Getting a number one record is every musician’s dream and for one young drummer, guitarist and singer from Bridgend his dream came true, when his first single topped the Asian charts last September.
This story is featured in the first programme in a new BBC One Wales documentary series Planet Wales, which starts its run on Tuesday, March 9.
Planet Wales is a series of one-off documentaries that look at life in Wales in all its variety. A later programme will follow a new Welsh choir whose membership is made up of cancer patients and their families, another called Kes Flies Again shows how young unemployed people in Rhyl are being taught to train hawks to keep the town’s seagulls at bay, and there’s also a film following contestants old and new in the Miss Merthyr Tydfil beauty contest.
The story of just how Bridgend-born Jayce Lewis came to top the Indian charts and go on to perform at a massive music festival in the country is told in Planet Wales: Big In India The former fabricator welder has been in the music business for six years and was a drummer with a local band for much of that time. When the band split up in late 2008 and a number of other things went wrong in his life – including the failure of a record company he had set up and the end of a long-term relationship with his girlfriend – he was encouraged by friends to write the Icon track, which went on to top the Indian charts.
“I just wrote this track, pitched it to EMI and they knew what to do with it instantly and kind of threw it at the Asian market,” says Jayce. “It launched my career overnight. It was the biggest shock of my life! I’ve always played guitar and drums and messed around with programming, but writing and singing a song is very new for me as I’ve only really been writing songs for the past eight months.”
Jayce is still amazed by how quickly things have changed for him. “When the single charted in September I was shocked at the response. I went there in October and I just couldn’t believe the amount of success the single had got. It all happened very fast. I’m slowly coming round to the idea that this has happened, but it’s taken a while to take it all in.”
Having played drums with his former band for many years Jayce is starting to get used to the change in his musical fortunes. “I did all the clubs and pubs in the early days,” he says. “Of course these days the crowds are a lot bigger and I don’t go around in vans anymore, I go around in planes instead! Plus I don’t have to carry anything as I’ve got people to do that for me.”
The film follows Jayce as he travels out to India with his band – formed from musician friends for the trip – to play the DNA festival. “It’s the only international music festival in India and it attracts up to 40,000 people,” he says. “I was told to be prepared for the response when I got out there, but even with that in mind, to be confronted by these thousands of screaming fans – I still can’t quite get my head round it. In the film you see me throw something out into the crowd and they rip the thing apart!”
Two very important people feature heavily in Jayce’s life. The first is his father, of whom Jayce says, “we have a very good relationship. We are close friends, like brothers, as well as father and son.”
The second is David Prowse – the man who played arch villain Darth Vader in the classic Star Wars movies, and who features in the film. “David has really been a mentor for me and we are close friends. I met him at a Star Wars convention some years ago. I was walking through Cardiff and was given this flyer about the convention, so I went along, queued up for my Darth Vader autograph and when David asked who to sign it to, I said ‘to the number one drummer, Jayce Lewis’. We got chatting and I found he had a great love of music and we hooked up from there,” explains Jayce.
Since then Prowse has taken Jayce all over the world, introducing him to musical industry players, doing PR for him and even managing him. “We have a very special relationship and he’s somebody I trust completely,” Jayce says.
Tuesday, March 9, BBC One Wales, 10.35pm
