtuoso musician community. Mainly, Jaye's a woman doing what shortsighted (maybe I should say, threatened!) musicians or industry folk consider to be a man's role: she writes for and plays lead guitar. And she does it damn well, keeping up with the times but still maintaining her roots and a progressive edge. But one's gender shouldn't be the focus here. The fact that she has released two fine guitar instrumental albums on her own label is our focus here, today. Hailing from the Boston area and starting out in some local bands there, Jaye gave us a chance to learn about the life she leads and the music she creates. This is a person who gets things done.

Wes: This is your second instrumental solo album. Why did you decide to got this route instead of doing a band with vocals?

Jaye: It kind of came about as an in-between thing when my prior band, Plaid Dragon, had broken up. I had to do some shows for the NAMM show that January, and I had put together two or three instrumentals for that. At the time I was trying to figure out what I was going to do: put together another band or try to get the old one back going. And everyone kept coming up to me and saying, "I think you should put out some instrumentals. We really like them." I decided to put out the first CD, and that got a good response. It just kind of snowballed on me.

Wes: You seem to be really into the NAMM shows. What's the peak interest in doing all of those for you?

Jaye: It's good exposure. It's done a lot promotion-wise. I've gotten a lot of endorsements through it, which is actually why I've been at the shows performing -- for endorsement companies. Through the performances I've gotten more endorsements. Mostly it's just a lot of fun to go to it! It's a big shmooze fest. I bump into a lot of people I know. And performing is always fun. This past NAMM I got to play a concert in a club instead of playing at the actual convention -- [it was] at The Gig in West L.A.

Wes: What endorsements do you have right now?

Jaye: Jackson guitars; DiMarzio pickups; GHS strings; Rocktron Amps; and Morley pedals.

Wes: This CD used a different set of session people as opposed to this one. Any reason for that?

Jaye: Yep. I keep going through a lot of musicians. Not because I'm kicking them out! I guess this type of music, for the people that have played with me, has kind of been just a side thing for them. So I find myself replacing musicians a lot because they go on to do other things. The bass player that played on the first album (Luis Espaillat) moved to Nasheville that summer after that album came out. So he wasn't available for this one, otherwise I'd still be working with him I think. And the drummer for the first album (Justin Pacy) -- I had him come in just to do that album because at the time I was between drummers. He just came onboard to do the recording. That's about it.

Wes: You're out of Boston. Besides doing the shows, endorsements, recording the CDs do you do lessons there?

Jaye: No, I used to teach. I taught for probably four or five years, and I got really burnt-out on it. I work part-time now as a web designer to support my "music habit"! I do occasional shows in this area with a live band. I used to do a lot more of them. I took [time] off to do the CD and now I'm just starting to get back into it again.

Wes: How's the web design thing doing for you?

Jaye: Good. Your website, incidentally, looks really good -- coming from a professional! I've gone to a lot of sites, especially in the music industry, and some of them are just hideous.

Wes: Are you doing mostly band sites or doing anything?

Jaye: Anything pretty much. There are a couple of companies that I freelance for. And I'm doing the "Guitarapalooza" site, and my own site. There's a couple of other band sites that I've worked on, but for the most part I'll take on any website work. I've done everything from construction companies to erotica sites, wrestling sites, etc.

Wes: Speaking of "Guitarapalooza," how did that all get started?

Jaye: It was kind of a marketing concept I came up with. I wanted to reach more people that were interested in instrumental guitar music, and I knew a bunch of people from NAMM shows that did this kind of thing (instrumentals), like Neil Zaza. I thought, "I don't know if anybody else is putting out a newsletter, but if we all got together and put out a newsletter together and split the cost, it would cost [each of us] the same amount as it would cost to put it out just to our own mailing lists, but instead we would get it out to four or five times as many people, depending on how many people we had involved in Guitarapalooza." So, it was just kind of a way of doing a mass mailing and cutting the costs.

I mentioned it to Joe Bochar, who is one of the members. It was just kind of a, "You know I had this marketing idea." And he jumped on it. He thought it was great. So, he started emailing me saying, "Are you going to put together a proposal and send it to a bunch of people?" So I did that and almost everybody I asked wanted to be involved. We put out a print newsletter for probably a year and a half. It was starting to get to be too expensive for each of us. I mean, it was about two or three hundred dollars per person to put it out! We had put up a website from the start, and when a bunch of members said, "I can't afford it anymore" and it was down to about three or four of us that would have had to put out this issue to two thousand subscribers, I said, "We can't afford to do this." So we went to web-only. And in doing that, it's allowed us to grow.

