JAMES BLACKSMITH
Male
Valencia
Spain
Profile Information:
- About Me
- JAMES BLACKSMITH. BIOGRAPHY.
Jaime Herrero Fornes was born on November 24, 1961 in Guildford (Surrey), England. Musically speaking, he spent his childhood under the influence of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Sweet. His mother says that being a lullaby who barely walked and woke up in the morning singing the song "She loves you", from The Beatles ... at full throttle.
His first encounter with an instrument was at age six, a piano. Moment in which and being so child realized that to pull out melodies did not represent any effort.
At fifteen years of age and already in Spain began to learn to play the guitar. In the beginning, flamenco, but already at that time the influence of groups like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Camel, Genesis and especially guitarists like Jeff Beck, Rory Gallagher, Jimi Hendrix, David Gilmour and Andrew Latimer irremediably marked its beginnings .
Out of class, when he was not practicing like a madman in his room, he was looking for all kinds of people to play, from much older musicians to street musicians.
With seventeen years next to some friends of its neighborhood, they form their first group which in principle only touched versions. But the versions did not satisfy him at all and the first compositions began to appear and after the departure of some members and the entrance of new ones formed the first band with which they began to play their first direct.
At that time, the influences had grown exponentially, from Police, Sex Pistols to bands like Boston and later groups like Ac-Dc, Iron Maiden, Ufo, Scorpions, Thin Lizzy, Whitesnake, Msg, etc. and of course, influences of guitarists Like Eddie Van Halen, Gary Moore, Michael Schenker.
Two years later he would meet the veteran teclista of the rock group of the 70's Vicente Guillot, who attracted attention the way to play and to compose.
With the help of Valen (Vicente Guillot) a few years later he would be presented in some of the big multinational companies besides collaborating playing the guitar in two songs of an LP.
At twenty-six years of age he formed STRANGE, a group to which he would devote almost twenty-five years of his life. When the group had only a year to live the original singer leaves the project and that is when they present to José Celda Lorca with which immediately emerges the chemistry. It is the most intense time of the band.
During the next seven years, they recorded many songs in various recording studios, composed dozens of songs and acted in all the premises of the city of Valencia gaining a hollow in the local scene.
It was also at this time that, through the mediation of Vicente Guillot, they presented their works in companies like WEA, EMI, SONY MUSIC, EPIC and on two occasions were about to sign a record contract.
But things did not go as expected and the drummer and bassist left the band leaving the creative nucleus, that is, James and Joseph, who spent the next years composing more songs, doing some more performances with new members and performing at A competition of groups at European level organized by the chain RADIO 3, being finalists of more than 800 groups.
But by that time and due to work circumstances, James had to leave outside Valencia beginning a period of six years in which disappears from the world of music.
It is in 2004, when he returns to Valencia when together with José, he resumes the activity in a discreet way, but without compiling many new songs.
In 2011, the original members of STRANGERS come together again to do some more performances and then split up again shortly.
Already completely isolated and without a group, James begins to compose and record new songs already in his small home studio and disillusioned with the Spanish musical panorama changes of strategy and begins to use the new tools through Internet and projecting his music outside of Spain.
Through REVERBNATION one day received an invitation to join POZE PRODUCTIONS / POZE RECORDS and soon after joining Robert Lee Terry aka Poet Just Robert who through his FM ENTERTAINMENT label, with the support of the founder of POZE, Mr. Kevin James and the help of the staff of POZE finally gets to publish his first CD of the group STRANGE, titled: "PERSONAL".
Three years later and completely alone, he prepares the release of his new CD entitled SAND LINES, in which he plays all the instruments and voices, as well as composing all the music and writing all the lyrics. It also handles all the recording, production and mastering. - How did you hear about us?
- In REVERBNATION
- Profile Type
- Guitarrist, composer, songwriter.
- What is your primary genre/style of music?
- Rock, progressive, alternative.
Poze Productions
Hi James,
We have a meeting with Drum Talk TV today. He's going to leave a promo on how to submit to Drum Talk and he should have that done by some time next week. We did get contacted by Q-Rock! KBHQ 100.7 FM and if you would like to submit to them, let me know and I can send you their information.
Vanessa
Mar 23, 2018
Pixy Muse
Oct 23, 2019
Poze Productions
Jul 27, 2023