Sometimes all you need is a guitar and a song. It’s even better if the song has a message behind it, but what if the message is about Tesco or Myspace or the positives of drugs? Not your usual themes for one man and his guitar, but Beans On Toast (otherwise known as Jay) manages to write many songs about all these subjects and more.
His first album “Standing On A Chair” contained a whopping 50 tracks including “M.D.M.Amazing”, “I Shot Tupac Shakur And All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt” and “Fuck The Smoking Ban”. But what influences Beans On Toast’s song writing?
“Women, drugs and the world around me,” Jay says. “Books by Tom Robbins and songs by Todd Snider,” he adds. A lot of his music is also influenced by politics and the government, which Jay describes as “greedy, corrupt, unimaginative and boring. But I’m not gonna let them ruin my day.”
Last year Jay released his second album entitled “Writing On The Wall” with a full band. But has since reverted to his solo roots: “I played with a band for last summer’s festivals and I did the second record with them. But that has come to an end now. Sometimes I play solo, sometimes with friends who are around at the time. For the April Fools tour I will be part of a duo, joined on stage by Bobby on banjo.”
The April Fools Tour is a run of 19 dates throughout April which have been self-organised on a shoestring budget. He will be playing a range of venues from cafés, pubs and house parties. He says he decided to do it himself because he could and “nobody else offered to do it for me.”
The tour is covering the length and breadth of the UK, but Jay admits he’s most looking forward to his gig in Cleethorpes: “I haven’t been there before and it sounds like an ace place.”
After the extensive DIY tour, Jay says he’s booking festivals up now and will announce them after the tour. He’s already been announced for this year’s Y-Not Festival, but is a firm favourite in many fields across the country.
After summer, though, he will begin work on a new album due at the end of the year. “I vowed to put out an album a year for as long as I do this. So each record will come out around the start of December,” Jay says.
Beans On Toast will be playing Nottingham House in Cleepthorpes on Tuesday, April 5th. Tickets cost £5. For more information, visit his official website.