Biography
Jay played his first tune at three years oldon a melodica.
A pianist at school and a keen improviser, he frequently recorded his ‘improvisations’ on a cassette machine. He replaced this with Cubasis at the age of seven, and for want of replacing MIDI with something more realistic, taught himself guitar and bass and took up drum lessons at school.
Every Christmas and Birthday present since then added to the collection of gear that now constitutes his studio. When Jay could earn money the lower quality gear was replaced with more professional equipment.
After writing and recording with friends and local bands at high school, Jay found he had requests from further afield from bands and singers who had heard his other work.
Jay joined the Cheshire Youth Choir in 2003 which offered new opportunities. He learned a great deal from their director Shirley Court and had opportunity to write for the choir and develop his own voice. This lead to a number of his SATB pieces being sold nationally.
Whilst working with the choir, Jay was invited to play in signed band Ephesus under Warner Brothers on their 2003 tour and left some months later to pursue college.
This experience combined resulted in Jay being able to approach new records with an appreciation of the artist’s point of view. His emphasis is much more capturing a great performance in the right atmosphere, rather than covering up inconsistencies with technology. He has delivered teacher training for SingUp on songwriting in schools and works extensively in education to develop the singing voice.
On their joint 2009 project and international release Thinnest Hopes Magnified, Shaun T Hunter described:
“it’s rare to find someone who’s such a good performer and has such good creative ideas as a player, but who also knows their studio equipment inside out. You tend to get one or the other these days.”
Jay has been compared to producer Carl Stipetic and has worked with him in his Leeds Studios as well as been guest producer in Blueprint Studios, Manchester and Courtyard Studios, Stockport.
Jay currently drums with pop/rock band “The Pocket Rockets” and jazz group “The Simon Street Quartet.”
