Legendary Adelaide band 'The Jaynes' resurface for a massive show at the Gov!

Adelaide's 'The Jaynes' are back! A band that in the 90's were a force to be reckoned with, signing to Mushroom Records and playing the 1993, Big Day Out. Whilst walking down Rundle Street this week I bumped into Matt from the Jaynes and wanted to briefly delve into their humble beginnings and what to expect this Friday night at The Gov where the Jaynes will perform alongside the Violets and Batteries Not Included - Bands that paved the way for what was about to explode in the SA music scene! 

1. The Jaynes have been an important part of Adelaide’s musical history - tell us about your beginnings.

We met at high school as a pretty basic punky/pop outfit called 3 Minute Smile. We played dances, parties, hall gigs and the like as sixteen year olds and then cut a demo at an audio school which got us airplay on SAFMs Local and/or General. The producers of this legendary Adelaide radio show Bill Page (who would later sign us to Mushroom Records with Michael Gudinski) and Bill Weaver kind of championed us as an up and coming Adelaide outfit and we later changed our name and drummer and started on what was a very vibrant pub circuit in Adelaide at the time.

Indie releases followed with varying success and then our semi live acoustic album Strum got us the impossible, mainstream airplay. We started to chart and though the commercial radio door can slam quickly, we got our foot in there. Bigger heads in the industry started taking notice. We had a ball of energy called Tony Baker as our manager and he was banging doors down for us. Agents, Triple J showcase tours, festivals and record companies followed.

2. Tell us a couple of interesting stories about what it was like playing live in Adelaide in the 90’s?

Playing live in Adelaide in the late 80s and early nineties was brilliant. My personal favourite was the beer garden out the back of the Austral on a Friday night. The place would be heaving. Cigarette smoke, pints of West End Draught and joints in the toilet. People would hang from the rafters and the radios in the taxi cab rank out side would interfere with your guitar amp. 

I also loved late night gigs at Limbos where we played til three in the morning and later on, when things really took off, five hundred sweaty young punters packing into the Marryatville Hotel on a Saturday night. Everyone was so young and beautiful and excited about the future. It was magic. Great bands like BNI, The Eldorados, Be Brave, The Violets, Napoleon Goes Solo, The Mark of Cain, The Undecided, Where’s the Pope, The Happy Patch and heaps more were going at it every weekend.

3. You have a big show coming up this Friday at the Gov with the legendary Violets and BNI, tell us about your relationships with these bands and what can we expect from the show?

We played together a bit back in the day. The Violets were a great moody outfit who emitted walls of beautiful sound. I went to see them quite a lot. BNI might have been a few years ahead of us. I remember them receiving a bit of chart success, which as I said earlier was very hard in Adelaide at a time when commercial radio was much more interested in Mariah Carey and the like. I saw them at limbos a few times and loved their garagey punch. We did all come together to play at Adelaide Uni for the now legendary ’93 Big Day Out too.

4. What’s the future hold for The Jaynes?

Hopefully playing a great set on Friday. You always hope when you play a reunion that you don’t end up looking like a silly old cunt, but having said that we can’t wait. We have a few tracks that we are looking at releasing for the die hards and we are considering doing some more shows with other 90s Adelaide alumni in the future. You strive and angst and push as a young musician, but it is lovely as an older person now just to be around those people you had so many adventures with and to see those faces in the crowd that you knew from the old days and have a chance to remember that some of those songs you wrote were really important to people. That’s enough for me in terms of a future.