Biography
Jamie Mallender (christened James Andrew Mallender) was born in Sheffield (UK) to musical parents on 02.02.1972 (Groundhog Day.) As a small child Jamie would imitate the stars of the glam rock era with his toy guitar and a microphone he made himself with a matchbox and a bit of string! Growing up there were always instruments around the house and music like Queen, T.Rex, The Beatles, Carpenters, Stevie Wonder, and Michael Jackson was always playing. Although Jamie loved music and enjoyed playing instruments, he did not take music seriously until at age 14 he witnessed Queen at Wembley 86. It was then that he knew what he wanted to do and started saving money for his 1st electric guitar. Later that year Jamie bought a 2nd hand Hondo II Les Paul copy and the same year, commercial hard rock exploded on to the scene with Europe and Bon Jovi taking the christmas number 1 + number 2 spots in the UK charts. Jamie then became obsessed with the rock music of the time, buying albums by bands such as Whitesnake, Cinderella, Aerosmith, Van Halen, Extreme, Motley Crue, Journey, Foreigner, Toto, Def Leppard etc... With a voracious appetite for music he then discovered the legendary 70's bands like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin Thin Lizzy and Rainbow.
He joined his 1st band at school as singer and rhythm guitarist. The band became known as Aviator and wrote many songs, recorded a demo but only played 1 gig. Whilst with Aviator, Jamie had his 1st taste of playing bass guitar when the bassist didn't show up for a rehearsal, so Jamie switched and really took to the 4 string. When Aviator split, Jamie bought a 2nd hand Aria Pro II bass and went through a series of local bands, the most notable of which was The Brown Bottle Band, a 4 piece hard rocking blues band and then Faith Of Merchants who had a terrific commercial rock sound, a Bon-Jovi influenced image and great original melodic songs. Unfortunately the emergence of grunge killed off bands like Faith Of Merchants who suddenly became the least fashionable band on the planet.
Jamie then moved into playing covers in club bands to earn a living (though for a while he did also front his own original band, Temple Of Groove.) He was fortunate enough to perform in some of the most respected bands in the South Yorkshire area like Guns ‘n’ Oatcakes, Heroes, Gillam, Touch And Go, Strange Frontier, Rockoustic, Rocktastik, Plan B and Frite Nite and made a name for himself as one of Sheffield's top go-to bassists. During this period, he gained a massive amount of live gigging experience and no small amount of studio experience. He even learned how to operate a studio at Sheffield’s Cage Studios. During the 90's there were quite a few 70's Glam Rock covers bands doing the rounds and Jamie found himself playing in a number of such bands, revisiting the songs from his childhood, playing night after night in platform boots, make-up and ridiculous outfits and was frequently called upon to sing the T. Rex material - as his voice is somewhat reminiscent of Marc Bolan's.
In 2002 Jamie received a telephone call from Dez Bailey, asking him to join Bailey's Comet. The very Thin Lizzy influenced band had just released an album called Judgement Day and were about to embark on a tour - in 6 days! Jamie agreed and learnt the set in time, replacing one of his heroes - Fasker Johnson of Saxon fame. The band also featured Tony Martin of Black Sabbath on lead vocals. The band toured and though a relative unknown performing in a bigger league, Jamie received great write-ups in the press. When the tour ended, Jamie returned to playing local clubs for a living until he received a call from Tony Martin, asking him to go and play in his solo band in support of his album "Scream." The band took Jamie all over the world and he played to audiences of as many as 15,000 people. Whilst working with Tony, not only did Jamie put out some solo releases such as the critically acclaimed though poor selling instrumental album, "Return To Bass," and the, "Tunes From The Mothership EP," but also filled up the diary with solo gigs, playing bass for Zenon, Let There Be Rock, Little Big Noise, Ze-Suicide, Oskura, Eaglesque, Do Wah Diddy and EPIC, stand-in work with many different bands, ANTHEM, songwriting with Zal Cleminson from The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, playing guitar for 60’s legend Dave Berry (The Crying Game) and fronting his own Glam Rock band - Glamtastik.
