Interview: J.C. Hayes (Doc Aquatic)
J.C. Hayes is hauling bonsai trees from his yard into the safer confines of his Black Mountain home when he answers my call on Sept. 25, the eve of Helene’s arrival.
“They’re not built for hurricanes,” says Hayes, who fronts the local shoegaze/psych-pop band Doc Aquatic.
Hayes began exploring the Japanese art of growing and shaping diminutive shrubs in containers 15 years ago. The practice follows precise tenets of pruning, grafting, and training to cultivate miniature replicas of mature trees.
“When I was younger, I was a very impatient person,” Hayes explains. “I got into bonsai to learn patience.”
Film photography, his other main hobby outside of music, demands a similar discipline to capture a desired aesthetic.
“There’s no instant gratification with analog photography,” Hayes says. “When you see a good photo you took with a film camera a few weeks later, you get more of a feeling of satisfaction than taking a digital photo and seeing it immediately. That gives a photo way more meaning.”
He and his brother, Zack — who plays drums in Doc Aquatic — are self-proclaimed “film nerds” who shoot with fully manual rangefinder cameras.
“Basically, you’re not looking through the lens with the camera you’re taking pictures with,” Hayes says. “You just know what to expect from how you set up the shot with the type of exposure you're making.”
This blend of intentionality and surrender also informs Hayes’ approach to songwriting for Doc Aquatic, which he and Zack formed 15-plus years ago with their childhood friend Charles Gately on bass. The band, which later added guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Boggs, prioritizes quality over quantity when it comes to both their recorded output and live shows.
Asheville Stages originally planned to chat with Hayes in person about the group’s journey and its fourth LP, Blue Hour Yawn, ahead of an Oct. 3 release show at Eulogy, but Helene’s pending arrival shifted the interview to phone. The album still dropped on Oct. 4, but the show was, of course, canceled. Fortunately, Doc Aquatic just announced a Saturday, Nov. 23, makeup date at Static Age Records.
Jay Moye: You, Zack, and Charles grew up in Fayetteville [N.C.]?
J.C. Hayes: We did. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with music and knew I wanted to play guitar, so I was like, “Zack, you’ve gotta be a drummer!” And, luckily for me, he's a great drummer. It’s been a blessing to play music with him my entire life.
Zack and Charles were in a band together in high school called Baa Baa Black Sheep. I went to college a little ahead of them, at Appalachian State [University]. They caught up with me up there and we started Doc Aquatic. I was always writing songs, but had never really played in a band until they got up there.
We definitely were not the stereotypical Boone band. Up there, you were either a jam band or bluegrassy/folk/Americana thing. There weren't a lot of rock bands with my influences. I remember the newspaper describing our music as “angular indie rock,” which I think was a nice way of saying we didn’t know how to play smooth.
JM: Did things take off pretty quickly for you guys?
JH: Yeah, we got lucky in that we played all over Boone. In fact, we won the App State battle of the bands. That was nice groundwork for us. Boone had a pretty unique music scene back then with some great bands, including The Naked Gods and Do It to Julia, which is now River Whyless. Most ended up leaving and heading to Asheville or elsewhere.
JM: That’s what you guys did.
JH: Yeah, we came here around 2009 and set up shop in Montford back when it was cheap. We got a house close to downtown and immediately started playing shows around town — basically continuing what we were doing in Boone but in better venues.
We played as a three-piece for years and released a record, Tombs, in 2013. We implemented a lot of tricks as a three-piece to avoid sounding thin. We had synthesizers doing our arpeggiations and creating a wall of sound Zack and Charles would trigger with Moog foot pedals — like what Geddy Lee did to make Rush sound big as a three-piece. Not that we're trying to sound like Rush, because we're not, but that was one of his secrets.
JM: You eventually brought in Kevin [Boggs]. Had you outgrown the “power trio” format?
JH: I wanted the extra freedom to stretch out guitar ideas and not have to play every part. Kevin’s a great musician who can play anything, and an awesome guy. We're lucky with Doc Aquatic in that we're all really good friends. Having Kevin’s ear as a producer has been a great thing. We bounce ideas off him and trust his judgment.
