Eddie St. James

Northstar / 1st 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 legendary live Beatles performances on The Ed Sullivan Show. Soon afterwards at the age of 8 years, 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. During 78-79 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 internationally acclaimed hit songwriter, record producer for such groups as Aerosmith, Ozzy Osbourne, Carrier Underwood, Mick Jagger- among many other top musical acts.^[3] In the mid 1980s, he joined a local glam metal act called Northstar formed in L.A. Ca., in the late 70's,^[4] 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 1 song demo, written by St.James (City Lights- featured on L.A.'s KWEST radio program "local seeds") at Lelan Zales’^[5] (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.) privat 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 2 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 "85" Eddie 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 5 or 6 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 2 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 (Sep.02,1989 Edition / Pg.60- Pro Audio Report: Los Angeles)^[6] 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^[7] 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)^[8] 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 second Jon Dunmore CD entitled Baptized by fire (Seagul/Semaphore Records-1995),^[9] 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)^[10] 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.).^[11] The song Voice With No Name from the same album hit the Nr.2 Chart position on the Swiss Hit Parade Charts as part of a compilation CD titled BRAVO SUPER SHOW VOL. 1^[12] 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.^[13] 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, previous frontman for Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods (whose hits include "Billy Don’t Be A Hero" and "Who Do You Think You Are“),^[14] on the independently released CD Flying. In an interview, St. James stated that he moved to Germany with just $250 in his pocket, 1 suitcase full of clothes and 3 guitars and nothing else.^[7] Since 1996 the area of Mannheim / Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany has become his home base and to date, Eddie continues 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, tv 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. Eddie also does a one-man acoustic rock show called Eddie St. James' Akustik-Underground.

London Pt.1

As of June 2006, Eddie also became the new guitarist–songwriter for the newly reformed infamous L.A. hard rock band London alongside Nadir D'Priest (vocals).^[15] 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.

Con't Solo Releases

In 2009 (newspaper: Rhein Pfalz, Germany) reported Eddie is working on a new ESJ -CD in L.A., Ca., 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)^[16] in Co-Production with Michael Leukel. The CD- Streets Cry Freedom was officially released in Europe in Dec.2013 and worldwide in Jan.2014,^[17] with international distribution through PhonoNet Europe.

London Pt.2

In late August 2015 Eddie 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.^[18] 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 Eddie 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^[19]. 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)^[20] also the same producer / bassist for the 2018 Gus G. (ex-Ozzy Osbourne) release Fearless^[21]

Trance

Eddie St.James joins forces in August 2016 with legendary German metal band Trance (not to be confused with "Trancemission") as 2nd guitarist alongside founding members Markus Berger and Thomas Klein, including 2 other newer members: Neudi (Manilla Road) and Jens Gellner (Masters of Disguise). The group rehearsed for 2 months and then went immediately out on tour in October 2016 with 3 warm up shows and then joined Udo Dirkschneider (Accept) as support^[22] along with Vicious Rumors on the last leg of the Back to the Roots European part of the Dirkschneider world tour in December 2016.^[23] Trance has also recorded a brand new album entitled The Loser Strikes Back^[24] which is due to be issued for release as of March 2017, and is 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 the 7th of April 2017 and reached position 98.

2018
Trance joined Canadian legends Anvil (from Feb-Mar.2018) on their 40th Anniversary Tour "Pounding the Pavement"^[25] 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)^[26] (german language). The group Trance also featured in addition to a new frontman and for the first time since the mid 90's, three original members of the original inception of the band, which included co-founding member / drummer Jürgen Baum along side the two other co-founders 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
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

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 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.