Jaytech, aka James Cayzer, has carved himself an enviable reputation as a supremely credible producer, DJ, and live talent. Uplifting, but never obvious, his music is well-thought out melodic house that’s equally at home in a Sasha or Desyn Masiello set as in a headline slot from Above & Beyond (Jaytech is also their opening DJ of choice).

Hard work and an early start has certainly paid off, with a discography that runs into double figures and includes notable releases such as ‘Genesis’, which won widespread support from everyone from Desyn Masiello to Tiesto - who included it on his In Search Of Sunrise compilation, ‘Spacelift’, and ‘Pepe’s Garden’, which similarly found favour with Sasha, Armin Van Buuren and everyone in between.

We caught up with Jaytech on the phone last week, here is what he had to say:

So, for the benefit of those people who may not be so familiar with your name on these shores, tell us how it all began for you?
It all began when I found a flyer for an all ages rave in my year 9 maths classroom, I decided me and a friend should go and check it out, it was Ferry Corsten playing on the night so he was the first DJ I ever heard. After having such a cool night on that particular night I went and started checking out means of making music myself on the internet and it all kind of started from there.

Year nine maths class? How old are you now then?
Erm, how old am I? 23, yeah I’m 23 so that was 9 years ago now.

I see that you are a classically trained pianist, does this mean you once aspired to head into the classical music scene?
Yeah. At once stage I was yeah, but I basically gave that up because the lure or electronic music was too strong and erm because there is basically no room for error with classical music whatsoever, you are either the best or you are pretty much nobody and I didn’t like those odd haha!!

Back in 2008 you released your debut solo album ‘Everything is OK’ which was received well across the world, any plans in the pipeline for more albums from you?
Yeah absolutely you know, I plan to have one out in at least the next 18 months. Now that I know that I can do it and I know that I can finish an album I wanna come back to it with sort of fresh ears, have another crack at it and try and do one with a bit more flow. The first CD, as happy as I am with it, it is more sort of just a compilation of tracks on a CD as opposed to a story with a start and a finish and everything.

You feature on a lot of Above & Beyond’s worldwide tours, how did this come about?
The first party I played with them was their party in Goa, they put on an Anjunabeats stage at the Sunburn festival in Goa back in 2007. Seeing as it was a kind of halfway point between Britain and Australia they thought it was a good opportunity for us all to meet up and kind of meet in the flesh. So I went and played for them then and yeah we just all had such a great time and that was a success so back in June last year they got me on their bus trip and it’s all gone from there.

Tell us a bit about your monthly podcast as well, what sort of stuff can we expect on there?
Well basically it’s just a compilation of all the cool new music I’ve got. In comparison to the club sets that I play I’d be more inclined to play a lot more of my own tunes or tunes that have been doing it for me over the last 6 to a year, the podcast is basically just all the newer stuff I have. I just find an hours worth of stuff that have been doing it for me recently, mix them together and kind of chuck them up there ya know………and it’s been getting more and more support all the time. Probably the coolest thing for me is people coming up to me in the middle of my sets with their ipods and their iphones and pointing at a tune on my podcast and asking me to play it so it’s cool to see that people are listening to it.

Your music gets picked up by quite a wide variety of DJs from the likes of Desyn Masiello and Sasha to Armin van Buuren and Tiesto, how do you manage to keep your music so open to different genres?
Honestly, the best thing to do is just get my head down, not think about it and put it down on paper. And when i’ve got a few tracks together, give them some time to breath and give me time toget used to them then make a decision about what I think about them. I think the best success that I’ve had with tracks are ones that I’ve not even been thinking about when I’ve been writing them, they just sort of come out.

What’s your favourite all time Jaytech track?
Ahhhh there’s so many tunes that I’ve made you know, I go through them and find tunes I forgot even existed and that could be my favourite track of that day. I dunno, I suppose probably Pyramid, is probably my favourite in terms of production, I think that’s the coolest thing I did in 2008 anyway.

