Jayen Varma
Quick Facts
Biography
Jayen Varma (born 3 February 1961) is an Indian electric bass player. He is known for developing tabla and mridangam style finger technique on bass guitar to play slap bass. The style developed by him is widely known as Indian slap bass, which won him fans around the globe and accolades from some of the great names in bass guitar like Jeff Berlin, Bootsy Collins, Victor Wooten etc. He belongs to the State of Kerala in India. He performs with the band The Khayal Groove consisting of Indian classical vocalist Aparna Panshikar and French drummer Jean Davoisne.
Film
He is also a playback singer. The single named 'The Country Song' in the Malayalam movie Koothara composed by Gopi Sundar was sung by him.
Personal life
Jayen was born to Kerala Varma and Thankamani in 1961 in Ernakulam district, Kerala. He is married to Kala Varma and has two daughters: Athira Varma and Aswathy Varma. He was working as a gazetted officer in Cochin Devaswom Board and later he took voluntary retirement to pursue a full-time music career.
Equipment
Jayen uses Indian hand made five string bass guitar with Kent Armstrong pickups. He is an official artist endorser of Gruv Gear FretWraps