Limerick's JaYne on the release of her debut album: "I had to do this album for my own sense of self-respect. I just felt like I really needed to give this to myself."

It seems every time you blink in Limerick a new artist has popped up or incredible new music is being released. So, it makes sense why JaYne (Jane Fraser), a Mungret local, made the decision to move home after spending years working on her craft in London.

“How we do things here are very different,” Fraser says, comparing the two cities’ music scenes. “I would say the standards are very high here and we're very competitive. There's competition everywhere you go in music, but I think there's more freedom in a bigger city, there's more room to hang about a bit and be creative.

“Because Limerick’s such a small place it's easy to collaborate with people, as well. I live with three other musicians, and we all hang out with a bunch of other musicians. So, if you want to collaborate with someone you can do it like next week or whatever. In a bigger city, you're waiting a couple of weeks to even meet with somebody.

“You're growing yourself a lot when you're in a big city, like people go there to get really good, you know?” the singer ponders. “They go there to go to college, practice, and explore themselves. And I think then coming back here, it was more about focusing and deciding what I was doing. Cause everyone else around seems to be taking their projects in a very definite direction. And that was kind of good for me to see and to have kind of imposed upon myself as well. I knew I actually needed to make a plan here.”

And that plan comes to fruition today, May 19, as JaYne’s debut album, Pass the Test, releases into the world. Filled with a carefully curated mixture of funky jazz and soul, the singer’s first record is a testament to the amount of work she has put into her craft behind the scenes.

Speaking of the release, JaYne gushes: “I've been working on it for such a long time, I'm almost like, in a state of denial about it. Because in my head, it's already gone out, like ages ago, but it hasn't, you know? I'm just nervous. I hope people listen to it!”

Jazz isn’t the style usually associated with the Limerick music scene, so how did Jane get swept into it?

“I don't know how it happened to me,” the singer laughed. “I mean, I wouldn't even say I'm a jazz singer, but it just comes out of me in a more natural way than other genres.

“My very, very, first gig was a performance with a 15-piece big band doing the standards - like the Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald tunes. And I was just hooked. Then I went away and explored millions of other directions and wrote almost finished albums in a couple of different styles. But I came back to the to jazz. And I've been able to finish this pass-esque album. So that's a good sign.”

In a previous interview Fraser described herself as scatty, saying finishing the album was a big test for her – one she felt she had to pass. So, after years of being involved with different projects, and becoming quite well known around Limerick, why has she decided now is the time to get serious?

“When the pandemic came, I was halfway through an album with a band called Eve's Record Box. It was sounding great, and I was absolutely loving it. But then the pandemic came, so we couldn't get together and it just fell apart. I was gutted. With all the different projects that I've done, and things not being finished for one reason or another, I was like, Jane, you just need to do this.

“I had to do this album for my own sense of self-respect. Having spent my whole life in music and having a degree in song writing, I just felt like I really needed to give this to myself. I needed to do finish something, make it great, and be really proud of it so I can kind of move forward.”

While typically, being scatty can have its downsides in the ways of unfinished projects, it can also bring a breath of fresh air to the creation of an album. JaYne’s approach to writing, recording, producing, and mixing the album definitely wasn’t the traditional approach, and yet, it makes for a captivatingly magnificent listen.

The musician worked on the album with upwards of 14 of other musicians and producers, resulting in different styles winding their way into the finished project. After being posed the question of why she chose this approach over the traditional method, the singer laughed: “Because I'm really scatty. That's why I just can't go in one direction - it's a real problem!

“I wrote like a couple of songs with Danny Lanham, and he's a producer, so he had produced like, say, six of the tracks, and then they were in one place together, you know? And then I wrote three tracks with Conor Broderick, and then one or two on my own, and they were totally different. Then I met the problem of ‘how am I going to tie all of these things together?’ So, I just thought, well, I'll get someone else (Ben Wanders) to mix all of it and like between the three studios (Wanderland Recording Studio, Dry Lane Studios, and Wav Mastering) the album was formed.

“The next album I do, I definitely won’t do the same way because it was really hard to do. I'm really proud of what happened, and I think it's nice to have a load of different people from around playing on it and the two best producers around work on it, like, that's cool.”

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Although there were different creatives involved in the song writing process, the lyrics are all quite personal to the singer.

“That's how I kind of sort my head out of it,” Fraser shared. “If I'm going through hard times, I'll write way more than if things are really good. So, I suppose you can come off sounding like a bit of a miserable bitch. Obviously, I absolutely love all forms of song writing, but there's something special when you listen to a song or a lyric and you can really identify with it, or it feels honest and real, and I've tried to channel that through what I do.”

After a life spent surrounded by music; in stage school from a young age, growing up watching her dad play in a band, getting her song writing degree, and working on every style and project under the sun, JaYne is really proud to finally have her debut album coming into the world.

“I’m so proud of all the songs on the album, but one that’s really close to my heart is ‘Bad Sign’. It’s an interesting track, it's just a bit different. I kind of pulled the lyric together at a pretty low point in my life. In the last few years, I was almost like, at rock bottom, and I just spewed out all these words. And it became a really great song. So, I mean, that one's close to my heart for that reason.”

The musician launches her album with a limited capacity gig in Dry Lane Studios on May 25. Other than that, you’ll have to keep an eye on her social media for more updates.

“I didn’t apply for any of the festivals back in February cause like my head is everywhere in February – it’s the middle of Winter! I'm not thinking about summertime and like, being this better person who's gonna go off and get the band together and do a lot of gigs,” the singer joked. “So yeah, I really wish I could say I'm playing loads of different places and festivals for the whole summer but I can't say anything yet.”

JaYne’s debut album, Pass the Test, is out now.