The Music That Made Me - Jay Marie

In our series, The Music That Made Me, someone will be sharing their life through the music that shaped them. This week, we talked to Audrey No frontwoman Jay Marie.

American singer-songwriter Jay Marie is the silky-voiced centre of one of Platform Mag’s fave bands - Audrey No. The band is known for their emotionally driven soft-rock style and tenderly delivered live performances. Here, Jay tells us about the music that she has loved throughout her life.

Find Jay on Instagram here, and follow Audrey No on Instagram here.

Song that reminds me of my childhood

Patsy Cline Walkin' After Midnight, The Who - Who Are You

When I was young, my mom had these old Patsy Cline records she would put on, and we would sing along to them together. Walkin' After Midnight and Crazy are the two songs that stick out in my memory the most. I was never a huge country music fan like my mom was, but I liked Patsy Cline's songs because her voice was different from most other country singers I was used to hearing. She sang in a deep and bluesy way - it was emotional, but it wasn't cheesy. Her songs were more fun to sing, and the words stuck with me - even now, I still remember most of the words.

My dad was probably more successful at indoctrinating me into his overall personal music tastes (rock) just because he worked harder at it. Every time we would get into his truck to drive somewhere, he would turn the radio on. The first few seconds of a guitar riff would start playing, and he would quiz me: "Okay, who is this?" And seven-year-old me would say: "…I don't know." "The Who!" Obviously. How could I not know? I would roll my eyes at his bad joke, but I was educated against my will like this every time a rock song was playing on the radio or TV. It's my theory that my dad would've made music in another life because of how obsessed he is with it. 

The last album that blew my mind

Fiona Apple - Fetch the Bolt Cutters

This album was a real piece of art to me. By that, I mean it wasn't always enjoyable or comfortable - it wasn't made to be consumed like a product. It was made so intentionally to express what it wanted to express. It's full of incredible poetry and it takes its time. I read that a few songs on the album were written over the course of decades. Some songs need to take that long because it takes that long to work out what you really want to say. She said that the album was "a headache she had inside of her head" and that once she released it, it became a shared pulse that could actually make people feel good - and that really resonated with me because that's how I've felt about what songwriting does for me, too. A lot of my songs are sad or angry or about longing or can be self-critical, but I'm at my lightest and happiest when I'm making, working on, or performing music - it's a way to get it all out of my body and outside of myself. And when it's outside of you, it doesn't only feel better for you but also for people who have those same things inside of them. When they can see it on the outside, they feel less alone in the world. It's why songwriting and making music feels so worthwhile and fulfilling for me when I manage to get it right. It's the one thing that can be healing for me and be healing for others at the same time - often in ways I can't predict or imagine. That's what makes it the thing I want to do more than anything else. 

The first gig I went to

Yuna - Best of Me

I was never able to go to concerts or live shows when I was growing up because I was pretty sheltered, and I wasn't much of a rule breaker. There weren't many shows coming to my area either, so we would've had to drive out of state to see anyone exciting. I think I only went to one concert in America, and it was just to take my younger cousin to see the Hannah Montana/ Miley Cyrus concert. I'd love to see a Miley concert now, but at the time, I hadn't grown up watching the TV show, and I wasn't a country music fan, so it wasn't for me.

I only started to see live music when I moved to Seoul because it was the first time I'd lived in a big city. The first show I remember going to was when I went to see Yuna, who came to Seoul to promote her Chapters album. She was really beautiful, and I remember being so impressed by her presence and voice. I would've liked to say something to her after the show, but I think I was overwhelmed by the crowd, so I left right after it ended. I generally don't go to too many live shows for that reason. I love them when I do go, but I get anxious in crowded spaces easily.

A song I wish I had written

Regina Spektor - Two Birds 

There are a lot of times I hear a song and think, "Oh, I wish I wrote this," but Two Birds is maybe the simplest of the songs I've thought that about. It does something really well that I wish I could do better. It's actually a heartbreaking song when you look at the words: "He says he wants to as well / But he is a liar", "I'll believe it all / There's nothing I won't understand", "The sky is overcast and I'm sorry", but it doesn't sound like a sad song when you listen to it. For the most part, the song is upbeat and playful sounding. It's a high-energy song that doesn't really "break" the mood until the last moments - which takes the listener on the same emotional journey as these "two birds" instead of just telling a sad story from hindsight. And it's such a human story that telling it through birds instead of people seems more poetic. Even the line "I won't let go of your hand" reminds you that these birds are not birds because birds don't have hands. 

A song that makes me cry

Mitski - A Pearl

I remember I had listened to Be The Cowboy when it first came out, and I had liked it, but this song didn't particularly strike me until much later. There are always songs like that on an album- songs that you don't connect with as much the first time you hear them for whatever reason. But I remember several years later, it was evening and I was walking around my neighbourhood listening to some playlist and A Pearl by Mitski started playing. And as I was walking and listening to it, I started to just sob publicly. A lot of things had happened in my life in between when I first heard the song and when I was listening to it now. So people are going home from work, and I'm just walking and crying like I'm hearing this song for the first time. But I guess this version of me was hearing it for the first time. I can't even be sure of the exact reason I was crying - just that it really resonated with me at that moment, and I felt like I understood it, and in a way, it made me feel more understood. 

One song that you have made that has significant emotional meaning

Audrey No - Risk

The last song on my band's 2023 EP was actually written back in 2019. At that time I remember there was someone who was publicly going through a hard time and I didn't know them personally, but I was worried about them. Around that time, it almost seemed like a pattern that was becoming more visible the older I got - the way people would be chosen and celebrated in a moment and then brought down the next. And it's hard for people to recover from that everywhere, but I had never felt it as strongly as I felt it in Korea. I was trying to imagine what it would feel like to be in their position. How isolated and scared I would feel. And I wrote the song with that in mind, feeling like even if they never even heard the song - maybe somehow, energetically, my goodwill would be sent in their direction. I made a demo back then but never recorded it until we were choosing songs for the EP towards the end of 2023.

When I listened back to it again for the first time in 4 years, it felt like an entirely different song to me. It had always been a hope or small prayer for someone else in my mind when I wrote it, but now it felt like it had always been the past version of myself writing the song for me. The previous year had been particularly hard, and I had spent a lot of time hiding from life and just trying to recover. But I was really isolated and scared. I was scared to trust the wrong person, make the wrong choice, say the wrong thing. And I was scared that I might not ever recover to the point where I could fully enjoy life again - because you have to take risks in life, and it gets harder to take those risks after you've been hurt.

I think it was good that I still felt emotional recording Risk for the EP because it's genuine. I wrote it to encourage someone going through a hard time, but I didn't think it would end up encouraging me as much as it did. If that's the effect it had on me, then it can have a positive effect on someone else, too. If my songs can bring comfort to or make even one person feel less alone, then it's all worth the risk