Jairus, based in Kent UK, is made up of five individuals (aged 21-24) with a passion for sincere and intelligent music. Our music is our way of expressing how we feel about our lives, our friends, our everyday experiences and the general state of the world as we see it. During our few years together we have toured in over 25 countries, sharing the stage with some incredible bands along the way, such as: Hopesfall, Shai Hulud, The Haunted, Pelican, Girls Against Boys, Last Days Of April, Heaven Shall Burn, Walls Of Jericho, 27, Deluge, Stampin' Ground and many more. We have gained a huge and very loyal fanbase in the underground music scene and are now trying to push our music further afield.

Our album 'The need to change the mapmaker' was released through Skipworth Records (UK) on 22nd March 2004 and Alliance Trax (JAPAN) in December 2004. Following on from the album we released a self-titled EP on 21st November 2005 through BSM (UK) and we are currently rehearsing and writing new material, which has taken on a more indie/experimental form.

The year is now 2006 and Jairus have spent the whole of last winter giving our band a complete overhaul, which also included a line-up change, so this seems like the appropriate time to introduce our new bassist Mike Ager (guitarist with Moesaboa / Rise Of Rafia). We truly believe that our band is now the best it's ever been and are currently writing for our second album to showcase this - to be released on BSM soon. There are many plans for tours over the summer, so keep your eyes and ears open as we'll certainly be playing near you.

People have often asked similar questions about Jairus, so we hope this answers them:

*Jairus is a name from the bible, none of us are religious besides Adam who is a Buddhist, we chose this name for many reasons which are personal to us, none of these reasons are to do with religion though.

*No members of Jairus listen to much heavy music at all, besides a couple of bands. We just get together and play what we feel, if our music is loud it 's not because we're metal kids, it's because that's what we felt at the time.

*We are five very individual people with very different views on certain subjects, which is why we find it difficult to answer certain politically orientated questions that are aimed at the band as a whole.

JAIRUS: YEAR BY YEAR

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2001:

Adam Bray, Dan Lucas and Ricky Laing formed a band with two friends called Twotownsaway - after a couple of months rehearsing Twotownsaway disbanded before ever having played a show, leaving Adam, Dan and Ricky in search of other musicians to start the band we 'wish existed'...

Later on that year local noisecore band Dead Life Portrait split up and Dan quickly recruited drummer and old friend Symon Minter to come along for a rehearsal - the first incarnation of Jairus was born and spent a month rehearsing and writing as a 4 piece. The decision was then made that the band needed another guitarist, so James Gillett was approached, having been in a band with Dan before, and Jairus was born!

The band spent the latter part of 2001 rehearsing on a farm in Capel-Le-Ferne, Kent - We wrote four songs and demo'd them on a nasty little borrowed four-track recorder, aiming to be playing shows within 6 months of forming the band.

2002:

In January of 2002 the band recorded our first demo with our good friend Ben Phillips at the then untitled City Of Dis studios in Kent. This demo featured the songs Quench and From The Drain Of A.I.S - By April of that year we were ready to play shows and played to a sold-out crowd in our hometown of Folkestone (the venue was tiny, but those shows are always the best!)...We continued to play shows throughout 2002, and spent a weekend in Henley-On-Thames during the summer to record a two track demo (called 'The Dreyfus Bench') of new songs Street Lights Point The Way and The Diaries Of Nancy Thompson, which turned out sounding a lot worse than we'd hope they would! In November 2002 we recorded our third demo back at City Of Dis, this featured the songs And Caligula Blushed, Spindley and a re-recorded version of The Diaries Of Nancy Thompson, this was by far the best demo we'd done to date. On 30th December 2002 Jairus played our first London show at The Hope & Anchor in Islington, and consequently signed to Skipworth Records to write an album...the fun begins:

2003:

The first half of the year was spent writing The need to change the mapmaker at our new rehearsal studio in Saltwood, Kent. That studio was really small and bright and was kind of an awful atmosphere for writing, but nevertheless we were totally excited by the fact that we were signed and writing for an album! We played some of our favourite shows that summer with Hopesfall, and a couple of great shows upstairs @ The Garage in London with Secondsmile, not to mention the Goodlife Festival in Belgium with Shai Hulud. This was in fact the first show of a 3 week European tour, but due to health problems the tour was cut short after GL Fest and we retuned back to England. In August 2003 we entered City Of Dis Studios to begin tracking the drums for The need to change the mapmaker, the recording of that album was a long and drawn out affair, and also a real learning curve for us. In December 2003 we had our first tour abroad and took our great friends Secondsmile along with us to France and Spain for two weeks - we survived and had an awesome time and met some great people.

2004:

The year of many foreign tours! We entered 2004 with the release of The need to change the mapmaker which received amazing reviews, much to our surprise as some of the songs were extremely rushed on this record. In February we took our first trip to Latvia for a weeks worth of shows, came home, then went back out on tour to Finland in March of that year for another week. Very cold, but great fun! Jairus continued to write between these tours and subsequently wrote Sabina In The Deceiving Breeze in those rehearsal sessions of early '04. In July we travelled to Latvia again for an extreme sports festival in which we were the headlining band, it was an amazing show (about 2000 people there), although extremely hot onstage. We spent that summer playing more UK shows and also incorporated a 3 week European Tour with our friends Courtesy Blush, who flew all the way from Canada to tour with us. There were many problems with our van breaking down and shows being cancelled but we still had the most amazing time, and finished the tour off with a set at St Feliu Festival in Spain alongside Girls Against Boys, Last Days Of April, Pelican and Stampin' Ground.

