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Abby Jaye Interview

Abby took some time off from her busy schedule, to give us an inside look at the life of an up and coming, yet struggling performer.

Q - Abby, give me a career update. What is happening with your music?
A - We have the interest of many of the major labels as well as some major management companies. Now, we have a major publishing company behind us. They have one songwriter in particular who wrote something for Tina Turner, and even offered her song for me to cover. I write all the material but, it's very commercial, it's very "Heart" like, it's very M.T.V. If that's what would get me out front, that's fine. My heart lies with the heavier things, I'll be honest. I play guitar. That's my Number One thing. I want to do the real heavy stuff. If the record company says we'd like a cross over ballad - I could take this woman's cross over ballad and make it to the top with that, then I could push on the metal. That's the same thing all the bands do. However you make it, you make it. You make it on one thing and then you can do anything.

Q - How are these record companies hearing about you?
A - There's not an A and R person, be it a Vice-President, Director. Manager, someone in the high level who doesn't know who I am. I've bombarded them with press releases, with packages. They have in their hands all my information. Also, I'm pretty visible down here, because of the seminars, the New Music Seminar. I attend those as well as CMJ, the college music. That one I like a lot more, because it's more specialized. It's more metal. Lenny (motorhead) will be there. Dave Mustaine. All the metal guys. Its lots of fun to be there.

Q - How were you able to get airplay for your demo tape in Australia and Europe?
A - Believe it or not our stronghold is in Europe, Germany, England, France, Belgium. I'm much bigger there. The Europeans are totally different than here. They're much more excited about the music. In Greece, I'll get 5 pages in a magazine. Here, I'll get a little spot. In Italy, I'll get a full half page. In England I'll get a quarter page glossy. Here it's much more difficult. A friend gave me a list of all the stations that play underground music. I just sent the stuff out and said let me know if you're playing my tape. Some people let me know and some didn't. "Metal Forces" magazine was really the first magazine to break me. MCA Records in California said we read about you in Metal Forces, please send us some stuff. Just from there, it kind of snowballed. I still get requests daily. I'm sure it's close to 100 (radio) stations now and growing. After awhile, I think you gotta say I’ve made my point. What I'm trying to say to the record I'm unsigned, but unproven.

Q - You were nominated in two categories at the Fourth Annual New York Music Awards. How did that turn out for you? Did you win anything?
A - Unfortunately, I didn't win. But it didn't matter, to tell you the truth. The record labels said they didn't care. They just wanted to see the nominations. The fact that I was the only unsigned artist to get nominated gets me everywhere. Doors really started opening up after that.

Q - You were in a group called Starchild. What was that all about?
A - We were really a prominent all girl band that played on the Tri-State circuit -- New York. New Jersey. We had a keyboard player. It was much lighter and she did most of the writing. At that point, my whole life was performing. I loved to be out onstage. I wasn't that much into my own writing, I was a performer. I would do all these wild things, and I loved to play out. And then I finally grew up. I found you have to write the stuff, you just can't play someone else’s. You certainly can’t play copies your whole life. I was very young at the time. That was kind of my stomping ground to really learn to be a performer onstage.

Q - I imagine it must be a 24 hour a day job to do what you do, but I would also guess you have a day job.
A - It does take 24 hours of my time, but yes, on top of that I do have a day job, to just finance what I do.