Your acts name: Stonegrass

Tell us about one of your songs: It's called "SIGN UP TO EVERYTHING".

You can read what you will about what it's about with the lyrics, provided below...

"Your shelter’s gone through misspent youth
Play a hand, not thought it through
And when you sign up to everything, mixed up bag of beliefs
And when you stick to nothing, have no time to grieve

Pasted, Faded, End this, Loaded

I write this song for misspent youth
Paid a price to bend the truth
And when you’re fired up for everything, tempt the mind with disease
And when you burn out to nothing, fail to see you’re free

Pasted, Faded, End this, Loaded

Collating the colours in my head
Call up the light, and let it spread

Pasted, Faded, End this, Loaded

Collating the colours in my head
Call up the light, and let it spread"

Lyrics Copyright Jamie Tayler.

What equipment do you use?: Guitar wise? Main guitar is a Les Paul, with a Seymour Duncan fitted on the bridge pickup for a slightly harder edge. Occasionally will use a Tele to back it up when recording.

I also have a Washburn Mercury, quite rare as far as I can make out, I've never seen another. It's a vaguely Stratocastery shape, with a wider neck, lovely clean tone and equally meaty distorted one too. Currently exclusively tuned to GGDGBD for live work.

For open E bottlenecked tuning stuff we play live, I carry an Ibanez Gio. It's just a cheap little thing, but actually real nice to play, and doesn't have a bad sound at all.

All this going straight into a Marshall Twin with only a Crybaby and volume pedal in between, bit of a purist me.

Would you ever smash your guitar onstage? Please explain why: Haha! Yeah, sometimes I feel like it. Why? Sometimes I get carried away. I've damaged guitars before, but always stopped short of smashing them, mainly cos I know I can't afford another one! You get offered the opportunity to use one of your songs in a commercial. Would you do it and why? Depends on how it was used. Bit of a thorny subject, really. For example, when Reef where starting off they were "the band from that advert" when 'Naked' was used by Sony to advertise minidiscs. They've since gone on to forge a succesful career with a loyal fanbase & and 4 albums under their belts. I dont think they'd deny that the advert helped kickstart them, but it did it in a way that didn't damage them.

I'd be happy to do something like that, but wouldn't want to "sell out" and become only known for "That song off that advert."

It's also got to be suitable. I wouldn't want one of our tunes to advertise something unrelated. To use the Reef example again, they were a band advertising a new recording medium - it falls into certain parameters that are acceptable - it's still music related, and it helped further their career.

If the band was already established, I doubt I'd be so keen, to be honest - unless I needed the money. Just remember what Bill Hicks said about adverts & the artistic roll call.

What's your next musical move? Play hard, play lots, get better venues, get bigger profile. Record more, have fun, write more. Just keep at it, basically.