The cover art for Flower Mouth was created by Molly Moonstone, who you’ve collaborated with the past. It features the yellow motorbike helmet with bass tuning pegs that’s on all of your releases. What’s the story behind the helmet?

Everywhere we go, whenever people see our merch they’re like, “Oh, are you part of a biker gang?” I’m like, “No!” [laughs] It was an art project I did back in high school where I had to make a hands-on sculpture. I saw this yellow helmet that I couldn’t afford at the time and I said, “When I get my first job, with my first paycheque I’m going to buy that motorcycle helmet.” Yellow is my favourite colour and if you look at anything I do, yellow is somewhere in there. I love it. I wanted that helmet so badly for that art project back in high school but it wasn’t until I graduated that I was able to afford it. I bought it and said, “I’m still going to make that art project.” It was a personal thing. I felt like I had to do it.

I made the helmet by crafting sculpting mold around it and then I took four tuning pegs from an old bass guitar that was lent to me and put it on the top. I remember sharing it with my friends and they were like, “What is this character going to be? What are you going to call him?” I was like, “Bass Ranger” like Power Rangers. For a while that’s what people would call me because I was always the bassist for anything. Temporarily that was going to be my stage name but then YouTube popped off so I thought I might as well transition with Jayniac Jr. The helmet made more sense when I had that name. [laughs] Now it’s like an artifact title. This is for the old fans which is funny, because the conception of “Flower Mouth” also has a lot to do with the “old” fans.

Molly Moonstone is amazing, she’s a really talented artist. She sang on our jazz cover of Destroy Boys’ “Junk” and that was so fun. Maybe we’ll have Molly come back for another song. I love that Molly is so talented - she sang with me, she did art with me. I really want to boast a bit about Molly Moonstone creating that art piece. It looks so nice, even the shading. I’m not super knowledgeable about how art is made but it’s great. The flowers spell out “Flower Mouth” too, it’s nice!

What’s the story behind “Flower Mouth”? How did the song come about?

2020 was around the time I was making music for myself and if you go back to who the producer was for the old songs it’s McLaren Alphonso. I have to shout him out because every song you ever hear from me that has drums, that’s him. He has a studio at his house and he’s helped me with every part of my dreams, anything that had to do with music. I wish one day when we’re on stage he would be there with us.

The beginning concept for Jayniac Jr. was going to be Latin music and punk. I guess the only remnants of that are “Desperately Wicked” and “Starlut”, which we still play live, but every song after that hasn’t been Latin rock. We kinda lost that as time went on. When I sat down with Mack and said, “There are a lot of fans who are like, “Hey, what happened to the Latin roots, man? Where’s the calypso? Where’s the Jamaican part of your music? What’s going on here?” “Anarchy in Audacity” was straight-up punk with a bit of ska and then “Vapid 99” was kind of rock and we did a metal solo in there. There was no calypso in any of my new music and I was like, “I don’t wanna betray myself. First thing’s first: we’re gonna start ‘Flower Mouth’ with a punk riff and then go to a calypso riff and switch between them.” I wanted to say, “I didn’t forget about that part of my music, it’s still here!” Then the breakdown for the song is all calypso - the part where I say, “I hate everything.” It was so crazy when we got to that part. I wanted a calypso breakdown and I was trying to figure out what I would say on top of it. It was this really weird mix of emotions.

