Post by XxbagpussxX on Jul 26, 2005 20:39:25 GMT
(taken from the official site http://www.jamesblunt.com)
Born in an army hospital in Hampshire, James was sent to boarding school at seven, excelled at science and maths, got a pilot's license at 16 ("I can fly anything with a single engine – Tiger Moths, Spitfires"), did a spell at Bristol University, and then, "because my dad was pushing for it", joined the army. He eventually made Captain, and was the first British officer into Pristina, leading a column of 30,000 peacekeeping troops.
Music, though, has always been his mainstay. Actually, this needs to be qualified. James got into music lateishly, the result of growing up in a musicless house that didn't possess a CD player. "My dad was really practical, and saw music as just noise. The only CD player was in the car, and we had just three CDs - 'American Pie', and a couple of Beach Boys ones." When he went away to school, though, he learned piano, then appeared in a school musical, and that was it. From then on, he listened and learned as much as he could. A love of Queen and Dire Straits came and quickly went. Picking up a friend's guitar at 14, he played along to Nirvana's "Nevermind", and wrote his first song soon after. In so doing, he made himself unpopular with the school housemaster, who knew that music drifting down the corridor late at night could invariably be traced to Blunt's room. His teen years were a battle between teachers, who were intent on imposing some sort of education, and himself, equally intent on making music his career.
Armed with "some dodgy demos" he'd recorded, he left the army in 2002 to become a full-time musician ("My dad was nervous, because I was leaving a steady job"). Said dodgy items were an impressive enough showcase of his haunting voice and exquisitely personal songs to land him both management and publishing deals within months. "And then I met Linda Perry [songwriter-producer for, among others, Pink and Christina Aguilera], cos my publishers gave her some songs, and then I went to play South by Southwest, and then she gave me a deal with her own label, Custard Records," James says, still half-dazzled by it all.
He went to California in September, 2003, to record his album, and discovered that being a slightly scruffy English boy in Los Angeles could be very pleasant. Staying at the home of an actress, he spent his days recording with Rothrock, and his nights...well...researching LA's club scene. "With my naïve background, it was like stepping into a devil's cauldron," he says, in happy reminiscence. He recorded the painfully poignant track "Goodbye, My Lover" in the actresses’ bathroom, where she kept an old piano.
Born in an army hospital in Hampshire, James was sent to boarding school at seven, excelled at science and maths, got a pilot's license at 16 ("I can fly anything with a single engine – Tiger Moths, Spitfires"), did a spell at Bristol University, and then, "because my dad was pushing for it", joined the army. He eventually made Captain, and was the first British officer into Pristina, leading a column of 30,000 peacekeeping troops.
Music, though, has always been his mainstay. Actually, this needs to be qualified. James got into music lateishly, the result of growing up in a musicless house that didn't possess a CD player. "My dad was really practical, and saw music as just noise. The only CD player was in the car, and we had just three CDs - 'American Pie', and a couple of Beach Boys ones." When he went away to school, though, he learned piano, then appeared in a school musical, and that was it. From then on, he listened and learned as much as he could. A love of Queen and Dire Straits came and quickly went. Picking up a friend's guitar at 14, he played along to Nirvana's "Nevermind", and wrote his first song soon after. In so doing, he made himself unpopular with the school housemaster, who knew that music drifting down the corridor late at night could invariably be traced to Blunt's room. His teen years were a battle between teachers, who were intent on imposing some sort of education, and himself, equally intent on making music his career.
Armed with "some dodgy demos" he'd recorded, he left the army in 2002 to become a full-time musician ("My dad was nervous, because I was leaving a steady job"). Said dodgy items were an impressive enough showcase of his haunting voice and exquisitely personal songs to land him both management and publishing deals within months. "And then I met Linda Perry [songwriter-producer for, among others, Pink and Christina Aguilera], cos my publishers gave her some songs, and then I went to play South by Southwest, and then she gave me a deal with her own label, Custard Records," James says, still half-dazzled by it all.
He went to California in September, 2003, to record his album, and discovered that being a slightly scruffy English boy in Los Angeles could be very pleasant. Staying at the home of an actress, he spent his days recording with Rothrock, and his nights...well...researching LA's club scene. "With my naïve background, it was like stepping into a devil's cauldron," he says, in happy reminiscence. He recorded the painfully poignant track "Goodbye, My Lover" in the actresses’ bathroom, where she kept an old piano.