Late 2011, Jamie was asked to join Raven Lord, a hand-picked international heavy metal supergroup. Their debut album, “Descent To The Underworld,” was released 1st Feb 2013 on Mausoleum Records to rave reviews in the metal press. Unfortunately, in April 2013 Jamie was to join the revolving door of musicians problem that blighted the band from its inception. He cited "creative differences" as the reason for his departure.
2013 saw Jamie taking a little detour into the blues scene - touring Holland with EarlyMac drummer, Peter Tallent and Paddy Maguire in September - and then working with the John Verity Band in October and The Gav Coulson Group in November. These jobs were polar opposite in nature from the other regular job he was undertaking at the time, playing guitar and bass for The Sharon Lewis Band. In February 2014, Jamie left The Sharon Lewis Band to focus on a new band called Uncle Stan with Terry Freeborn and Steve Back, with whom he had played in Eaglesque, and old school friend Wayne Miles - who had been in Aviator and Faith Of Merchants with Jamie. Then, after playing only one gig, Jamie revealed Uncle Stan would not be continuing, but refused to discuss why. 26th to 30th of March Jamie returned to Holland with Paddy Maguire and Peter Tallent and this time they took Jenna Hooson along as special guest. 4th April 2014, 3 days after the band returned to the U.K. Jamie was back on stage filling in on bass with THOR - Gods Of Rock, as regular bassman Mike Kaperys had a prior commitment gigging with Metropolis. Jamie then joined The Paddy Maguire Band as a full time member alongside Sean Fitzpatrick (ex-Gerry And The Pacemakers,) straight away embarking on short tours taking in blues festivals and numerous dates in Scotland and the north of England. His growing reputation as super-dep would then see him taking bookings throughout spring from bands like The John Verity Band, The Zenon Band, THOR, The Kahunas, Emerald, Guitar Heroes, Full Tilt UK and The Marcus Lazarus Band and recording sessions for a theatre show and a film soundtrack. In July 2014, Swear Box appeared - a side project for all concerned. Swear Box is essentially a jam band, covering a wide variety of material in a loose, off-the-cuff fashion. Jamie runs the band and chooses the line-up for each gig from a pool of amazing musicians. In late July, Jamie became an endorsee for Xvive Pedals, adding to the list of distinguished brand names he had already put his name to - Hartke Amplification, Fret-King Guitars And Basses, Vintage Guitars And Basses, SNARK Tuners, Rotosound Strings and Danelectro Cool Cat Pedals. He would then go on to work with Xvive on a design for a signature bass compressor pedal - The B1 Bass Squeezer, make YouTube demo videos for them and test-run their new Auto Wah pedal.
2015 proved to be Jamie's busiest year to date, including over 200 live dates with various bands, and would also see "Supergroup" emerge - which is a version of Swear Box aimed particularly at clubs and corporate venues. Swear Box though, the more rough and ready version of the band continued to go from strength to strength and on 14th August 2015, the band would be joined on stage by Graham Oliver of Saxon for several songs at Mexborough Imperial. On 12th September 2015, Jamie stood in on bass for Steve Dawson with Oliver/Dawson Saxon with only one and a half days notice at the sold-out Whitwell Music Festival. As a result of this very successful "dep" job, Jamie was asked to join Graham Oliver's side project - Oliver's Army. The band would perform early, classic Saxon hits and made their acclaimed debut at Giants Of Rock Festival, Jan 2016.
In early 2016, The Paddy Maguire Band returned to being a 3 piece blues rock outfit, but would continue to work with Jenna Hooson Maguire, backing her in The Jenna Hooson Band. The 2 bands needed to exist as 2 seperate entities, each with a very strong identity. In March 2016, John Verity released the album, "My Religion," featuring Jamie on bass on some tracks. Also in March, Jamie took out an acoustic version of Swear Box for the very first time (also featuring Tom Killner and Wayne Miles) to an astonishingly enthusiastic response from their first ever audience. As 2016 progressed, so would the acoustic gigs - the extra dates meaning that by the end of the year Jamie had performed over 200 live gigs.