The concept of the song is about oppression. It’s about being oppressed or feeling oppressed based on standards that are placed before you or standards that you feel are hidden or subtle. I wanted to write a song that not just anyone could cover or not just anyone could sing. For instance, if you have a man sing Ivy’s parts, it’s not gonna deliver the message as well as if you have a woman sing it. “You think I should smile more”, how often are men expected to smile more? It wouldn’t really sell it. I wanted the opening line to grab the audience immediately, “Call me the n-word one more time.” Not everyone is going to be able to say that line! [laughs]

These are feelings of things that I’ve been going through even trying to promote Jayniac Jr. Things are finally starting to go a bit smoother, but at the beginning, oh my lord. I always hate saying, “Oh, it’s because I’m Black”, obviously there’s plenty of times when that’s the case but I always try to imagine they’re coming from a different perspective - too often I try to see the best in people even if those people aren’t seeing the best in me. Whenever we were being promoted or being advertised it was always like, “Do more hip-hop. Do more Black stuff.” I kid you not, people would say that. “Can you Black it up?” is what we would say in the band as a joke, like if we’re recording or something. It was just because people wanted to put us in that box like, “Oh, you rap. Get rid of the guitar” and I’m like, “What do you mean? That’s part of the song.” I wanted to talk about that in the song where it’s like, “Man, you’re trying to make me something that I’m not but also something that’s a stereotype.” If you go back to Delranoir, the last album, the last song “I Make Bad Look Beautiful” - which is my most pretentious song ever but I still kinda love it - says, “I refuse to comply, I refuse to abide / By my designated stereotype.” That line is something I said in an argument with a guy. The people in the room said it back to me like, “You know you said this?” and I was like, “I did?” [laughs] “Flower Mouth” is a sequel of sorts, responding to how it’s been trying to get music out going forward.

What I will say is that the punk rock community has embraced me wholeheartedly. I love that and I adore that about this community. Before, it was more the R&B side of Toronto’s music which never worked for me. I’ll play bass for other artists all the time, no big deal, but writing an R&B song for me feels like, “Been there, done that” whereas I feel like there’s avenues of rock that have yet to fully be explored, especially in the fusion way. That’s what it’s about. I wanted it from a Black person’s perspective.

With the woman’s perspective, Chelsey - the guitarist in my band - and I had a lot of conversations and I asked her, “What’s something you experience while going through anything musical with me that maybe you didn’t talk to me upfront about?” Right away she was like, “People want me to smile more.” I was like, “Really??” You hear about it but then it happens to someone you know or maybe to yourself and it’s like, “Why? Why is that an expectation?” It was fun venting that whole song. The “I hate everything” part was so great because I was trying so hard to be fruitful with my words and I was like, “It’s got to be really poetic” and eventually it just became “I hate everything.” Sometimes you’ve gotta be over the top! [laughs]

So far the response to the song has been incredibly positive and people - at least the people I know - are talking about the “I hate everything” part. I’m just like, “I’m glad it’s a vibe!” A calypso beat, which is supposed to be more soulful being mixed with something so angry. My dad brought that up to me. He was like, “Only you would try to mix these two things, man.” I was like, “Are you disappointed?” and he was like, “No, I’m proud. I’m just confused.” [laughs]

Also the lyric video for “Flower Mouth” was done by Husnain. He makes horror videos. There’s a part where there’s a beating heart and it’s really cartoony. Originally I said I wanted an anatomically correct beating heart but it looked way too real! It was way too detailed. I was like, “I’m not going to ask you where you got this footage, instead I’m going to ask for it to be a cartoon." [laughs] He was like, “Alright, no problem.”

Ivy Marie is the featured singer on that track and you’ve worked with Ivy on three previous songs. How did your creative collaboration start?

Back in 2022 I did a collab with Shiloh, Lyldoll is what she’s known as now. We worked on a couple of tracks. I love Shiloh! I was the biggest fan back in the 2000s and being able to work with her, you have no idea! I was like to my best friend, Marcus - he was on “3 Bags Full” as MarcusFF -, “Dude, if I die tomorrow, I want at least one track to have her voice on it.” He was like, “You gotta talk to Shiloh man. Message Shiloh and ask her to do this song.” I was like, “Dude, that’s not gonna work” and he was like, “Just do it. Message her on Instagram and ask.” I asked and seven days later she responded. We worked on “Operator”. There was a song called “I’m Not Defined” which I released but it was without her for legal reasons. I love her, I adore her. Contract-wise and stuff like that is very difficult to work with. This is important info because Shiloh forwarded me Ivy’s contact. “Untimacy”, which was the first track Ivy and I ever did together, was supposed to be Shiloh.

