Eddie St. James

Eddie St. James
File:Eddie St James-2013.png
Background information
Birth name	Edward Vincent St. James
Born	August 1962 Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States
Genres	Heavy metal, glam metal, hard rock
Occupation(s)	Musician, songwriter, music teacher, sound engineer, record producer
Instruments	Guitar, vocals, bass, keyboards
Years active	1984 - present
Labels	Capitol / Edel / Clearaudio / Seagull-Semaphore / Mega Media / Zebralution / Orchard-Sony
Associated acts	Northstar / Eddie St.James Project/ Jon Dunmore Band/ Richard Grieco / London/ Eddie St.James/ Trance
Website	www.eddie-st-james.com

Eddie St. James (born August 1962) is a guitarist, singer and composer–arranger born in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States and raised in and around the Los Angeles area (resides in the Rheinland-Pfalz–area of Germany). He is most noted for his work with many well-known musicians. Some of the guitar, vocal and songwriting work he has contributed can be heard on his first solo release Out of Nowhere (Capitol Records-1989).

Biography

Northstar / First studio session / Eddie St.James Project

It all began in the early 1960s, as a young child after hearing and seeing one of the first Beatles performances on The Ed Sullivan Show. Soon afterwards at the age of eight years, St. James had the guitar in his hands and at age 15 began to perform at friends' birthday and garage parties as he gathered his first experiences and honorary. During 1978 and 1979 in his High School years he was also a (drum) and general roadie for his friend's band, the drummer Marti Frederiksen, who would later go on to become the successful songwriter and record producer for such groups as Aerosmith, Ozzy Osbourne, Carrier Underwood, Mick Jagger- among many other top musical acts. In the mid 1980s, he joined a local glam metal act called Northstar formed in L.A. Ca., in the late 1970s, a band that during the height of the Hollywood Sunset Strip era in the mid 80's opened for such groups as: Great White, Warrant, Poison, Guns N' Roses, etc. The group also achieved status as a headliner at all the well-known clubs such as Gazzarri's (where The Doors and Van Halen got their start), The Roxy, The Country Club, and The Troubador, etc., but failed to generate a lucrative record deal. As an interesting side note, the group recorded their very first one song demo, written by St.James (City Lights- featured on L.A.'s KWEST radio program "local seeds") at Lelan Zales’ (songwriter; title track / album Serious Slammin'- The Pointer Sisters, and session drummer for such groups as Earth, Wind and Fire, Welten Felder, Mr.Fiddler and Parlament Funk-etc.) private studios in Los Angeles, California in 1985. The sessions were engineered by Ryo Okumoto, who would later become the keyboard player in 1996 for the "Prog-Rock" band Spocks Beard. Northstar went on in 1986 to record a twp song demo (Push Comes To Shove and Take It To The Limit ),written and produced by St.James with the sessions being recorded at Hit Man Studios in Hollywood, the demos were also featured on local radio stations KMET and KNAC. Subsequently shortly after the Northstar sessions in 1985, St. James was then invited by Zales to work together along with Roland Bautista (Earth, Wind & Fire), John Pena (Simon Phillips) among others, on a Ruth Pointer (The Pointer Sisters) solo album, a heavy synthesizer funk style project (working title: Ruthless) in the same year. „There were approximately five or six song demos completed, I was asked to work on the lyrics and melodies plus add some guitar to some of the tracks, which I did. A couple of months into the project, the producer called me over to tell me that the project had been cancelled by the record label (RCA) and her manager Richard Perry at that time. Apparently they did not want Ruth to release any solo material, which to this day (2017) she has never done. It’s was a shame, the songs were incredibly good, there was easily a hit or two somewhere in there. In the same time period, there followed a generous offer to audition for Parliament Funk, which I regret to this day that I did not accept“. In 1989, he began a solo career with the Eddie St. James Project as well as doing some studio work for other artists; this same year saw the release of the Capitol supported album Out of nowhere. The album was recorded at Red Zone Studios, North Hollywood at the exact same time as the band Slaughter (Mark Slaughter / Dana Strum) previously of the Vinnie Vincent Invasion, were doing their 1st album in studio B. The album Out Of Nowhere was also mentioned in Billboard Magazine (September 2, 1989 Edition / Pg.60- Pro Audio Report: Los Angeles) as well as in Music Connection Magazine (Aug.07-20,1989 Edition / Pg.18, Audio Report: Red Zone Studios) in conjunction with the Slaughter album. The ESJ album with St.James as executive producer was then mixed at Hit City West in Los Angeles by none other than academy award winning sound engineer Kevin "Kvoc" O'Connell and mastered at Capitol Records, Hollywood by Ron McMaster. There was one video made for the song She's On Her Way that was aired only briefly at the time on MTV Europe and has bis dato never been released to the general public.

