Jamiroquai's Jay Kay says he wants time off

Jay Kay

(CNN) -- Jay Kay of Jamiroquai would like a vacation. Nothing fancy. Just a break, to "sit at home, feet on the dog."

Seeing a stagnant music industry, the frontman says he wants to shake things up for himself and Jamiroquai. The band's last album, "Funk Odyssey" was released last September, but Kay is already looking into the future. Away from the computer and back to the brass, he says.

The Music Room caught up with him at the Montreaux Jazz Festival, a celebration of what is virtually roots music in the industry's digital age. Kay says jazz has much to teach today's scene: "being able to do things on the spot, being able to play your instrument, being able to be imaginative with it."

"Real musicians," says Kay. No computers for them.

TMR: How has jazz influenced your music?

Kay: My mom was a jazz singer and I've always had a feel for good, big brass and nice, big stuff and tight, punchy lines. But purist jazz hasn't really influenced it. I think that era of jazz fusion artists was more my bag. Mixing the jazz and the Latin and the funk, rolling that into one. That's more where I'm coming from.

TMR: What are the most encouraging and discouraging trends in the music industry?

Kay: I feel the industry has got to have a shake-up. I feel that the whole thing has become about picking people off the television and marketing them, and about making big money. There's no artist development. (You make) one album and if that doesn't work you're finished. There doesn't seem to be many real bands. It just seems to be very manufactured, churned out of it, but they're not looking after the artist long term. It's like a conveyer belt for artists and I think that's really sad.

Someone comes up with the boy band concept and then there are about 50 of them. I find it very difficult in America. It's either one thing or the other and that's it. I sometimes wonder where we fit into all this.

TMR: Who would you most like to collaborate with?

Kay: It's a difficult question. I don't really think too much about collaborations. What I do need to think about at the moment is the direction of the band. We have used computers on this album, and now I think I really do want to get back to the old punch; get back to the brass.

What I do need to do is take time off. I need a year off just to re-focus -- I can't stop sweating -- and re-assess the direction of the band and where it's going. [I need to] give myself a break from it.

I'm also finding that being on the road all the time has a seriously damaging effect on the ordinary things that go on in life -- stupid mundane and ordinary things like painting your room. Living out of a bag is very difficult. Living out of those big cases over there is very hard and after a while it can drive you mad. There's a part of me that's quite simply ordinary, sit at home, feet on the dog.

TMR: Will it be an open-end break?

Kay: You know what I want to do? What I want to do is take all the guys away, go hire a nice place, a lovely place and we'll spend a month together and just write and that's it. They can't run away from me, you see. I can lock them in the room. We can go out, purely on an informal thing. "Lets go out. Whatever you want. Get drunk, come back, bang there's a song!" As opposed to ganging you all together and giving the record company a day where I'm going for a July release on this. And then hurry, hurry, hurry and the pressure is on.

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