It may have been said before, but it's worth mentioning once again: Jay Fay's musical achievements at such a young age and in a relatively short amount of time have been quite impressive.
The artist - whose real name is Josh Fagin - has opened up for established acts with his brand of infectious electronic music. He was a RFT Music Awards nominee in 2011 for Best New Artist. And he did it all before he was old enough to consume alcohol.
But Jay Fay is experiencing a taste of commercial success with the release of Bonkers, a four-song EP that's been climbing up online charts such as Beatport. The Young Robots Records product is Jay Fay's first release on a label.
RFT Music spoke with Jay Fay on the phone last week to talk about his expanding popularity, his latest release and his plans for the future. Questions and answers have been edited for clarity and length.
Jason Rosenbaum: How would describe the response to the Bonkers EP so far?
Jay Fay: It's actually been received way better than I thought it would be. It's been really, really cool. This is my first EP on an actual label, so it's my actual first iTunes, Beatport, Amazon etc. release. And it's been getting a lot of great support from a lot of big DJs, actually. Dave Nada's been a big supporter of it. Skream actually hit me up on Twitter the other day to say he supported the release. And that was pretty crazy.
What do you think caused the release to be more successful than you had hoped?
I honestly have no idea. In terms of like all the stuff I have coming out, I think it's a strong release - but definitely not the strongest compared to my new stuff. But a lot of blogs have been posting about it. And a lot of the DJs have been really supportive of it. So it's been awesome. It's totally unexpected.
It seems that social media has played a big role in your music exploits so far. Have online tools helped boost the popularity of this particular release?
Yeah, I absolutely think so. There weren't any plans for a physical release. And all my upcoming releases are all digital. In today's world - especially electronic music - it's all circulated through blogs and Twitter and Facebook and just social media in general. And I think that's how it's gotten out to so many people. But me and the label had no idea that it would do this well.
