“These guys are going right to the top!” were the words delivered by Planet Rock’s Paul Anthony at the 2025 Stonedead Festival’s Friday Night Party as he introduced Midlands-based band Jayler to the stage. With their 70’s infused style, their breathtaking performances have rightfully drawn comparisons to the magic brought by bands such as Led Zeppelin, and it’s therefore no surprise that even after having released only one EP to date, 2023’s A Piece In Our Time, that they are perhaps the most talked about band in the UK. Following their captivating show and with the Saturday festival now well underway, we catch up with James Bartholomew (vocals, guitar), Tyler Arrowsmith (guitar), Ricky Hodgkiss (bass, keys) and Ed Evans (drums). It’s a scorching day with a Spitfire aerial display creating a very entertaining backdrop for our interview. We make our self comfortable on some shaded rocks and our conversation begins…

I’d like to start at the beginning and reflect on how you’re a band from the Midlands in the UK and of course, the Midlands is highly regarded as being the birthplace of rock and metal. Bands such as Judas Priest, Zeppelin and Black Sabbath all emerged from this fantastic place in the UK. In my opinion, there are flavours of all these bands in your music: the rawness, that groove and outstanding performance and musicianship. How has growing up in the Midlands influenced and shaped Jayler’s sound?

James - You’ve kind of just said it with Black Sabbath, Zeppelin and Judas Priest. That’s kind of the whole thing and there’s nothing else that really influenced us from the West Midlands. Where I’m from in Tamworth, it’s heavily rooted with Anglo-Saxons. So I’ve written some songs about Anglo-Saxons and Vikings and stuff. I’ve done my history about Tamworth.

Ed – Tamworth’s old name was Mercia back when the Norse Vikings were there.

Well, we are here at the Stonedead Festival and your set last night at the Friday Night Party was absolutely outstanding. How does it feel to not only be at the Stonedead Festival but to be the band that opened the entire event, setting the bar for others to follow?

James - It’s scary but exciting!

Ed – Yeah it was cool!

Tyler – When we walked on stage after Paul Anthony introduced us, and our intro tape was playing, and we saw all these people there, knowing that we’re the first band that people are going to hear we felt like we had quite a responsibility. We did the first song and when it finished the crowds applause came up and we were just like “Yes! We did it! We did it right! They like us!” So it was really exciting when that happened.

In November, you signed a management deal with Alan Parsons management, a hugely respected management company whose roster represents the very best in the business. How did this partnership come about and how is this changing the band’s trajectory?

Tyler - Well, I actually don’t know if I can speak too much about that but what I can say is that Adam actually wanted to come and meet us. We were in our own a little studio area and Myke Gray contacted us. He basically said “There is a guy in America and I really think that you should meet him”, and we were like “That sounds good!”. But Myke explained that this guy hasn’t got a lot of time, that he was a very busy man, that he would see what he could do but that he couldn’t promise anything. Anyway, a few days later we had Adam Parsons on the phone to us and he said “Well, I want to come over and see you guys”. So he flew over and came over to our rehearsal space and we had a very, very long chat. He watched us play some songs and he just wanted to get down to business. He was like “Let’s get cracking!”. Then we met Lisa Perry who became our manager, and they are both phenomenal! They’re really, really pushing us and they’re finding the very best for us, which is great! We like to be pushed!

James – And the best part about it was when he name-dropped. A lot of people can name-drop quite a lot and we’d be like ‘Oh yeah’ or whatever, but when he name-drops we thought that was really pretty cool because he’d got the stories to g with the name drops as well. So we’re all quite impressed with Adam and the rest is history.

I think it says a lot when a person of Adams professional stature is flying over from America to see you. Did that make you feel any pressure as a band?

Ed – Just a little bit! (Laughs!)

James - And the fact that he was 10 minutes late, that was the longest 10 minutes of my life! I was just ready to meet him.

What is very clear is that you already have the strongest of relationships with Adam and Lisa.

