Hi, I am James Mason. I am a 25 year old singer songwriter from Wellingon, Ohio spreading my music across the world 1 set of ears at a time. ....... I was born and raised until 7 in Killbuck, Ohio with music all around me from the begining. We moved to North ridgeville, Ohio in August of 1989 and I am still in the area today, for now at least. At the age of 10 I started to play guitar and fiddle/violin (what ever you want to call it) so the obsession has begun. I picked up the clarinet in 5th grade and added bass clarinet and tenor sax to my list in Jr. high. I formed a band called Hopeful Despair in Jr. High and started to write my own tunes around the same time. Hopeful Despair remianed to make the transistion to high school even though personal changes had happened. During high school I added more insturments to my arsenal which included, mandolin, banjo, bass (electric and upright), and a number of horn includeing trumpet and baritone. During my freashman year I recorded my first song as a project for my english class and with that a whole new world was now on the horizion. Around 1998 I put Hopeful Despair on hold and wrote a solo album under the name of "Angst" the album was called Slowly Moving Somewhere. This disc was soley distributed by me to the local scene only but response was good. As I started my senior year I wanted to go out with a bang so I reformed Hopeful Despair with me and a whole different line up to leave something for my class to remember me by. We entered the Mountain Dew High School Rock Off and were selected to compete on stage @ the Odeon Concert Club. We charted a limo bus with over 100 of our closest friends and fans to preform for the battle of the bands. Although we did not win we did recieve a call from Sony Music reguarding the band and the demo we were handing out during the battle. Unfortunatley it was to late the band had parted ways for reason that to this day were imature and childish as most of them are. With my dream having been lost I took some time off from the band to graduate and live life after high school. During that time my long time girlfriend decieded that we were better off seperate. So with all the pain I hooked up with a friend from high school (Tony Shultz) and we became Hopeful Despair. Tony and I started to write a Hopeful Despair record with all new material. As we worked we finished 6 songs and made a demo and that was that, soon after I was transfered to Columbus, Oh with Guitar Center to be the Operations Manager for their new store. While in Columbus I joined 3 bands and wrote alot, met a bunch of very cool people, some which I'd like to forget and some that I never will (you know who you are). After 6 months I was burnt out, home sick, and on a down word spiral of drugs and alcohol. I attended Mohican Bluegrass Festival were I met a wonderful woman (who is now my wife) and it seemed as though things were starting to change. The next month I moved back to the Cleveland area and remained a manager @ Guitar Center. Since that time I have been working on recording my lastest project and in and out of Twisted Creek (my fathers acoustic band). I am married with 2 kids now and hoping that now in my down time I can finally finish my long awaited album (3 years of waiting). More To Come so stay tuned......
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James Mason - Guitar, Lead Vocals
Dad, Lee, Don, Paula, Kevin, J.J., many many more - (ex: Vocals, Guitar, Drums)
Detroit Scoey says:
G'day James. Thanks for the add mate eh. Hang in there with the tunes and album. It may take longer than you would like but it'll be worth it. Spend some time with your wife and kids too cause they grow up all to fast. I'm playing in my daughter's band now eh? My son reckons he is going to take over the guitar playing and I can then be the bass player. All good fun mate eh?
posted Oct 17