ON THE RISE
For Grammy nominated rocker Ja’son Manwill, the competition to be America’s Next Top Hitmaker is the latest step in a career as a performer, songwriter and producer.
Between steps were some challenges that could have caused him to surrender to the emotion in the title of his Grammy nominated single “Despair.”
Instead, he is now a quarterfinalist in the Hitmaker competition, which puts him among the top 1 percent of contestants.
He wants fans to know this about him: “I have been through so much in such a short period of time that I appreciate life to the fullest, and I want to make sure every time a fan comes to my show, they get the best show they’ve ever seen. I leave everything on the stage.”
His specialty is rock, his own and his take on rock classics. He has a voice built for the job and the guitar work to go with it.
His first instrument was the piano, and from there he progressed to the point where he now plays that and guitar, drums, bass, cello and 24 other orchestral instruments.
“When I was growing up, I played piano, then from piano I learned bass, and then from bass I learned guitar.”
His career to date has had more twists and turns than a dirt road in the Rockies. In the beginning, he played in Chicago area cover bands. In 1995, he wrote “Despair,” the song that eventually got him a Grammy nomination. That’s a story, too.
He was in a relationship, a serious one involving a ring, but one day she gave him the ring back. Sort of.
“Basically, I got the ring back not from her but her mother, and the day I found out was the same night that I watched The Wedding Singer and Adam Sandler’s song about Linda. Immediately after I watched that movie, I went to my bedroom and started writing ‘Despair.’”
At the time, he said, he was listening to Green Day and Blink 182, so the music is “an homage to them.” The vocals were inspired by the Sex Pistols.
“At first it was really, really dark, and it evolved from there.”
About that same time, someone close to him told him that he had no talent and no voice and he took it to heart.
“Basically, for 12 years I stopped doing what I loved because someone close to me told me that I wasn’t good enough.”
During those years, he made a living traveling and speaking and doing training seminars.
“I was a speaker and trainer traveling all over the world, to three continents, and I was on some of the top stages of the planet.”
But after his day job came music.
“At night, I would go to the hotel lobby and I’d say, ‘Hey, where’s a karaoke bar? Where’s an open mic bar?’ And I would go there and perform.”
Gradually he regained his passion and drive for music.
“Every time I went somewhere, that’s what I was doing.”
One night in Wisconsin, he was playing Led Zeppelin’s “All My Love,” and someone came up to him and said, “Hey, would you like to be in our band?”
“Like, it was just that simple.”
That was 2007. Two years into that renaissance and he was back, about to make it big. He had an interview scheduled on MTV and then, in a freak accident, he suffered a traumatic brain injury when he raised up while getting cilantro out of the refrigerator and hit his head on the freezer.
The blow struck a soft spot on the back of his head. “I was 2 pounds, 14 ounces when I was born, and that soft spot on the back of your head, which normally grows and fills in, did not do that for me.”
Three days later he was in an ICU, experiencing a hundred seizures an hour. That was his life for years.
In the 2014-15, period, he said, “I decided that I was going to be the cause versus the effect of my environment and, no matter what, I was going to get back on the stage again because that’s what I love doing.”
He describes that time as “tough.” He hadn’t played any instrument for years, but he persevered and, eventually, “I left everything and went to Paris, France. I played with people from ‘The Voice,’ and I was playing every day in the squares with them. I got my passion back to play again.”
Back in the states, he continued performing at karaoke and open mic bars, wrote the music for Ashley Garland’s award-winning song “Mother,” from the film Nawal the Jewel, finally produced “Despair” and was nominated for a Grammy.
Since 2022, he said, “I’ve been taking my music to a whole ’nother level,” performing at karaokes and open mics.
In addition to his appearance on “Hitmaker,” he is getting ready to put out some music.
A pair of songs is coming out in October: “It Bites Like a Serpent,” “which is like a Doors-slash-Ozzy Osbourne type of song,” and “Fright and the Fear,” “a Metallica inspired riff with melodic things that you’ve never heard.”
Before then he has a three-track EP he will release as soon as he gets it back from production. “Finding Love Again” is an AC/DC-Guns and Rose type of thing.” “Prisoner” is like Guns and Roses with Days Of The New and a “’90s type of feel.”
