Every creative endeavour needs a jumping-off point. For rising young West Midlands quartet Jayler, that was the tables at The Feathers Inn in Lichfield, the scene of many wild and exhilarating early shows where the band got their act together, literally, in 2022.
Guitarist Tyler Arrowsmith and singer/guitarist James Bartholomew had been gigging since 2021, having met at an open-mic night in Tamworth. The AC/DC-loving Arrowsmith was in sixth form and Bartholomew had just started college.
“Both our bands had broken up,” says Arrowsmith. “I was looking for someone who liked the same music. Other open-mic nights had all these great musicians, but they were a lot older. My dad found a Facebook listing for The Cavern, and I went along hoping to find a friend.”
It was a pivotal move; Bartholomew was there, playing bass. Arrowsmith clocked Bartholomew’s expressive voice and fondness for leaping on and off bar furniture, stages and speaker stacks. Bartholomew clocked Arrowsmith’s Gibson.
“We started discussing bands – Van Halen, Darkness, ZZ Top – and hit it off. We made a setlist of covers, and that night we jammed and got on like a house on fire.”
Inspired by Greta Van Fleet’s high-octane stylings, for a while the duo were all-action and all-electric, but drummerless. They were gathering a following and had settled on the name Jayler, with a thunderbolt separating ‘Jay’ and ‘ler’ for a logo emblazoned on T-shirts.
In 2023 they finally found a drummer, Ed Evans. “He was into indie rock, really,” Arrowsmith explains, “but when we played him Led Zep and Steppenwolf he went right into the seventies [laughs].”
With bassist Ricky Hodgkiss joining, and Bartholomew switching to guitar, Jayler “took any gig we could, two, three times a week. Live music means everything to us,” Arrowsmith says. “We’d be at college Monday, Tuesday, Friday. We’d rehearse Wednesday and Thursday, gig every Saturday and have break-slash-write on Sunday.”
Persistence has paid off in front of audiences and online. Before they’d released their debut album (Voices Unheard, which came out last month), Jayler got the attention of heavyweight management, who got them a 36-date European tour with Deep Purple, which will conclude at London’s Royal Albert Hall on November 25.
Meanwhile, Brazil has gone bonkers for them.
“One of our videos hit a hundred and twenty-three million views there,” Arrowsmith says, somewhat flabbergasted. “So a promoter’s flown us out to play Monsters Of Rock, then the day after we’re supporting Lynyrd Skynyrd. It’s crazy! We might have to put pub tables on the rider, though, for old times’ sake.”
Voices Unheard is out now via Silver Lining Music.