Projects / studio sessions / move to Europe

By 1991, St. James reformed the band with Steff Fontaine, Marc Droubay and Wayne Hutsell. The band played a few dates with changes occurring in the lineup and even opened for Lynch Mob (George Lynch, guitar ex-Dokken) on part of the wicked sensation tour and shortly thereafter the ESJ project dissolved. St. James is also an ex-member of the Jon Dunmore Band and performed on two Jon Dunmore CDs – Hypnotica (ClearAudiorecords-1994) which also features performances by Kelly Keagy (drums: Night Ranger), Phil Soussan (bass: ex-Ozzy Osbourne, Vince Neil, Billy Idol, etc.), Mayron Grombacher (drums: Pat Benatar), Bobby Gianetti (bass: ex-Edgar Winter, Dave Mason) and Kris Gustofson (drums). In 1995, St. James worked concurrently on the second Jon Dunmore CD entitled Baptized by fire (Seagul/Semaphore Records-1995), while also at the same time contributing guitar and backing vocals for the actor Richard Grieco (actor: 21 Jump Street, A Night at the Roxbury etc.) CD- Waiting For The Sky To Fall (Edel Records-1995) recorded in part at Ocean Way Studios in Los Angeles, California with these sessions being engineered by Chris Minto (Kiss, Santana, Herbie Hancock, Sammy Hagar-etc.). The song Voice With No Name from the same album hit the No. 2 position on the Swiss Hit Parade Charts as part of a compilation CD titled BRAVO SUPER SHOW VOL. 1 as well as the GUTE ZEITEN - SCHLECHTE ZEITEN 3 - DIE HITS ZUR SERIE compilation CD going to Nr.1 on the Swiss Charts and Nr.5 on the Austrian Charts. Some previous members of the Eddie St. James Band include: Steff Fontaine (vocals, ex-Uriah Heep), Marc Droubay (drums: Survivor), Bobby Gianetti (bass) and Wayne Hutsell (bass: ex-Swift kick, Tracy G.(Dio)). In 1998, St. James was also shortly involved as guitarist with American singer/ songwriter Mark Pont, previous frontman for Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods (whose hits include "Billy Don’t Be A Hero" and "Who Do You Think You Are“), on the independently released CD Flying. In an interview, St. James stated that he moved to Germany with just $250 in his pocket, one suitcase full of clothes and three guitars and nothing else. Since 1996 the area of Mannheim / Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany has become his home base and to date, St. James continued with his solo career and is currently fronting his own group Eddie St. James as lead vocalist and guitarist. The ESJ Band makes regular stage, television appearances and radio broadcasts in Europe. The group was featured at the FIFA Soccer WM2006 in Kaiserlautern, Germany – in the main stage programme along with Reamonn, Xavier Naidoo and Revolverheld, etc. St. James also does a one-man acoustic rock show called Eddie St. James' Akustik-Underground.

London (part one)

As of June 2006, St. James also became the new guitarist–songwriter for the newly reformed London alongside Nadir D'Priest (vocals). The "New" London is currently working on song demos for a new CD as well as some live dates in the US and Europe in 2007. St.James was involved as a songwriter in conjunction with the singer Nadir D'Priest during 2006-2007 and due to scheduling conflicts unable to work in person with the group. Some of the duo's compositions are now being showcased by the group as stipulated in a U.S. on air radio interview by the singer Nadir D'Priest.

Solo releases

In 2009 (newspaper: Rhein Pfalz, Germany) reported St. James is working on a new ESJ album entitled Streets Cry Freedom with drummers John "JR" Robinson, (Michael Jackson-etc.) and Bernie Pershey (Edgar Winter, Walter Trout), along with Spencer Sercombe (Shark Island / Michael Schenker) and Hagen Grohe (Joe Perry Project) in co-production with Michael Leukel. Streets Cry Freedom was officially released in Europe in December 2013 and worldwide in January 2014, with international distribution through PhonoNet Europe.