We have probably 25 or more guitar players involved [now]. If we had had that many in the newsletter, the thing would have been enormous! It would have been a full-time job for me to put it out. As it was, it was about two weeks of full-time work to put out a newsletter that was twelve pages long with eight people involved. So it works a little better as a website, I think.

Wes: All the people that are part of "Guitarapalooza," are those people that you have met personally?

Jaye: It started off that way. There were six or seven initially that I knew through NAMM shows, and through meeting in the industry. But now, no, I don't know all the players. Some of them have come in through referrals from other members of Guitarapalooza. Actually Ron Thal probably found eight or nine people to be on our compilation CD, who then joined the website. Most of them have come in through referrals from other members. But we have maybe four or five who have seen the website, asked to join, sent us their stuff. We actually still have three or four people that have asked about it and I have yet to mail them information on it. We seem to be generating a lot of interest.

Wes: How is the "Guitarapalooza" compilation going?

Jaye: It's going good. It was mostly put out as a marketing thing. We haven't been selling it -- we've been giving it away at Guitar Nine's website for free. And we must have given out at least 500, if not more, at the NAMM show -- both at the concert that we did and at some of the booths that were involved in sponsoring the concert out there.

Wes: Most of the songwriting on your albums is you obviously. Do any of the session musicians get involved in that aspect, ro do you just keep it strictly to yourself?

Jaye: No, they didn't get too involved with it. I gave them tapes that were pretty much almost complete, that I had done on my 4-track. I gave them the freedom to come up with their own stuff, and actually the bass player (John Vittori) came up with a lot of the bass lines. He took my original ones and elaborated a lot on them, which ended up a lot better than my original ones. The drummer (Matt Scurfield) did that to some extent too. For the most part though, I did all the writing.

Wes: I just read "Progression" magazine's interview with you.

Jaye: I have yet to see that!

Wes: Obviously, they're taking notice and they are one of the top-rate progressive magazines out there. Have you thought of releasing your CDs through either Shrapnel or Magna Carta?

Jaye: I've approached Shrapnel before. In the past I've sent them CDs, and they have yet to express interest. I was actually going to approach Magna Carta this time around. I've approached a couple of other labels that are known for signing progressive stuff, but it's tough because a lot of these labels do not want an instrumental guitar player. They figure there is not a large enough market for it.

Wes: Do you think that you'll see yourself trying to get on one of Magna Carta's CDs that has everybody and their mother playing on it?

Jaye: Well that would be nice! I think my main goal in putting out the instrumental albums was to get a name for myself as a guitar player, so that I would be able to get an audition or get asked to do something that's either a little bigger or [something] with vocals, or even to get on a tour as a back-up musician. But I don't know. I don't see myself being big enough, yet, for Magna Carta to ask me to do one of those types of CDs!

Wes: What kind of bands did you grow up with as a kid that are influencing what you are doing now?

Jaye: Wow, [I listened to] a wide variety of stuff when I was growing up. My parents listened to a lot of pop stuff so I heard a lot of that. I remember being a fan of Ozzy, Heart, Styx, Triumph, Rush. But at the same time I also went into a period where I was real big on the Charlie Daniels Band. So I've listened to a lot of different stuff. Also, through piano playing -- which I did as a kid, I have a pretty big classical and jazz background. So I guess it probably did all mix together and was an influence. But since I started playing guitar I've pretty much listened to hardrock.

Wes: On the first album, you had two vocal tracks. How come you didn't do any vocals on this album, cause I enjoyed the two on the first album?

Jaye: Thank you! That's a popular question: why I didn't do vocals. Two things, or two reasons. One: I just didn't happen to write any vocals! And secondly, I felt that the two vocal tunes on the first album were almost of a different style than the rest of the album was: a lot lighter, a lot like Alanis-type stuff; definitely not prog in any way. So I thought I'd stick with just one vein of music. And I've thought about doing just an album with vocal tunes, but that would depend on whether or not I write an entire album [of them]. I've gotten so used to writing instrumentals that it's hard to break out of that. I'd like to do something along the lines of Tool and Sevendust, so that's kind of where I've been heading writing-wise -- which actually wouldn't be suitable for my voice. I was kind of thinking of getting another singer involved because ultimately I'd prefer to do back-up vocals, not lead vocals.

Wes: So, you think that if you found someone to do lead vocals that you'd want to sit back and just do lead guitar and backing vocals?

Jaye: Yep, you've got it! I like [having] the freedom to run around the stage.

Wes: From an independent perspective, how are these CDs doing for you? Is it proving very expensive to do this?

Jaye: It is. It's a lot of money to put up front. Still, I made back the money I put into the first CD and then some. So I've been putting a lot more up front into this CD as far as promotion and sending it out. Sales of this CD have been way better, faster, than the first one was. But when I put out the first one it was a little different. I didn't have distribution lined up. I didn't have a sales base. This time around I already had distributors waiting for it.