“And ‘Rise Above It All’ is the true story of a person that was addicted to drugs for 40 years, got off them, started helping other people get off them, and he wanted me to tell his story.” It has some Led Zeppelin vibes and it also has “this Elton John, Billy Joel type of flair.”
Every song he does, he said, is different.
Connect to Ja’son Manwill on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts, and cast a FREE vote for Ja’son to be featured in Rolling Stone Magazine this September at https://tophitmaker.org/2024/ja-39-son-manwill.
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ON THE RISE
Blossoms caught up with NME to discuss competing with The Beatles and Johnny Marr for this week’s Number One album. With ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ in the running, the band also explained why making things themselves remains such an important part of their work as AI becomes more common.
The Stockport group put out their sixth album last Friday, October 2. By the midweek update, it was sitting at Number Two, between The Beatles’ expanded edition of ‘Rubber Soul’ and Johnny Marr’s latest solo album, ‘The Age Of Everything’.
“It’s mad, to be honest,” singer Tom Ogden said to NME about the chart race. “Liverpool on one side, Manchester on the other and Stockport in the middle. If you’d told us this 10 years ago, when we were releasing our debut, I wouldn’t have believed you. But I mean, we’re in good company aren’t we?”
Discussing the stories behind the album, Ogden described ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ as “about being married and all the everyday stuff that comes with it”. He married Katie Donovan, the sister of Blossoms drummer Joe, in 2021. Married life has since given him a new appreciation for what he describes as “the extraordinary ordinary”.
“Saying the wrong thing in an argument, losing your wife’s no claims bonus, crying at the Kardashians, it’s all in there,” he explained. “The album is named after Stockport Town Hall, which everyone round where we live calls the Wedding Cake, and it’s where I got married, so it couldn’t be much closer to home.
“The last album [‘Gary’, 2024] had a song about a stolen fibreglass gorilla, which everyone loved, and that gave us the confidence to bring the same playfulness to this one, just with more personal subject matter this time.”
Alongside tracks that came out of writing sessions with Declan McKenna in a hot tub, the album reflects the band’s desire to stay involved in every part of the creative process.
“It started with the recording,” Ogden explained. “We made the album with Shawn Lee, playing live straight to tape, and once you’ve done it that way you can’t really go and fake everything else. We sat down as a band and picked the colour palette, and everything visual followed from that. We had body scans taken of ourselves and cake toppers of the five of us 3D printed, put them on a real cake and photographed it. I’ve directed and edited the videos, and the sets are all built by hand, no green screen. For the pop-up shop on launch weekend, a local artist hand-painted the album cover for the sign outside.
“It’s more work, but you end up with a world that’s yours, and I think people can tell when a band’s had its hands on everything.”
With AI tools and digital effects becoming increasingly widespread, that approach feels particularly relevant. For Blossoms, though, the motivation is simple: “the fun is in the making”.
“Tape doesn’t let you cheat and neither does a real cake,” Ogden said. “If a set’s a bit wonky, it’s because one of us or our mates built it. I think the more stuff gets generated, the more people want to know a human being actually did it. We’ve been in this band together for over 10 years, five lads from Stockport, and that isn’t something you can ‘prompt’.”
Maya Jama also appeared in the video for the album’s first single, ‘Meet Me In Love’. Her appearance came shortly before the UK launch of Celebrity Traitors, where she took on the role of a traitor alongside a cast that included Richard E Grant and James Acaster.
“She was brilliant,” Ogden recalled of working with Jama. “We’d met her at the MTV EMAs in Manchester a couple of years ago, so we took a chance and sent her a DM …and she said yes. Next thing she’s in a theatre in Cheadle miming my vocals while a load of people dressed as me serenade her. She got the idea straight away and was a proper laugh about it.”
The conversation then turned to whether he thought Jama could take home the win on Celebrity Traitors.
Ogden joked: “As for Traitors, she spent a whole day pretending to sing my song and I almost believed her, so I’d say she’s got every chance.”
Fans can listen to ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ now. In November, Blossoms head out on a UK arena tour with The Royston Club. Tickets and further details are available here.
Before the tour begins, the group is also scheduled to appear on SNL UK on Saturday, October 24.
