Eddie St. James

Eddie St. James (b. August 1962) is a guitarist, singer and composer-arranger originally born in Hollywood- California and raised in and around the L.A. area (currently residing in the Mannheim/ Baden-Württemberg area of Germany ). He is most noted for his work with many well known musicians. Some of the guitar, vocal & songwriting work he has contributed, can be heard on his first solo release "Out of Nowhere"(Capitol records-1989). It all began in the early 1960s, as a young child after hearing and seeing one of the first legendary live Beatles performances on "The Ed Sullivan Show". Soon afterwards at the age of 8 yrs., Eddie 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. In the mid 80s, Eddie joined a local glam metal act called "Northstar", a band that during the height of the Hollywood Sunset Strip era 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. In 1989, he began a solo career with the "Eddie St. James Project" as well as doing some studio work for other artist, this same year saw the release of the Capitol supported album "Out of nowhere".

By 1991, Eddie reformed the band with Steff Fontaine, Marc Droubay and Wayne Hutsell. The band played a few dates with changes occurring in the line-up 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 2 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 Eddie worked concurrently on the 2nd 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). 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, Eddie was also shortly involved as guitarist with american singer/ songwriter Mark Pont(some of Pont's credits include the Rolling Stones-etc.)on the independantly released CD-"Flying". In an interview, St. James stated that he moved over to Germany with just $250,- in his pocket, 1 suitcase full of clothes and 3 guitars and nothing else. Since 1996 the area of Mannheim, Germany has become his home base and to date, Eddie continues with his solo career and is currently fronting his own group "The Eddie St. James Band" as lead vocalist and guitarist. "The ESJ Band" has released 2 CDs, the newest in 2007- "Living with the bomb" an 18 song double CD and makes regular live, TV and radio appearances in Europe. The group was even featured at the FIFA Soccer WM2006 in Kaiserlautern, Germany- in the main stage programm along with Reamonn, Xavier Naidoo and Revolver Held, etc. Eddie also does a one man acoustic rock show called "Eddie St. James' Akustik-Underground".

As of June 2006 Eddie also became the new guitarist/songwriter for the newly reformed infamous L.A. hard rock band London (heavy metal band) 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 Europe in 2007. Update: 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 duos compositions are now being showcased by the group as stipulated in a U.S. on air radio interview by the singer.

Current ESJ Band Line Up

Eddie St. James: Vocals / guitar
Jon Diven: Bass / b.v.
Willy Diven: Drums
Michael Leukel: Keyboarder/ b.v.

Notable Ex-ESJ Band Members

Bastian Fricke: Drums
Michael Quast: Keyboards
Steff Fontaine(ex-Uriah Heep): Vocals
Marc Droubay(Survivor): Drums
Wayne Hutsell(Tracy G.): Bass

Discography

Solo/Eddie St. James Band
-Out of nowhere (Capitol/Amie) 1989
-Under something blue (Mega Media) 2003
-Living with the bomb (Mega Media) 2007
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

TV/Film music

-1995 to 1996:
sub theme song "The elephant man" for the ABC-Ch.7 program "The Extremist" with Gabby Reece.
written by Eddie St. James and performed by Eddie St. James and the Dunmore Band.
-2005
sub theme song "Suicide machine" for A&E's reality TV-show, "Knievel's Wild Ride"
written by Eddie St. James.

References

* http://www.fullinbloommusic.com/nadir_dpriest.html (Interview D'Priest's New London)
* http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=114721419 (My space site for Eddie St. James)
* http://www.travellersintime.com/uw/uwest.html (Interview Eddie St. James, Canadian rock magazine Universal Wheels)
*http://www.amazon.de/Under-Something-Blue-Eddie-St-James(Amazon.de (Germany) Eddie St. James under something blue CD)
* http://www.towerrecords.com/product.aspx?pfid=1585328&title=Hypnotica&artist=John+Dunmore (Tower records (USA) Jon Dunmore Hypnotica CD)
* http://www.eddiestjames.com/ (Web site Eddie St. James)
*http://www.melodic.net/newsOne.asp?newsId=6769 (News-Artikle, D'Priest / St. James)