It is 7.30 in the morning, and Jack Kaye has already listened to 'Baby Beluga' several times and fed his daughter scrambled eggs. This is, on the available evidence, a fairly standard start to the day for the former frontman of The Magic Gang, a man who once soundtracked a thousand indie discos, now performing Raffi's greatest hits to an audience of one over breakfast. She is, by some distance, the most important listener he has. Now the rest of us get a turn. 'Go Easy', his debut solo EP, is his first new music of any kind in six years.
The Magic Gang, for anyone who needs a 2010s indie refresher, were one of the most-loved British indie bands of their generation. Four friends who started in a bedroom in 2013, they racked up two Top 20 albums, festival bills all over the world and, when they finally decided to formally call time in 2024, a farewell that ended at a sold-out Camden Roundhouse. They went out loved, missed and entirely unreplaced. But in terms of recorded material from Jack, nothing. For six years, since The Magic Gang's second album, the man who wrote some of the warmest choruses in British indie released not a single second of music.
He is disarmingly honest about where those years went. "At times the notion of putting music out felt completely alien," he says. "It still does in a way. I don't know how the years rolled by; it just took me a long time to decide who to work with and how everything should sound. I kind of went round in one big circle. I sometimes get frustrated when I think about how long it's taken me, but that's the journey I had to go on."
Ask whether the block was about confidence, pressure or working out what kind of artist he wanted to be, and he doesn't pick. "All of the above," he admits. "I overthought every single thing, obsessed over every element, and put too much pressure on what my first move was going to be. Then I remembered I'm a tiny speck in the universe of people making guitar music. The only thing that matters is that I like what I'm doing."
That's the whole record's philosophy in two sentences, and it took him the better part of a decade to reach it. The harder loss, though, wasn't creative at all. "Not seeing your closest pals regularly anymore is sad," he says of life after the band. "I miss the camaraderie and the shorthand of knowing someone so well and being so in tune with them; not just creatively but in every way. They're the funniest people I know."
Which makes it all the sweeter that two of them are on the EP. Gus Taylor and Paeris Giles both play on 'Go Easy', alongside new collaborators Asya Fairchild, whose vocals wind through the songs as a counterpoint to Jack's, and former Abattoir Blues guitarist George Boorman. Solo, it turns out, is a fuzzily focused word, and he's thought carefully about what it actually means. "It's really about decision-making. I've had the freedom to work with whoever, whenever, and there's been no pressure to stick with anyone, which is exciting, but I've also lost my safety net. I can ask for feedback or creative input, but people aren't necessarily going to be that forthcoming; mainly because they respect that it's my project." He's never worked this way before, he points out. "I've always started songs alone, but this is the first time I've not had a group of people to bounce ideas off. I've never been the one to have the final say on things either. So it's definitely a first."
In the middle of all that circling, the biggest change of his life arrived and made most of the others feel infinitesimally smaller. Fatherhood, he says, gave him music back. "It's helped me find music fun again. Sometimes, the only moment in a day I have to pick up a guitar is when I'm doing it to entertain my baby by playing her a Beatles song. When you write songs, and you have a kid, you do kind of selfishly think: 'I wonder if this will somehow benefit my art?' The reality is it wipes out loads of your free time, but she's also been a source of lyrical inspiration. Basically, I'm still writing love songs but in a different way."
"I remembered I'm a tiny speck in the universe of people making guitar music"
Fun keeps coming up, and deliberately so. The video for debut single 'Dora' was shot at a boxing gym Jack went to as a kid, directed by a friend he's known since he was 11. The accompanying notes have him recalling how they "bought a bubble machine, got our mate's Dad to play the trainer and had at it. It was the most fun I've had in ages and a relief after taking things so seriously for so long." Fun, he confirms, is now something close to policy. "In a way, fun is all that matters now. And by fun, I also mean feeling excited about what I'm working on. There are less voices to think about; there's very little infrastructure around me. I'm doing it for myself."
Then there's the title. "I think I came up with it as a subconscious plea to the listener," he says. "Like, 'Here's what I've been working on. Please be gentle'." He needn't worry. Across five tracks, 'Go Easy' does exactly what you'd hope from the man responsible for so much of The Magic Gang's warmth, with the added weight of someone who has lived a full adult life since.
Could these songs have existed under the old name? His answer is the most honest version of the eternal ex-band question you'll get. "They could have once upon a time. But the band was moving in one, or several, directions and I can only do what I do. I think my taste or 'voice' in the band would have gotten smaller and smaller." There's no bitterness in it. The taste was always his own. Now the records are too.
What's left is the bit he's most excited about, which turns out to be all of it. "Even picking up a guitar feels better now. There's so much I'd enjoy more this time around: playing live, festivals, and travelling. Everything." The live part starts properly with an EP launch at London's George Tavern on 9th September, a room about as far from the Roundhouse as it's possible to book, which rather suits the project: small, close, unhurried, his.
Anything else we should know, before the record he spent six years reaching lands in the world?
"Go easy!"
You heard the man. Be gentle. It's worth it.
Taken from the September 2026 issue of Dork. Jack Kaye's debut EP 'Go Easy' is out now.
