Calvin Hayes, Johnny Hates Jazz Co-Founder, Dead at 63

Calvin Hayes, who co-founded the British pop group Johnny Hates Jazz, died on Thursday after collapsing in his Washington home. He was 63.

Hayes started the band in 1986 with vocalist Clark Datchler and bassist Mike Nocito. Signed to Virgin Records, they broke through a year later with the single “Shattered Dreams,” a sleek, melancholy hit that anchored their debut album Turn Back the Clock. The record topped the UK Albums Chart and distilled the polished production and quiet desperation that defined a strand of late-1980s pop.

Datchler departed soon after, replaced briefly by former Cure bassist Phil Thornalley. The lineup shift yielded Tall Stories, an album that failed to chart, and the band dissolved. A reunion came in 2009, but Hayes left the following year and did not return.

In a statement shared on the band’s official accounts, Datchler and Nocito said they were “utterly shocked and deeply saddened.” They recalled Hayes as part of a brief, intense partnership: “The three of us were brothers in arms for an extraordinary moment in time, one in which we managed to touch the world with the music we created together.” They added that he remained proud of the songs from Turn Back the Clock and their continuing audience, four decades on.