Wes: Who are you distributing it through?

Jaye: Well, it's at CDNow and Amazon.com; that's through the Orchard. Through them {the Orchard] it's also available through Valley Media, so basically if somebody wanted to get it through a record store, the record store has the ability to order it through Valley Media. It's also at GuitarNine.com and a lot of the other major Internet retailers. In Europe it's going to be available in stores in Austria, Switzerland, and Germany through Good Life Records. It's available in France through Musea. It just came out in the U.K. last week through Cargo Records there. So, I have a bunch of different distributors lined up.

Wes: Are all the European distributors new for this album?

Jaye: Nope, just Good Life is new. Actually, they picked up my first one two months ago. Wait, no, that was when I had heard about it; we actually just signed the contract. So they took my first CD first, and I'm assuming they'll be taking this one as well. I think that was part of the contract.

Wes: Now again from an independent perspective, did you find it hard to get to people like the Orchard?

Jaye: The Orchard was not hard [to obtain], although I didn't hear about them until just last year. It was hard to get the other ones, yes. It took some time basically. In Germany we approached InsideOut and some other labels over there -- Rising Sun, I think, is the other one that is pretty big over there. But again, it's tough to sell instrumental artists. You'd think it would be a little easier in Europe, but they still weren't impressed enough. This CD already appears to be doing better than the first one. In fact I think I had ordered an initial thousand from the duplicators, and I'm already halfway through that six weeks, or two months into it! That's how many I've shipped out, yet most of them have been to distributors.

Wes: Now, you're from Boston, so I have to ask, are you using SuperDups for duplications?

Jaye: No, I used them for the first CD, and I just had another run done on them because of the distribution I signed over in Germany -- I was running out finally. So I used them [Superdups] again just because it was easier, since they had all the artwork and everything. I went through somebody different this time [for the second CD] because the prices were more competitive and they were able to get them to me quicker.

Wes: You took about two, three years between the second CD and the first one?

Jaye: Two years. Well, two and a half I suppose. I started them at about the same time of year, but it only took three months to make the first one and six months to make the second one.

Wes: Do you think you'll be putting albums out on a more regular basis from now on?

Jaye: I'm going to try to.

Wes: Do you want to tell me where some of the songs on this new album are coming from, influences, etc.?

Jaye: Well I think they have a lot newer influences than the songs on the first album [did]. I've been listening to a lot of newer music like Tool and Creed, Sevendust. So a little bit of that is probably coming through. Some other differences: I wrote a lot of this album on the keyboard, which I've never done before. I've done all my writing on guitar in the past. But I'd say at least half, if not more, of this [album] was written on the keyboard -- the initial riffs were. Then I'd add parts on the guitar.

Wes: Do you find it easier to write on guitar or the keyboard?

Jaye: It's probably about equal actually. The writing I've been doing the past couple of months has been all either keyboard or bass -- I just bought a bass last year to play around with. For some reason, I think picking up and trying to write on a different instrument gives you different ideas. So it's helping the creative process a little more. I also got a 7-string a little over a year ago, and two of the songs on this CD were written on the 7-string. I think I mellowed out a little bit shredding-wise on this album. I found that as I was writing the leads that I was doing a lot more hanging on notes, or that I was thinking more about the melody and singing with the guitar than showing what I can do.

Wes: Personally, I think that's what makes an instrumental album, instead of having some person who wants to shred through fifty minutes of standard drums and standard bass.

Jaye: "Wanking for the sake of wanking" is how I would describe it!

Wes: The sound on both CDs is pretty good. How did you get your overall sound? Was it the studio? Did you do all the engineering yourself?

Jaye: Oh no, no. The guy who owns the studio -- I did both albums at the same studio -- is the guitarist from the band Event (Shaun Michaud). He has his own studio in his house. He was just starting the studio when I was doing the first album and that was how he and I actually met. He was referred to me by their drummer (Matt Scurfield). And he got such an amazing sound out of everything for the first album, and he was working on a small, small amount of equipment. I was just so blown away by the sound he got out of the equipment. He just has a natural ear for it. So I went back to him this time. This time he has a lot more equipment. It was actually done completely in Digital Performer. Complete digital recording. I like it a lot! I know what I want my guitar to sound like and he's real good about getting me that sound; I've been in studios before where they just pretty much are miccing my amp, and that doesn't do it in the studio. It's more involved than that. He's really good at getting a good tone out of an amp or out of a guitar, as the case was with the acoustic.

Wes: The first album was "Infectious Licks." This one is called "Contagious Grooves." What's for the title on the next one?

Jaye: I don't think I'm going to go [any further] with that thing. I've run out of places to go with that!