Q&A: Larissa Jaye (Part 1)

Singer/songwriter's six-year journey from kindergarten teacher to folk-pop artist

By T.J. DeGroat
HATCH Senior Writer

It took a long time for New York City singer/songwriter Larissa Jaye to finish her first CD. A very long time. But the New Jersey native's fans will agree that the wait was worth it.

Jaye's CD, New Leaves Over, is packed with infectious folk-pop tunes that cover the full range of emotions, from melancholy to unbridled child-like joy. The thoughtful chorus of "Underwater" could become an anthem for twentysomethings. Joining the stellar track of Jaye's CD are fun pop tunes ("Kid Who Wants Candy"), soaring love songs ("A Thousand Miles") and folk rock that rivals the genre's biggest names ("The Man").

A pianist and guitarist, Jaye's music is incredibly catchy, but arguably her greatest strength is her songwriting. The intelligent but playful songs talk about both deeply personal issues and broad societal concerns, all with a witty wordplay that takes several listens to identify.

Just after finishing mastering the CD and before putting the final touches on the project, Jaye took some time to chat with HATCH about her creative process, her influences and her plans for her independent label.

Can you take me through the production process a bit? How long did it take to bring this CD to life?

That's an interesting question. If you ask people on my mailing list, they'll tell you too long -- I feel like I've made a reputation for myself as "the girl who cried album" since I've literally been giving updates on its progress for the past three years now. It's been a long process, much longer than I originally anticipated, and it's gone through many incarnations. During the first year -- when I still thought there would only be one year -- I worked with producer Joe Valeri on some pre-production, and we read somewhere that it took Vanessa Carlton five years to get her first record done. At that point, we thought that was just about the funniest thing we ever heard.

Anyway, at the end of that first year I began working with my current producer,
Jonathan Perkins, and we started moving forward on the actual recording. We spent the summer of 2004 in more pre-production, rehearsals with the band, and then in the studio with engineer Peter Doris; we were able to get the basic tracks down for 10 of the 14 songs. We started overdubs in the fall, and joined up with producer/engineer Scott Jacoby in a second studio around that time. Between the overdubs and the four other tracks, we finally finished up all of the instrumental recording around May of 2005, if I remember right, and we spent that next summer on all of the lead vocals, which was super-intense for me, since I had more or less been sitting back for awhile.

Lead vocals were also crazy because it gave me the chance to spend the most intimate and concentrated time ever with each of these songs. In attempting to emote their original sentiments, I sort of had no choice but to put myself back to where I was when I writing them. And we'd be with a different one every couple of days, so I think it's fair to say that I was something of an emotional wild card during that time -- but once I had sung the whole album, it definitely felt like I had gotten through something, both for the actual album and therapeutically. You get a good sense of closure on things when you're forced to seal them into some sort of permanent form, and Jon and Scott kept the space so safe for me; it was an amazing experience.

And after leads?

As soon as we finished leads, we went directly on to background vocals, which turned out to be a whole other monster. I had actually been eagerly awaiting this part since we started -- I sang with an a cappella group in college and I thought I knew what I was doing when it came to harmonizing, especially with myself -- but I have to say, backgrounds were pretty challenging. So many voice lessons out the window (laughs). It was really interesting to be directed in a vocal capacity though, and besides driving Jon crazy I definitely learned a lot.

I think we got those done in November, after about five straight months of studio singing. Then Scott cleaned up all the tracks for a couple of months and we started in on mixing in February of 2006, which we labored over until this past June, at which point we sequenced the album for another couple of months and took it to mastering. We recently got back the first version of the master and we still have to conference on it, but at this point everything is just about good to go with the exception of the artwork, which will probably take me another month or so.

I'm exhausted just listening to you!

Admittedly, most people don't take this long to get something out there, but the perfectionist in me, along with the fact that this is my first full-length work, has been stretching things out a bit despite my best efforts; in a sense, I've been making this album since I started writing songs though, so everything feels that much more precious.

Honestly this whole project means so much to me that it's been tough for me to know when to let go at various stages -- OK, at all stages, actually -- but Jon and Scott have been great about easing me away slowly (laughs). But really, I've learned so much over the course of making this record; no doubt next time will be different -- and hopefully faster and easier in many ways.

You started your own label, Rella Records, to release this. How difficult is it to release a CD independently?

So far it's pretty tough. I've done tons of research and I read everything I can get my hands on, but I still can't say that I'm 100 percent prepared for this -- or that I even know the half of what it's going to entail. I just did a small-scale single release to kinda get my feet wet, and even that tiny fraction of what I'm planning for the album release turned out to be pretty overwhelming. But I've been lucky in that I've had a lot of hands-on experience working for another independent label, MPress Records, and also that I've gotten myself involved in a couple of really supportive indie communities that have been tremendously helpful.

Any plans to take on other artists once your music is out there?

I would love to, along the same lines of "give what you get" or "you get what you give" or any of that; the karma of circular things is so interesting to me, and so true. Plus I am big into having a hand in all aspects of a project, which fully includes the creative control and the organizational business side of things as well, so a roster sounds like fun -- I like running the show, so to speak, as long as I still get to be in it. Right now my focus has to be primarily on my own career, but again, I am hoping to get to a point where I can build Rella beyond just me.
Most people do not have the chutzpah to devote so much time and money to a project like this, even if it is their passion. What made you go for it? And what were you doing before?

Thanks. And yeah, making a record independently is definitely not for seekers of instant gratification -- or for people who enjoy their bank account -- that's a big lesson I learned here. There are a number of things that made me go for it though -- the most important one is that it was on my life to-do list -- making an album was always something I wanted and needed to do, and I knew I'd do it at some point -- it was just a question of timing.

The first time I seriously started to consider recording was in the summer of 2000. I had just resigned my position as a public school kindergarten teacher in order to re-align with my lifelong goal of a performing arts career. As a transitional thing, I was involved in a short-term trio project with two of my good friends from college, and we played a couple of shows at a local coffeehouse -- that was the first time I had the opportunity to really collaborate on any of my own songs, which was totally great. Afterwards, we got a lot of positive feedback, and a significant number of people were asking for a recording of one song in particular, "Go-Go Dancer," which was inspired by my teaching experience, and apparently resonated with a lot of people in the audience, including a bunch of my former colleagues.

But it's actually Joe who gets the credit for pursuing this with me incessantly in the months following -- he eventually even offered to help me get it done. I kept giving him excuses, and he kept revising the offer to accommodate the excuses. He was trying to beat me at my own game, but nonetheless it was really flattering to have someone else -- a non-relative even -- believe in my stuff that much.

Thankfully, he finally broke me down, but not before I was on to something else. I seem to have this habit of making my favored art forms "take turns" -- I was still writing and playing, but theatre had come around to the forefront, and although Joe and I spoke on and off about recording for the next couple of years, it wasn't until an emotional upheaval in my acting environment that I turned back to music full-force. In a sense, I was running away from acting, but in another sense I was running toward music. Seeing the bigger picture now, it was one of those situations that makes me think of my grandmother's phrase, "When one door closes, another one opens;" it was not a good time for me personally or professionally, but it ultimately led me to cultivate my music again and really begin the album process, so I'm thankful for that.