James Arthur and the Band…

October 1, 2012

It took me a while, but I finally got to it…I’m finally writing about an artist and a band that probably will blow you away=) Once again, thanx to the X-Factor, we get to meet people like that…

First of all, I want to say huge huge thank you to Richard Doney, the bass player in this band, for taking the time giving me the answers to all my questions=)

I saw James Arthur for the first time in this years the UK X-Factor auditions. The 24 year old musician from Saltburn, even before coming out on stage, pulled everyone in with his story and from his looks and personality you could see, this one is deep…he has pain inside and luckily he managed to transfer that pain into beautiful music. He sang one of the judges song, and blew everyone away. After the audition I listened to the original and then I understood how James managed to completely change the meaning of the song. The original version was an Ibiza track, that I wouldn’t pay any attention to if heard on radio (no offense Tulisa), but when James sang it, it made sense, it touched, it was so meaningful and beautiful, specially after his background story…The song had lyrics “forgive us for what we have done…we’re young…”, and everyone, young or old, can relate so much to these words…James sang them with so much emotion, he literally sang his heart out, from that moment everyone knew, he is unique and going to go a long way…

James Arthur had a rough path in life, his parents split when he was 2, his mom remarried when he was nine and he went off to luxurious life of private school and home with pool. After the split of his mom and his stepfather, he had to go back to normal middle class life and that shook the young teenager, making him rebellious. At some point he got kicked out of home, was sleeping on streets or someones couches for a while until he got himself into foster home. He put himself together and the only thing that always was there with him and was his escape – was music….and music is what he’s amazing at.

I believe he had to go through all that, to become so soulful and dedicated as he is now, all of those experiences give him the inspiration and the heart to create beautiful music, all that pain and anger from the past is the extra special ingredient making his voice sound so much more amazing and relatable. I absolutely adore James and so does so many people now, the X-Factor judges do too, since they put him to the live shows.

But no matter how it will go on X-Factor, James is already a star, he has his band, and their music is incredible! So I am introducing to you The James Arthur Band=)

The band was created by James Arthur, after Richard Doney, who is the bass player of the band and the sound producer, suggested it to him. Richard knew James since he was a teenager. Doney did sound for the (probably) first real band James was in, called “Traceless”, James was around 16/17 back then. All of the current band members were in other bands before that, as was James. After his “Traceless”, there was “Save Arcade”, then “Emerald Skye” and few more.

The whole band is made from 5 guys : James Arthur – Vocals, Jez Taylor – Guitars, Chris Smalls – Keyboards, Jordan Swain – Drums, Rich Doney – Bass Guitar.

Jordan was in a band with James before, he was also in the now legendary (at least for those from Middlesbrough) “Station Road”.

The rest of the band members, a bit more mature guys, Rich, Jez and Chris, according to Rich where in too many bands to remember. Rich was around music since he was little, he played his first guitar at age 12. Later he was studying music and performing arts after school, then moved to London to study music technology and eventually moved back up north and started working in studio.

Now Richard owns and runs Landscape Recording Studio and that’s also where the James Arthur Bands magic happens.

Most of the songs and music comes from James, as he is the singer/songwriter, the soul of the band, but sometimes James is running late and the band jamming for fun turns into a song. The most fantastic thing about this band in my opinion is the mixture of styles. The outcome of this bands music is funk, soul, RnB & Pop. This is mostly James’s crazy ideas, he has so much talent in him, it simply makes you wonder what will come next, but also it is the input of the band, every member has pretty different style and putting it all together, you get this entirely entertaining music, not something you hear everyday.

Their most memorable gig so far was at this years (2012) “Bishop Auckland Music & Arts Festival”, where they were the support to Paul Carrack. But after James’s success on the X-Factor stage, I believe the band will have much bigger events coming.

Despite the outcome of X-Factor, the band said, that James knows, that he can call them no matter the time… a month, a year or five years later, they all would be very happy to get together and pick up where they left off.

So far the band is working great together and if working like that further, all their to do list points like releasing records, winning Grammy’s etc. in my opinion is very possible to be done, but till then I just want to thank them for all the great music, wish James personally and the whole band together great luck great success and plenty of inspiration…I love those guys and I hope even more people will do too after this post! Cheers=)

Visit the band’s web site, Facebook, Twitter, SoundCloud, (James’s) Twitter.

Buy their first EP here…

And here’s the brilliant music…enjoy!=)