Sweet Jayne

Sweet Jayne was the original Australian all girl hard rock band. They performed over 700 gigs in six years, playing a mix of hard rock and heavy metal covers and a repertoire of over 50 original songs, written by Chris Scheri and Cris Bonacci. The original members of 1977 were Cris Bonacci, Chris Scheri, Robyn Clarke and Sally Zylstra. Male musicians John Zaffarese (late 1979), Brendan O'Shea (1980), Fab Versace (1981) and Billy George (1982) joined the band after Zylstra and Clarke left. The band split up in 1983 after Mike Oldfield saw the band play at the Manzil Room in Sydney and offered Chris and Cris airfares to London to work with him in the UK. The band released a five-track vinyl EP after winning the Yamaha Australasian Battle of the Bands in 1978. They recorded Chris Scheri's "Images Fantasy King" as a sound track for the documentary Changes in which they made a cameo appearance in 1979. Other releases were on cassette format, the first engineered by Mark Moffat at TCS CH9 recording studios in 1977 and 1978. Musicland Cleopatra released a single "Icarus" b/w "State of Mind" in 1981. Cris Bonacci joined Girlschool in 1985 and toured and recorded with the band for 10 years. She toured America with Deep Purple and Blue Oyster Cult and played guitar for Robert Plant. She also worked with Toyah Wilcox and Marc Almond and was manager and musical director for Samantha Fox for several years. Chris Scheri set up Recording Studio 7 in South Melbourne in 1986. That same year, Scheri and Bonacci produced a film clip for Scheri's "Pictures on The Wall", which was aired repeatedly on Basia Bonkvsky's Music Video show, and released as a single through Rondor Music and Possum Records. The B-side "Heartbeat" was used as part of the soundtrack for Robert Herbert's film, He and She and reproduced in Holland by Mink DeVille. Zaffarese was later in Rosanna's Raiders.