My brain is weird where I will hone in on how this person’s voice functions, what its limits are, where it can go, where it can’t go, and try to write a song around that. I wrote “Untimacy” for Shiloh’s voice but Ivy nailed it. Then for “3 Bags Full” I was like, “Whatever you want to do” and she killed it. She gave me like five stems of her vocals and I was like, “Whoa!! I didn’t know you were this good! What are your limits? I don’t know.” Then we did the Schoolyard Heroes thing and I was like, “I can’t figure it out. Where do you draw the line?” She’s just amazing. It’s phenomenal to work with Ivy. She’s trying to do more dark pop and she recently released a three-track single. I love the closer on it, it’s very Afrobeats. I love that she blends her voice that way. She does the mixing herself too. She’s very talented.

I was saying to her, “For me, I need you on rock tracks. There is power and ferocity behind your voice that I want to dig deeper into with you.” I love that she was so on board with “Flower Mouth” and the unplugged version. For that, it was just a conversation we were having where I said, “You know, I feel like we could slow this down and just have an acoustic guitar.” She was like, “Let’s do it.” It was one take from that girl and she killed it! I said to her, “I’m glad I went first for that song because ya boy feels a little intimidated singing on the same track!” [laughs] She’s amazing and a phenomenal singer. It’s funny because it’s one of those "what could have been"s like what if Shiloh did do “Untimacy”? Would I have met Ivy? Or would it have been Shiloh on “Flower Mouth”? It’s interesting.

With the electric version and the unplugged version it’s so interesting how the lyrics hit differently. What was it like to explore those two sides of the song?

I have always been a fan of taking any song and switching the genres. There’s a YouTube channel that does jazz covers of System of a Down songs and stuff like that. It’s beautiful and it totally works. This is my before-I-die mission: I wanna do a reggae version of “Master of Puppets”. I’ve looked it up, it’s never been done. I badly want to do that because it would work! The unplugged version is one of those curiosities in my head like, “How would this sound in a different genre? If we were more of an indie band or just doing a duet, could it work?” Ivy and I were talking and she said, “Hey, this could work as a slowed down version.” I was thinking the same thing but I didn’t want to bother her. She was 100% on board and I love that.

It’s me on guitar for that. Recently as a gift for my birthday, my mom bought me an acoustic-electric. It was perfect timing. I left it in my office, where I record music, one night and I forgot about it. Then I spoke to Ivy about the acoustic version and I was like, “Where am I going to get an acoustic-electric? Wait a second!” I recorded it there and I sent it to her the same day. The next day she gave me everything from her. I edited it and sent it to our producer. It was such a “there, done” thing compared to the electric version which had a lot of thought and process. I will say the unplugged version does not have the bridge because I don’t think that would’ve worked. [laughs] Can you imagine? [singing slowly and softly] “I hate everything.” It’s a little too drawn back.

In the electric version there’s a part where you cough. What happened there?

From January to April I had this chronic cough that would not go away. I had two shows in April and one show in February and I was like, “Guys, please if I cough we’ve gotta come up with something funny.” We were making a bunch of jokes about what we should say when I coughed just to take attention away from it but I didn’t cough at any of the shows. Then, when I was recording “Flower Mouth”, I coughed. I was like, “Darn it! Why did I cough? This sucks.” But then I was like, “It would be kinda funny if I cut the song here.” If you listen closely to the instruments, they abruptly cut. That’s not me stopping the guitar or bass, I just faded out the track and I told Mack on drums, “Dude, just play a fill.” It totally worked!