Upon returning to the UK we recorded Sabina In The Deceiving Breeze with Jamie Floate (Cubic Space Division) at the very same farm we originally rehearsed at, this version of the song was used on a split CD with The Stiff, which was released on Alliance Trax in Asia, December 2004.

December 2004 saw Jairus take our longest trip yet with a 14 hour flight to Japan for a two week tour with The Stiff. This was the most incredible tour we've done and we were treated with such respect out there, still big thanks goes out to Daiki Takeda and The Stiff (now Versus The Night) for that one, we will NEVER forget you guys!

2005:

This was an eventful year for Jairus. We kicked the year off to a great start with a weeks worth of shows back out in Eastern Europe (our home from home!) but upon returning from the tour we decided to part ways with Skipworth Records, it was a hard decision as we'd become very close to Skippy but thought it best for the future of the band. We joined BSM in March 2005 and subsequently began writing for an EP, taking a weekend out to play some shows in southern France in April of that year. Upon returning, we began recording in May at Hidden Track Studio in Kent, followed by a week long UK tour with Secondsmile, great times had by all. Summer of 2005 was kind of a quiet one before we got all geared up to tour again with a 2 week stint of Eastern Europe, this time stepping further afield than the previous tours. We took our buddies Secondsmile with us, and our new found friends in Meet Me In St Louis - this was a great tour but one of the hardest we've encountered so far, and it was also ended with news that our bassist Ricky would be going travelling for an unspecified amount of time upon our return. Still, Jairus managed to find a stand-in bassist in our good friend Oz Craggs (producer of our EP and former bassist with Cubic Space Division). On Halloween of last year James's family moved house and we had our new studio built there, simply called 'The Manor'. We spent a long time planning out how the room was going to look as we knew we'd be spending a lot of time in there and had learned previous lessons from the last studio, the decision was also made that we'd like to produce our own records so Dan took out a loan and bought all of the recording gear. Things continue to move forward as this is written...

- June 2006 -

Thanks for Reading, Jairus Xx

'The need to change the mapmakeR' REVIEWS

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Kent born and bred, Jairus have spent the last two years on the toilet circuit playing anywhere and everywhere (including a trek around Estonia); the mission to hone and refine their craft until boiling point. Well, the metaphorical egg timers must surely be a' ringing now, cos Jairus' debut full length ‘The need to change the mapmaker' is one of the most individual and developed offerings from a UK based hardcore act you're ever likely to hear. Though clearly influenced by such contemporary stateside acts as Poison The Well and the sublime Hopesfall, the Kent quintet have evolved beyond their inspirations, incorporating huge washes of atmospheric electronica and jagged discordance into their stylings; the effect an engulfing soundscape of emotion and texture that positively belies their youth. Blessed with a production that eases up on full belt distortion and allows all subtleties to the forefront, ‘The need to change the mapmaker' is at times gloriously awkward, challenging the listener to take notice and get involved every inch of the way. Though still very much connected to their hardcore roots Jairus are thrillingly unafraid of diversity, and it's for this reason that this mighty strong debut album will appeal to fans of Mogwai and Cursive as much as it will to fans of JR Ewing or Botch. This is the sound of serious contenders, let it thrill you. 8.5/10.

Credits Leander Gloversmith Terrorizer Magazine UK April 2004

Ever since we received their very first two-track demo two years ago (and it's still way better than pretty much everything else out there), Fury has been touting Jairus as the saviour of heavy emotional music. Their debut album, “The need to change the mapmaker”, surpasses our ridiculously high expectations with awe-inspiring ease and jagged style.
The album begins with a restrained burst of pent-up rage, lowering you in slowly, then grabs you by the throat – opener ‘Lucco Sleeps On Screen' kicks in with groove-laden angular post-hardcore glory. Songs like this, ‘Sidewalk Dances' and ‘Wilomina…' really show Jairus coming into their own, showing an amazing degree of maturity and originality for a debut album. The aforementioned ‘Sidewalk Dances' even contains a superb contribution from Olly Goodland (ex-Secondsmile) and his ferocious vocal chords.

'And Caligula Blushed', ‘Spindley' and ‘Street Lights Point The Way' feature from previous efforts in re-recorded splendour and the other tracks all take Jairus' formula - think Hopesfall, Botch and Thursday – to the very limits, throwing in well placed influences, such as Mogwai, The Mars Volta and Refused, only usually seen in completely different genres. The band have really stretched themselves to create the most passionate, raw and innovative album they possibly could – the result is the most significant album to hit the post-hardcore scene in years. Hopefully ‘The need to change the mapmaker' will rise through the flooded market of soulless crap and make the imprint it truly deserves to make.
In conclusion – it's even better than we'd hoped.
http://www.jairusonline.co.uk/?page=press#biography