London (part two)

In late August 2015, St. James was contacted by none other than Nadir D'Priest and asked to help out as co-writer and guitarist on the new and forthcoming London album, which also at the onset of the recording included such luminaries as: Chris Sanders (Lizzy Borden, Britny Fox, Ratt), Ronee Pena (Nadir Solo Band), Alan Krigger (Giuffria, Ike & Tina Turner, Brian Wilson), Tony Cavazo (Hurricane, Snow), Jack Frost (7 Witches), Chris Holmes (W.A.S.P.), Mike Varney (Shrapnel records) as well as members of the Bob Welch Band. St.James recorded his tracks for 4 songs (titled: "Call That Girl", "Reach Up To The Sky", "You're Still The One" and "I Don't Know / Ayer Te Sone Aqui") in Europe and completed his part of the recording by the end of September 2015. The song "I Don't Know / Ayer Te Sone Aqui" which also features Mike Varney on rhythm guitar and on which St. James arranged and performed all the main guitar parts was on the initial release of the album incorrectly credited to the wrong musician. The band London (doing the main tracking in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Nevada-USA ) has in the meantime gone through several musician, producer and studio personnel changes and as of date continues to work on the album and has announced that it plans to release the new cd, entitled Call That Girl which is also the title track, sometime in 2018. The album was officially finished in mid 2018 and officially released on Jul.17.2018. The Group's new cd / album has been reported to have been produced by Dennis Ward (Pink Cream 69) also the same producer / bassist for the 2018 Gus G. (ex-Ozzy Osbourne) release Fearless

Trance

St.James joins forces in August 2016 with German metal band Trance (not to be confused with "Trancemission") as second guitarist alongside founding members Markus Berger and Thomas Klein, including two other newer members: Neudi (Manilla Road) and Jens Gellner (Masters of Disguise). The group rehearsed for two months and then went immediately out on tour in October 2016 with three warm up shows and then joined Udo Dirkschneider (Accept) as support along with Vicious Rumors on the last leg of the Back to the Roots European part of the Dirkschneider world tour in December 2016. Trance has also recorded a brand new album entitled The Loser Strikes Back which was issued in March 2017, and was also concurrently the start of the next European wide tour for the band. The album The Loser Strikes Back entered the German Top 100 Charts on 7 April 2017 and reached position 98.

2018

Trance joined Anvil (from Feb-Mar.2018) on their 40th Anniversary Tour "Pounding the Pavement" european leg of the tour (21 dates / 7 countries) through Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Denmark. Trance is also reported to be featuring a new frontman by the name of Nick Holleman (ex-Vicious Rumors) (german language). The group Trance also featured in addition to a new frontman and for the first time since the mid 1990s, three original members of the band, which included co-founding member / drummer Jürgen Baum alongside Markus Berger and Thomas Klein. The tour line-up for Trance: Nick Holleman (voc), Markus Berger (git.), Thomas Klein (bass), Eddie St.James (git.), Neudi (drums) and Jürgen Baum (drums).

Current ESJ Band lineup

• Eddie St. James: Vocals / guitar / bass
• Michael Leukel: Keyboarder/ b.v.

Notable Ex-ESJ Band members

• Steff Fontaine (ex-Uriah Heep): Vocals
• Marc Droubay (Survivor): Drums
• Wayne Hutsell (Tracy G.): Bass
• Bobby Gianetti (Edgar Winter/ Dave Mason): Bass

Discography

Solo/Eddie St. James Band

• Out Of Nowhere (Capitol / AME) 1989
• Under Something Blue (Mega Media Music) 2003
• Living With The Bomb (Mega Media Music / Demo) 2007
• Streets Cry Freedom (Mega Media Music) 2013
• Streets Cry Freedom + Bonus single "Home Is Where Your Heart Is" Feat. Michael Bormann-Jaded Heart /Voice Of Germany (Orchard / Sony, digital re-release) 2023
• Out Of Nowhere (Mega Media Music / Zebralution, digital re-release) 2023

Jon Dunmore Band

• Hypnotica (ClearAudiorecords) 1994
• Baptized By Fire (Seagul/Semiphore) 1995

Richard Grieco (actor: 21 Jump street, Booker, Marker-etc.)

• Waiting For The Sky To Fall (Edel Records) 1995

Mark Pont

• Flying (Grand Scale Records) 1998

London

• Call That Girl (Vampsworldwide Vision) 2018

Northstar

• The Glam Metal Years (Mega Media Music / Zebralution, digital 2 song single)2023

TV and film music

• 1995 to 1996 sub theme song "The Elephant Man" for the ABC-Ch.7 program The Extremist with Gabby Reece, written by St. James and performed by St. James and the Dunmore Band.
• 2005 sub theme song "Suicide Machine" for A&E's reality TV-show, Knievel's Wild Ride (Robbie Knievel), written by St. James.

External links

• Official Eddie St.James website

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