I was like, “Ivy, the cough was not intentional, just roll with it. Just ask if I’m ok or something” and that’s how that was made. I love it because it’s so raw. If I was gonna be super English major I could say, “They’re silencing me right there. I’m coughing because the oppression’s choking me!” [laughs] You can look at it different ways and that’s what I love about doing stuff like that in music.

What was the recording process of this EP like?

This was probably the simplest of all my projects simply because as far as musicians go, it’s only three. In 2025 because we’re doing live shows, I want the songs to sound like how they would live so there’s no piano anymore. On Delranoir there’s a lot of piano and that’s all me. Guitar and bass is me, Mack is on drums, and Hugo Lee did horns on “Zeitchopomp”. The saxophone was me for “Flower Mouth” and “Death Anxiety”. It’s very difficult to get everyone in the studio at the same time because everyone’s schedules are so crazy. What I thought would be like, “Oh no, my band’s gone!” was so much easier. [laughs] With just three people it was like, “We’re done, here”. Mack and I have been playing for about fifteen years with each other. I don’t even have to talk to him sometimes, he’ll just start playing what I want. The recording process for this was unusually smooth. The only issue that happened with this EP was the release date. It was supposed to come out May 10 but there was a delay in the system of my distributor for some reason and it came out May 15. It came out in May, that’s all that matters.

For every song before 2025, I did not use effects pedals on my bass. I would just plug it in raw and edit it if I wanted anything. Usually, I would just add reverb but this time I used pedals. I have a rig that has nine pedals for the bass when I play live but for the recording, I use one with just five. It’s a BOSS Tuner, a BOSS Suppressor, a BOSS OverDrive, a SansAmp, and a compressor. That’s what I record bass with now because it gives me such a wider range. If you listen closely to the bass on “Flower Mouth”, it’s very chunky and I’m like, “I love this! Why have I never used this?” [laughs] “Anarchy in Audacity”’s bass is so flat and that’s fine, but now I’m like, “I wish I used this back then!” That’s one cool thing about the recording, all of the bass has that chunky sound.

The tone on “Death Anxiety” is next level.

On “Death Anxiety” we used a technique I used on “3 Bags Full”. There’s no guitar, there’s just four basses. For the intro to “Death Anxiety,” I’m doing the same thing where it’s four basslines but they’re from different octaves. I love that grit, it’s so nice!

One of the lyrics in that song is “There is no Canadian dream.” What were you thinking about when you wrote that?

“There’s no Canadian dream / It’s hard to dream when you’re wide awake” is the statement. Recently Destroy Boys played at the Opera House and I’d wanted to see them for the longest time. I love that band. Shoutout to Destroy Boys! Alexia, the lead singer, didn’t know about Canadian politics. They were like, “What is happening in Canada right now?” and immediately I shouted, “I can’t buy gas” and everyone was cracking up. The band’s American so obviously they’re going through their own situation right now, but upon asking that question people in the audience were like, “F Trudeau” and all these things. I stream on Twitch and I tell people I’m Canadian. People from different countries think Canada is a gold mine, a perfect country. I’m like, “Guys. A video game is $101.63 if you pay tax. That’s a video game that might suck. Think about that.” That’s Canada right now, that’s where we are.

With the American dream if you work hard, eventually you’ll make it and there’s plenty of songs about that like, “Is it real? Is it fake?” I’ve never been someone who wants to talk about an issue that I can’t relate to or an issue that I’m not necessarily a part of. So I wanted to talk about the Canadian dream but in my head, I was like, “But there is no ‘Canadian dream’. What is the Canadian dream? What would I think of it as?" People kept saying, “Oh, it’s the American dream or a spinoff of the American dream.” A British guy said to me on Twitch once, “There’s no Canadian dream because the Brits didn’t give you one.” [laughs] Shawnita, my manager, is involved with the Indigenous community and Indigenous rights. I asked her about the Canadian dream and she said, “Why don’t you give the people back their land? That’s the Canadian dream!” I was like, “Yeah, that’s very true! I should’ve gone in that direction.”