2017 began with a very full date sheet already for the year, despite the consistent decline in live venues and their understandable reluctance to book too far ahead. In March, Gav Coulson, Tim Gillespie and Jamie decided they would work on a project together called Iridium 77. Iridium 77 was designed to perform an eclectic set of challenging material at guitar shows. To the band's suprise, they found themselves being booked by various venues to excellent audience reactions. Acoustic gigs became more and more commonplace for Swear Box in 2017 and Jamie even ventured out as an acoustic solo artist. Jamie's interest in acoustic music led to him experimenting with Cigar Box Guitars, Ukulele, acoustic slide/dobro in various tunings - and endorsement deals with Screaming Skull Guitars and Urchin Percussion.
The 2018 diary was almost full before the year even began, with Swear Box, The Paddy Maguire Band, The John Verity Band and Iridium 77 all being in great demand. On his birthday, 2nd Feb (Groundhog Day,) Jamie released, "Hippiebilly Boogie," a download only single - an instrumental track showcasing the Screaming Skull Cigar Box Guitar. Then on 4th June 2018, Jamie relased another download only single, this time an acoustic based vocal track, "The Centre Of The Universe." In August 2018, Swear Box had Ash Inhester sing lead vocals at The Kings Head, Huddersfield. Ash had stepped in at the last minute with no rehearsal and the gig was a huge success. The band enjoyed the gig so much that they asked Ash to join them again the following weekend at The Milestone. Same lineup, same result - so much so that Jamie asked the lineup of Simon Freeston, Ash Inhester and Harris Nixon to become the new version of Supergroup, and to be equal partners with him in that band. In September 2018 Jamie became an endorsee for the brand new bass guitar cabinets from Scott Dixon.
The hard work Jamie put in to his acoustic gigs in 2018 really paid off and as 2019 began, the diary already had many solo gigs booked. 27.04.19. Jamie released "It's All Good," an eclectic album featuring 9 vocal tracks and 3 instrumentals. He began to include acoustic versions of the new tracks in his solo performances. Encouraged by the album's success, 2 non-album singles were released in August and September, "5 Minutes Of Happiness," and, "When The Blues Comes To Town." Deciding to move forward releasing mostly vocal tracks, Jamie looked for another outlet for his instrumental compositions. He began Starbug Studio Productions, a project dedicated solely to producing instrumental material for TV, video games, film and advertising. More new endorsement deals came along too - Pilgrim mandolins and banjos, Kinsman acoustic amplifiers and Floyd Rose Audio. In November 2019 Paddy and Jenna Maguire announced that they would soon rebrand - no longer working as The Paddy Maguire Band or The Jenna Hooson Band, but moving forward as Hooson Maguire - focussing on progressing their original material. November also saw Jamie unveil The Sheffield Songwriters Alliance - an organisation intent on organising original artist gigs in Sheffield, bringing original music to the right audience.
2020 sees Jamie become a G7th Capo artist and pick up an endorsement with Killner straps. He has been booked to perform with Starman and Gerry Leonard (David Bowie Guitarist,) John Verity, and to represent JHS at The UK Bass Guitar Show, as well as numerous blues festivals with Hooson Maguire and the usual pubs, clubs, festivals and private parties with Supergroup, Swear Box, Iridium 77 and solo. His diary is already almost full, he has solo material ready for release and is putting a lot of time into giving his YouTube channel a boost.
2020 became lockdown year. With almost all his work gone, Jamie took to YouTube, making videos about mobile music production, demonstrating gear, teaching bass etc.. and also set up a Patreon account where for a small amount each month, Patrons have access to content unavailable anywhere else. In early 2021, he also started live streaming on YouTube.
Jamie has his own teaching business called “The Academy Of Rock,” where students can learn guitar, bass, keyboards, singing, recording techniques etc… etc…, he also teaches bass 1 to 1 on Skype, he has his own studio, “Starbug Studio,” and continues to record solo material.
