Review Fix Exclusive: The Jailbirds’ Myke Penney Talks New EP and More

Review Fix chats with Myke Penney of The Jailbirds, who discusses the band’s origin and goals for the future.

Review Fix: How did the project start?

Myke Penney: It started as a high school band back in about 2010. The goal for me has always been to play music for a living, and throughout the years I’ve seen members come and go. Now that we have a strong team, it’s getting to the spot where we want it to be and that’s very exciting!

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

Penney: It varies. Sometimes we write a spontaneous riff/song on the spot, other times I’ll write something at home and bring it in (and the other guys do so as well), mainly we try to get everyone’s input and write a song that we all would listen to in our free time. Lyrics are mainly written by me, at home, I prefer to write lyrics on my own. Once I get it to about 80% I start showing people for their input, always trying to make our songs as good as they can be!

Review Fix: What’s your standout song? How was it written?

Penney: For me personally our standout song is The Black River. I think it pretty well sums up our sound… with exception to a guitar solo lol! It’s heavy, groovy, classic rock and modern rock vibed, exactly what we’re going for. That song was written in a blink of an eye. I remember having the music together on a demo but no lyrics/melodies at that time (2015 or so), and when I was playing a video game, I came across a level called “The Black River”. I thought to myself, wow that’d make a cool song title! And then the lyrics to our song TBR just started flowing. I wrote them all out all at once, didn’t need to think about it at all really, they just came off the pen. And that’s how the song ended up the way it is now!

Review Fix: What are your goals for 2020?

Penney: We’ve released our 2 singles for this year, it was supposed to be a full EP this year, but unfortunately COVID really ruined those plans. For the rest of this year, we are going to prep our next releases and work on some other content for the future (music videos, more songs, doing live streams on Twitch now as well).

Review Fix: How do you want your music to affect people?

Penney: I want our music to give people that surge of adrenalin when they crank it up, I also want the lyrics to be heard and come across to the listener on the first listen. That’s something I really try to focus on, having the lyrics really tell a story. A lot of our music is about mental health struggles and so I also hope that maybe one of our songs can help someone find clarity or through a rough time, just as music has been there for me in times of trouble.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Penney: We have our 2nd EP coming in 2021! Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitch for more content, we are always posting and working on more stuff for your ears and eyes!! Stream our latest singles Watery Grave and Dull My Brain on your favourite platform now! www.thejailbirds.com

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13801 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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