I thought about that what really is the Canadian dream but you know what it is? We’re awake, that’s what it is. We’re not dreaming. We’re aware of what’s happening and we’re very vocal about it. I kinda wanted to pronounce that. “To dream a dream so peacefully” is kind of making fun of people who just dream and don’t act on it. I wanted to discuss that in a simple way, I didn’t want to be too long-winded about it. I was looking for a punchy way to get that out and “There is no Canadian dream when you’re wide awake” stuck with me.

What helps you deal with the anxiety you talk about in “Death Anxiety”?

I would never consider myself an anxious person or someone who experiences serious anxiety. On Twitch someone said, “I’m currently struggling with death anxiety” and I was like, “Death anxiety? I’ve never heard of that before. That is an awesome song title!” He was like, “It’s a real thing.” So I Googled it live and was like, “Oh my god, it’s fear of death. I’ve definitely had that!” [laughs] It took its life after that. When it came to writing it I was like, “How do we start a song called ‘Death Anxiety’?” It started metal and it switches right after to swing because that’s a genre that I think of where things are anxious and are doing their syncopated thing, where everyone’s doing their own rhythm. That is what that song is.

It was so much fun writing that. It was the first one we wrote for Flower Mouth. It’s a minute and 30 seconds and starts off with, “Don’t wanna live with expectations that I’ll never meet / Don’t wanna die enraged with guilt for all the things I could have been”. The song goes into the things that suck being in the middle of that like, “Should I try if I’m going to fail? But if I never try then life’s just gonna suck.” “People are indifferent to your suffering” is something someone said to me back in university. Their name is Stevie and I told them, “I’m going to use that in a song one day.” It was very existential writing for that song.

Kinda speaking about death for a minute here, “Zeitchopomp” is in the inverse. It’s about bringing someone back and giving them time but from a trickster viewpoint.

Jay: It’s a Monkey’s Paw, be careful what you wish for. I wrote a bass solo in Grade 10 and what you hear in that song is that bass solo. I’ve been trying to fit it into every song for years and I was like, “This is the one!” I very rarely talk about stories or tell stories in my songs, which is funny because way back when I was making gospel music a lot of those were stories. People were like, “Why did you just abandon that?” I was like, “You have a point. Alright, I’ll write a funny story.”

The original title of the song was “Wheel Bite” because it was going to be about skateboarding and then it took on a form of its own. I still wanted to put in the line about wheel bite and that’s the only line from the original in there. For the opening line, “When I improvise, I come alive / I spin my head around until I see the skies”, I was supposed to fill that in with something else but as time went on I was like, “I actually kinda like how this sounds. It’s so boastful.”


You get the mindset of the character right away.

Yeah, playing up that character and selling it. That’s there even the comedic bit, “The doctor says the damage is irreversible / But if you think that’s scary, just wait ’til you see the medical bill!” [laughs] The voice I was going for there was Ghostface meets Beetlejuice. I was gonna be a voice actor before I did music. I’ve always been really good at mimicking someone else’s voice and it was cool to do that in a song. I wanted something very noticeable in the track like, “What’s going on here?” leading into that bassline. I’m so proud of that. The video of me playing it on Instagram was the second take that I didn’t use. I used the first take because I was like, “It’s authentic. That is me in one bassline.” It’s a weird one. A couple friends have asked me to show them how it’s played.

I love me some local punk rock bands. I’m going to shoutout my boys Wintermute real quick and Sixteen Scandals, Chasing the Sunshine, Miss Conduct, Filthy Radicals, Wise Guise, and The Anti-Queens. They’ve been the best people towards me and when that video came out so many people were sharing it. It meant the world to me because that was the bassline I wrote in Grade 10 thinking nothing of it and here it is and people are listening to it and some are trying to play it. It’s beautiful, it means a lot.

