Jed Simon

Jed Simon was born on February 24, 1964 in Victoria, British Columbia. He gained attention in the metal community with his third (speed metal) band Armoros, which was founded in 1985. Armoros disbanded in 1989 after 2 successful demos and an album.

Biography

Jed's next band was Caustic Thought, when his career with Byron Stroud began. Jed did 3 demos with Caustic Thought, and when he left them, he gave the job to Devin Townsend. After Caustic Thought, Jed briefly worked with Devin on his Noisescapes project, before Devin left for Los Angeles to play with Steve Vai. In 1995, Devin asked Jed to join his latest project, Strapping Young Lad (aka SYL), and Jed has been a part of SYL ever since. Jed contributed guitars to "Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing" and also performed live with SYL for the tour of the album. Jed also appears in the video for "S.Y.L." from that album.

In 1996, Jed joined Front Line Assembly (FLA for short) on their Hard Wired tour as a touring guitarist (and also percussionist on Plasticity and Gun f.ex.). There was a live album and video done from the tour, which became known as "Live Wired" (1996). After that, Jed returned with SYL, who achieved even greater success with their second album "City" (1997).

When Front Line Assembly went on to perform the Re-Wind tour in late 1998, Jed was on board again. In 1999, he also contributed guitars to FLA's studio album "Implode". Jed's last tour with FLA was the Implosion tour in the spring of 1999. In 2000, Jed worked on Devin Townsend's Physicist project, which is comprised of all four members of SYL, but was considered "too light" by Devin to be an SYL album.

Since 2000, Jed has been busy touring and recording with SYL most of the time. In 2002, SYL released their self-titled album, on which Jed plays virtually all the guitar tracks, giving the album a distinctive, slightly warmer sound than any of Strapping Young Lad's other abums. In 2005 they released "Alien", and their most recent recording, "The New Black," was released on July 11 2006.

Besides SYL he is also the guitarist of Zimmers Hole, which includes fellow Strapping bandmates, Byron Stroud and Gene Hoglan. Zimmers Hole has released three studio albums: "Bound by Fire" (1997, and which was re-issued in 2003 with extra tracks), "Legion of Flames" (2001), and "When You Were Shouting at the Devil...We Were in League With Satan", which was released on Century Media records on March 11, 2008. His newest project is Tenet, whose first release, "Sovereign", is due out on Century Media records in summer 2008. "Sovereign" was written by Jed over the last few years, and features Jed on guitar, bass, and vocals, Glen Alvelais (Forbidden, Testament, LD50) on lead guitar and Gene Hoglan on drums.

Jed now lives in Philadelphia with his wife and son, and their two cats.

Notes and references

* http://www.strappingyounglad.com
* http://www.myspace.com/strappingyounglad
* http://www.legionofflames.com
* http://www.myspace.com/zimmershole
* http://www.tenetforce.com
* http://www.myspace.com/tenetforce
* http://www.mindphaser.com/