I'm originally from southwest Louisiana, although you'd never know by my accent. I've performed drum n bass, breaks, punk, hiphop, and techno in Houston, Dallas, Galveston, New Orleans, Kansas City, St Louis, and now NYC. I have a very broad range of influences, and styles in all the music that I produce. I enjoy music with a lot of energy behind it, also stuff that has a message and a point.

I'm a great fan of satire, irony, and offensive comedy. I dance for loading zone announcements. I like italian and mexican food. Oh, and chicken wings, lol. If I watch TV at all, it's documentaries, stand-up, or cartoons. I'm a High Functioning Autistic, which for those who know me, is vaguely ironic.

BIO:
While the drum n bass world scrambles for new influences, one artist remains constant in the experimental quality of his sets, Jay Phantom. I draw from a lot of old theory, classical, jazz, rock 'n roll, hip-hop. But I don't really worry about keeping things fresh in the scene, he says, "I write stuff that I want to hear; stuff I'd like to groove to. Every song has a flow to it and establishes itself early in the song's creation. I just follow it and guide it into something I would like to hear on big fat speakers."

While Jay experimented with drum 'n bass early on, it was his fateful meeting with a group of St. Louis MCs while working at a mall that began his musical quest. "I didn't know anyone, but these kids I worked with went to underground hip-hop parties in the area. I'd already been producing drum 'n bass for a few years, but with no market. I didn't know anyone in the scene", Jay explains of his past. "I took some of my breaks and slowed them down, and these kids liked it. MCs started asking me for tracks to rap on at shows. I just began producing pure hip-hop after that, and people dug that too."

After working with a local hip-hop producer, Jay met Eyecon upon the premise that their styles matched. "We had a lot of the same influences, him lyrically and mine musically. So we just started rockin' shit!" Jay says on this momentous meeting.

While Jay has various projects spanning the electroclash, drum 'n bass and hip-hop genres, his studio process remains constant. "It all comes in waves. It usually starts with drums, playing around with loops, etc. Something clicks once I get two or three layers into the drums, and it makes me smile, getting me excited about the possibility ahead. Then it's on to the bassline. The bassline I come up with at this point tends to define the mood of the song. The instruments and cadence I create defines it," Jay says on his studio sequence. "My current overall mood guides the flow of the bassline. That's why my songs vary when it comes to feel and intent."

Jay's innovative music had to get heard by a crowd. That's the only way to expose an artist to the masses. And it was a message on the cult website, Myspace that gave him the chance he was looking for. "I got a message from a promoter asking me if I wanted to perform at a local venue with a few other electronic acts, and though I had experimented with Live PA work, I had never actually done it. I accepted the offer," He says on his first gig. "On the night of the show, I had a friend and hip-hop DJ, The Flux Capacitor, with me. He was on the scratches while I did the live PA. I was nervous as hell, and I didn't 'get down' very much because I was I was so intent on staring at my screen and making sure I made no wrong moves. Needless to say, the music was cool, and the stage presence sucked. It took me a few months to figure out, but once I was able to more comfortably rock shit, my crowds became more responsive."

At the show, Jay met Polarized Mind, as well as a few other people that were critical to getting him into the music scene and, by that spring, he was getting booked every weekend, sometimes having two shows in one night. In addition, he has two releases out, 'Numbers Not People' (with Polarized Mind) and 'Visual Contact Volume One & Two' (with Eyecon).

Jay is currently focusing most of his energy on a move to New York City and self-promotion, but has many experimental tunes in the pipeline hitting every genre from speed metal to various forms of drum 'n bass to a breaks project his eight year-old daughter is working with him on. A punk/drum 'n bass project is also in the works for this year.