You’ll be playing the Horseshoe Tavern on June 30 with Blamethrower and New Anthem. What does this venue mean to you? What are most looking forward to about the show?

Horseshoe Tavern is a really big deal because a lot of famous bands have already played there. I don’t know if you’re into RPGs, but people always tell me my main two stats would be strength and charisma. I agree with that. I know people like me but do they like the music or do they just like the music because they like me? Do they actually think the music is good? I’m always in my head about it so to be the headline for Horseshoe Tavern in a way kinda relieved me of that internal thought.

There are already people lining up telling me they’re going to go there and I barely know these people. That means a lot to me. A lot of it is, “I wanna hear ‘Flower Mouth’ live” and this is going to be the first time we do it live. I’m very happy about it. When I’m live I make a joke like, “You should listen to us recorded, we’re better recorded!” Me and Mack keep saying that I should do a line on a record saying, “You should see us live, we’re better live.” [laughs]

Which part of Flower Mouth are you proudest of?

“Flower Mouth” itself because so much of that song was built over time. Usually, when I sit down I already know what I want because I’ve been humming it through the week. I write what I’m going to play and I bring it to Mack - Mack can play any instrument, he’s amazing. But this one was so organic the way it was made. The EP wasn’t originally going to be called Flower Mouth, it was going to be called Death Anxiety but when “Flower Mouth” was given life I was like, “No, this is the main track.” It also wasn’t supposed to be an EP, it just kinda became one. Originally, it was going to just be “Death Anxiety” and “Flower Mouth” but then I finished up “Zeitchopomp” and the unplugged version of “Flower Mouth” happened.

It feels like I’m coming full circle in a way. We got the calypso back, we’re doing the new punk rock stuff that I do live. It fuses those things so naturally where before, I kinda struggled. I think “Vapid 99” is the pinnacle of me struggling to fuse those genres because it’s literally, “This is the rock part, this is the calypso part. They don’t go together.” I love that song though. At our last show, we finished the show and the announcer was like, “You have time for one more” so we were like, “We’ve barely practiced this song” and we did “Vapid 99” live for the first time ever. It’s a soundcheck song, it’s not a song song. Everyone was telling us to play that at another show so we have it on our next setlist. We actually fixed it up a bit. It’s funny because, to me, that song is such a nothing song. [laughs] That was the early version of me putting calypso and punk together and “Flower Mouth” is the fully realized version of that I feel. It’s coming full circle.

I’m happy that it’s out. Obviously, this is a return to form and bringing everything I’ve learned from making music together. The next EP we’re working on is called GirlFoe. Part of me is kind of worried like, “What if people don’t like that because they want more Flower Mouth songs? This is such a deviation from that. My head’s spinning but I’ll just keep being me.” Last year I made an EP called A.B.Y. which stands for “Always Be Yourself”. It’s a reminder to me. [laughs] Hopefully people like it!

Is there anything that I didn’t ask you that you’d like to add?

Shoutout to my dad and shoutout to my mom too! When I first started with music, my dad would lock me in a basement with a piano and be like, “You’re stuck there for an hour and I better hear something!” I was taking lessons but I hated it, so much so that I tried to break the piano in half. I would jump on it and I was very young, I was eight. I absolutely hated it and he was like, “Don’t worry son, one day this could be your fall-back.” It’s crazy that it’s been the opposite of my fall-back. I hated being part of music and now this is all I do. I have a friend who hated making dresses and now she’s a professional dressmaker and we made a joke about it. Sometimes it’s like in Calvin and Hobbes where they say, “Misery builds character.” [laughs]

I always say to my dad, “I can’t thank you enough!” Now he hires me for stuff. If I didn’t play piano, I wouldn’t know how to play anything musically. I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now. People like to call my dad Jayniac Sr. [laughs]

You need to get him a complimentary helmet.

Purple goes really well with yellow because they’re complimentary colours. He’s a drummer so I’d probably give him drumsticks instead of bass pegs.