JM: The last two Doc Aquatic shows were a year apart, at AVL Fest 2023 and 2024. Has it been a strategic decision to not play out as much?
JH: No, everybody just has life stuff going on. My brother had a son and now has a daughter on the way. We played a million shows until [the COVID-19 pandemic], when we got stuck in that mode where we weren't playing. It gave us time to focus on the record. We were on the go, playing shows and festivals for over 10 years at that point, so it was nice to take a moment and reflect. But we’ll be out playing more shows that haven't been announced just yet.
JM: How do Doc Aquatic songs come together?
JH: Most of the songwriting, at its core, starts with me. But we’re a very collaborative band. We've written every way you could imagine, and that's what makes it fun. Sometimes, I'll bring ideas for the band to expand on. Charles is really great with instrumental ideas and melodies, so there’s definitely a lot of collaboration with him. Other times, I’ll have a song that's pretty much start-to-finish done. We’ve written songs that take hardly any time, and others we pick apart and put back together again.
JM: Fast-forward to the new record, Blue Hour Yawn. Walk me through the process of how you wrote and recorded these songs.
JH: We're always super active with recording, and I'm always writing. So we try to have as much material available as possible. We recorded a bunch of songs, and certain ones had a lighter vibe and other ones had a darker vibe. So we split them into two records. We had a batch of brighter, ’60s, sunny-day-type songs that we decided to hold on to.
Blue Hour Yawn is the darker end of the spectrum, with themes like loss and transitioning between relationships — endings and beginnings. That's where the title comes from. The blue hour is right before the dark. I had a vision for this record, from the songs down to the cover image I took.
JM: You tracked everything at your studio space in Marshall?
JH: Yep. We've been piecing together gear for a long time, and have always been big fans of home recording. Charles and I engineered everything for this record. Nearly every Monday over the course of two years, we’d get together to record. Kevin would come over and help with ideas and play guitar and different things. But this one was mainly a me-and-Charles kind of mission to do everything ourselves.
JM: Does that dichotomy reflect your influences? And is it a church-and-state divide, where the two never commingle?
JH: Generally, we don’t set out to make records that only sound like one type of song. I like drawing from all my influences and meshing them together. We can go from sounding like ’90s grunge to Laurel Canyon, and I’m OK with it. I’m always trying to create music that feels fresh while staying true to myself. I’d never hear Pink Floyd and say, “I should write a song like that.” I just try to keep growing as a songwriter, get better at the craft, and make sure our recordings sound really good.
JM: Are you envisioning albums when you're writing, or are you focused on individual songs, then figuring out how to stitch them together?
JH: I write songs without any preconceived idea of where they should go. I've written so many songs that will never exist beyond my couch. Since I was a kid, I've just had to be writing songs. It's always been part of my life. I forget sometimes that not everyone thinks about songwriting, plays an instrument, or has lyrics pop in their head.
JM: How does your photography influence your music, and vice versa?
JH: I've always been an artsy person. I like to paint. I like to build things with my hands. Zack and I get stoked on photography and experimenting with different types of film, which all have their unique qualities and vibe. We grew up skateboarding — Charles, too. So we have this skateboarding mindset which, as kids, involved going around and looking for spots to skateboard, trespassing here and there, and ending up in areas we maybe shouldn’t have been hanging out in. I had a big leg injury in 2016 that ended my ability to skateboard, but photography has filled that void. I love going out and finding little weird towns and corners of America to photograph.
JM: Do you treasure, or reflect on, your photos and songs in similar ways?
JH: I love the process of creating, whether it’s making music or taking photos. I don't go back and listen to my music unless I have to remember how to play something. When I listen to something we made 10 years ago, I can get back to the feeling of who I was at the time.
Photography is like that, too. My photos are snapshots of moments — a time and place in my life. They bring about feelings, much like a record does, if I revisit them. As I build my portfolio, I try to keep pushing forward and am constantly thinking about new ideas and what's next. So there's a big parallel between my music and my photography — and any art form, for that matter.
IF YOU GO
Who: Doc Aquatic with Real Companion
When: Saturday, Nov. 23, 9 p.m.
Where: Static Age Records, 110 N. Lexington Ave., staticagenc.com
Tickets: TBD
(Photos by Zack Hayes)
