Interview: Bedouin Soundclash’s Jay Malinowski Goes Solo
Jay Malinowski bought his first guitar at a vintage store for $20. He was 13 years old and had to hide it from his parents because he wasn’t allowed to have one.
“I have a way of picking things up and throwing them away immediately,” the lead singer of Bedouin Soundclash told andPOP. “Maybe [my parents] were testing me.”
Still, he knew the guitar was different. He credits his love for the instrument to an old Bob Dylan tape that his mom gave him. And lucky for 28-year-old Malinowski, the guitar suits him well.
Since the release of their first album in 2004, Canada’s own Bedouin Soundclash has been met with success. And now they have one more thing to add to their resume: their own record label, Pirates Blend. The name, Malinowski said, comes from pirate radio and its idea of people “finding their own music by whatever means possible.”
He said their goal is to sign a wide variety of artists, particularly international musicians who wouldn’t otherwise be heard in Canada.
And Malinowski has special reason to be excited about the label, because it’s about to release his first solo album, Bright Lights and Bruises, on Feb. 16.
“It’s just such a new thing for me right now,” Malinowski said of working as a solo artist. “The whole recording process was quite different.”
“I’ve caught myself using the word ‘we’ a lot,” he added with a laugh. “But there’s no one but me.”