How is your music received in your native country, Australia?
Really well actually, I think the best thing I did for my profile was kind of leaving Aus for a year because coming back, people were really glad to see me, obviously my album had come out while I was away so I came home to a lot bigger fanbase in Australia than when I left so that was pretty cool. I think the Australian scene is kind of very Electro and Funky House influenced these days and even going kinda down the Minimal route as well as this kind of Electro-Rock kind of path so I was playing music that they hadn’t heard in a long time which was kind of refreshing for them so I think it went down very well.

You’ve played at Air for us once previously, in 2008, what stood out about the club for you? Was it what you expected?
I had no idea what to expect at all you know, I don’t really look up the gigs too much before I play them anymore because you never really know what to expect. When I first got there I just thought I was going to be freezing my butt off all night haha because when I got there it was a freezing cold night and it was just like an ice cave in there. I couldn’t believe how quickly the club filled up though, as soon as the doors opened and the party was officially a goer the place just filled straight away and it was no longer an ice cave it was just sort of a big sweaty er rave mayhem, that’s the best way I could describe it haha! The atmosphere in there, between the main room where I played and the back room with the more sort of chilled out music I was really sort of impressed with the vibe in there and the enthusiasm of the crowd basically.

Do you like to stick around after your sets and party? If so, when was the last time you were out partying all night?
Hahaha! Actually on this last trip I have been pretty well behaved. We were sort of playing about 4-5 times a week so if I could finish my set about 1 and go back to the hotel to get some sleep, generally I would. So yeah I was pretty well behaved for the sake of being in one piece. So yeah the last time I was out all night partying would’ve been erm let me think…….yeah my homecoming gig back in Sydney because all of my friends from various cities had come to see me. I finish playing at about 3 and yeah haha it kind of went on all night.

What’s the weirdest thing a fan has ever said to you or requested?
Hmmmmm, I’ll have to think about that one……….

Have you ever had to sign any interesting places or had knickers thrown at you?
Ahahaha…….i’m sure I have, God, no sorry I’m drawing a blank on that one, sorry!

No problem, have you ever used your fame to get you anything you wouldn’t have ordinarily been able to get?
Erm…….God, these are hard questions you’re throwing at me man.

So you know, you don’t walk into a restaurant and kind of go ‘do you know who I am?’ or there’s nothing you’ve been able to blag because ‘I’m Jaytech, come on sort me out!!’
Haha, no I don’t think I have to be honest. I’m quite low profile so……….

Haha I think you might need to start upping your game a bit then and start getting yourself some freebies eh!!
Yeah haha!! Gimme a couple of year and I’ll see what I can do

Finally, what can we all expect from you at Godskitchen on March 21st?
A whole bunch of chunky, crazy tunes.

I love the fact that with your warm ups are designed to get people on the floor. A lot of people’s warm ups these days, they just play slow, pretty much boring music just to sort of fill in the gap before the headline DJ comes on but that’s not how I see a warm up set. Your job is basically to get everyone on the floor as early as possible with the chunkiest, funkiest tunes you can.
Yeah, I mean I get a fair bit of leeway with what I can play with these guys. I can pretty much rock out as much as I want cos it’s still gonna step up, the lights’ll go down, the music will go up a few bpm and you know things will still take a step up. It works kind of well so it’s all good

You can catch Jaytech at the forthcoming Anjunadeep album launch party at Godskitchen on 21st March

Saturday 21st March
Air Nightclub
Birmingham

Oxygen Room
ABOVE & BEYOND
SUPER 8 & TAB
JAYTECH (Anjunadeep)
MARK ETESON

Nitrogen Room
MICKY SLIM
PAUL THOMAS
NEIL NAVARRA
RUSSELL G

Carbon Lounge
Deep City Soul
Duncan Murray

Early Bird tickets - £12 + BF (SOLD OUT)
Advanced - £15+ BF

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS