Christian Hayes - Musical Style and Techniques

Musical Style and Techniques

Hayes is best characterised as an English psychedelic musician, although one who emerged from the post-punk scene of the early 1980s. He began his career with various South London-based underground bands (including a stint in the last lineup of Ring). For a while he also played bass for the eccentric lounge-punk act The Dave Howard Singers, who were at the time known for the novelty single "Yon Yonson".

Hayes was brought into Cardiacs in 1989 to replace saxophonist Sarah Smith - he played second guitar in the band during a period in which it was evolving into a harder-rocking guitar-orientated style. During this time he displayed a performance style incorporating a strong use of distortion and echo but combined with passages of quieter detail. This was expanded for his work in Levitation (1992–1994) and with the Julianne Regan-fronted Mice (1995-approximately 1997), and reached full fruition in the power trio Dark Star. In the latter band, Hayes created a layered and detailed but hard-rocking sound using a wide variety of effects pedals and devices (with apparent influences including Jimi Hendrix and Keith Levene). Although he played numerous lead lines, these were always part of an integrated band sound and featured few standard rock-style solos.

Hayes was picked to replicate Johnny Marr's original guitar parts from the Pet Shop Boys album Release when the band toured. His current project Mikrokosmos (for which he plays the majority of the instruments) has clear stylistic references to previous generations of psychedelic musicians such as Syd Barrett and Hawkwind. His approach to guitar playing for Mikrokosmos is considerably simpler than his previous work with Dark Star.