Tyler – Well we are all about the vibe and Lisa is all about the vibe and it just all works well together. If it feels right, we’ll do it.

To date, the band have released your incredible A Piece In Our Time EP in 2023, which with its 6 tracks is more of a mini album that an EP, but you’ve also continued to release new music in the form of 2024’s Lovemaker and of course the latest single released in June this year, Riverboat Queen. Let’s just talk about the latest single. It just takes me back to a golden age of rock music where it’s about great riffs, raw energy, great vocals and a 70s vibe, and the comments have been wonderful to see: ‘absolutely amazing’, ‘kiss ass rock n roll’, ‘another banger’, ‘this freakin’ rocks’, ‘pure wizardry’ and even ‘these four young men are the saviours of rock n roll’ – and the list goes on! How does it make you feel when you hear such incredible feedback from the fans?

James - Yeah, it’s amazing! Feedback from our fans, which is mostly the older generation who grew up on that genre of music as it was evolving, and to be compared with some of the greats from that decade and genre, it’s incredible to have that.

I’ve just mentioned that feedback where a fan said ‘these for young men at the saviours of rock ‘n’ roll’. And then let’s fast forward to last night when we had Paul Anthony, when introducing The Band to the stage, he said lots of nice things including ‘these guys are going right to the top’. How do you make a feel when people like this or sharing the faith that they have in you as a band and the level of success you can expect?

Tyler – When you hear it, especially from someone like Paul Anthony who when in the morning I wake up and I put it on his breakfast show on Planet Rock, when someone like him and other people like him are saying things like that, it does take a lot to actually take that in. But we’re just kind of going along with it and just seeing what happens really. Obviously we’ve got plans but to actually hear people saying you’re going to make it to the top, it’s like ‘I suppose we’ll find out‘.

Ricky – Only time will tell.

Tyler - That’s what we’re going with. But the trajectory that we’re going in, sometimes we have to kind of look back and remember where we’ve come from. It’s like a bit of a reality check. But we are super proud of what’s going on!

That’s really interesting because I wonder how much of an opportunity you actually do have to look in the rearview mirror because when I reflect on your last 12 months, they have been massive. As well as playing Stonedead you’ve appeared at festivals such as Call Of The Wild, Glastonbury, the RIP stage at Download and Steelhouse, you’ve also supported Europe, and of course performed many of your own headline shows. And as we’ve just talked about, you’ve also released some incredible singles which is building up a massive amount of anticipation for more new music. How would you summarise this last year and what are your expectations for the next 12 months?

James – That the last 12 months have been quick, but not quick enough to kill us! (Laughs!) We’re not swept off our feet just yet, we are at a nice jogging pace.

Ed – It’s a buildup at the moment – we are building up!

James – It’s a semi jog up a mountain.

Ed - We are riding along with it, we’re riding the wave and seeing where it may take us.

James - We’re always thinking about if we’re doing enough but if we do too much I think we may lose what we’re trying to do here. So we’re doing it at our own pace but still enough to fulfil everyone’s aspirations.

Tyler - Hopefully people like us and obviously we’re just doing what we feel is right at the moment. We don’t want to change what we doing if people already like what we’re doing. So if it works, and people like it, we’re just going to carry on doing what we’re doing. We’re really enjoying what we’re doing. As I say, people seem to be digging it!

Paul Anthony also teased that a debut album is in the works. What can you tell us?

James – We’re going to be in the studio in three weeks for two weeks of recording and our debut album should be released early next year. We’ve also had some big record company interest…

Tyler - Yeah, we’ve had some interest which is very exciting! We can’t say more than that but the plan is to get out early next year which is very, very exciting! And of course we want to do a vinyl release. We want to do CDs again but it’s mainly the vinyl that we want to focus on because we get asked about this loads. Our vibe is like that all 70s rock When there was an album release there was an LP. That’s what we want to go for!