Mark Aaron James
London, UK      Pop / Acoustic / Singer/songwriter
    • Songs
    • This Song Would Be Better
    • Ecstacy and Dance Music
    • Kleptomaniac Girlfriend
    • Somewhere Over PA
    • Merry Christmas Baby, Happy Ne...
    • In the Yard
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Support the brand that supports Mark Aaron James
Sponsored Songs
Status Is playing regularly in London, Mondays in Angel, Tuesdays in Battersea and Saturdays in Oval. Come see one of the UK shows and check the calendar for U.S. and European dates.

Press

Artist Info

Members: Mark Aaron James- Guitars and everything else he can get his hands on.
You can also find us at: Myspace_16x16 Facebook_16x16 Artist website_16x16 Bebo_16x16
Label: Wider Man

Join the Mailing List

Join the Street Team
Privacy Policy

Bio

"It's my favorite song about a kleptomaniac girlfriend...Aquaman...a plastic bag, I hope it's yours." That is London/New York based singer/songwriter Mark Aaron James introducing a few of his quirky takes on universal themes. It was this take that lead Borders News to label his songs, "Some of the best and most introspective pop music we¹ve heard in years."

Born in California and raised in Cocoa Beach, Florida, Mark Aaron James seemed an unlikely candidate for the Nashville songwriting scene. With a strong pop-rock-alternative background in tow, however, he enrolled in Music City's reputable Vanderbilt University. He soon became a popular fixture among the campus "porch party" circuit that years earlier had supported the Indigo Girls, Ben Folds and Hootie and the Blowfish. Mark soon brought that following into the local songwriter venues where the famous "in the rounds" gave him a new challenge. His reputation had lead to bigger venues and sharing the stage with some of Nashville's hit writers. He came to realize, "If you don't have a song as good as the writer before and after you, then you're just filler. It really provoked me to focus on craft, along with inspiration, to write better, more innovative songs." The inventive results lead to co-writes with some of Nashville's top songsmiths and his compositions being performed by everyone from Jimmy Buffet to the World Peace Choir.

The year following his critically acclaimed indi release, Mr. Wirehead, Mark was awarded Best Local Songwriter and Best Up and Coming Band in the The Nashville Scene's 2000 reader's poll. In the weekly mag, owned by NYC's Village Voice, Mark beat out John Hyatt, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle and several other Nashville luminaries for the award. With the release of his second indi-label CD, Adventures With A Plastic Bag, he repeated the feat in 2001. The title song from that CD went on to make the top 100 songs of the year on Nashville's WRLT Lightening 100, gained airplay on Atlanta's 99X and was added to 126 other CMJ reporting stations, charting in 12 markets.

Despite his success in Nashville, Mark was regularly being reminded that he was a rock singer in a town known for country music. After playing some well received shows in New York's Living Room and being featured on PBS's CD Highway and I-Dig's Rawdio programs, Mark decided it was time to make New York City his home base.

After his move in 2002 he has headlined in venues as varied as the new Living Room, The Bitter End, The Parkside Lounge and the Westbeth Theater. New York's Underground Music Organization (UMO) voted him one of the "Top 14 Singer/songwriters in Greenwich Village," and feature him as the opening track on their annual top 14 CD. With the completion of his CD, Just a Satellite, Mark had his song "June 17th" included in the Dean Cain film, Lost.

Mark has now taken 2 years to perform and record in London. Since his move in January, 2008 he has secured several regular shows throughout London and become the host of the “On Stage” acoustic show at the PRS Venue of the Year, HALO.

About

Mark Aaron James and his band were raised by wild animals for a failed Disney documentary in the early seventies. The project went terribly awry when Swedish bass player, Victor Broden, brutally mauled a cameraman who came between he and his mate. Devastated, and still living among the beavers in the multi-level dam they called home, the band kicked out the original drummer, Frisky Sutcliff, for the better smelling David Burch, from Knoxville, Tennessee. It was during this period that the band began its "boyband" dancing phase. It proved largely unpopular due to the group's choreographer, their adopted father, a sixty pound beaver named Gip. Most of the dances consisted of the four-man band building a reinforcement wall using only their asses. Guitarist Eric Halbig suggested the band try it's new direction, alternative/pop mixed with the bravado of rock & roll classics, after chewing a large redwood into a shiny red Stratocaster without chipping any teeth, (taken as a sign from the Almighty). The band, still scarred by its brush with fame in the documentary, was skeptical. Then they heard that a good, independent band, without any industry contacts, didn't have a chance in hell of getting on corporate radio. Comforted by the promise of obscurity, they formed Mark Aaron James and The Borrowed Souls with the Floridian lead singer and award winning songwriter. When they became the number two music act among the beavers, (trailing just behind a Grateful Dead tribute band made up of three dancing bears and Simon, of the chipmunks, who left due to Alvin's hogging the spotlight), they decided to take their act on the road. They dont bite...*anymore...so come see 'em. *(We are not responsible if you feed or provoke the band in an attempt to test this statement).
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
Loading...
 

 
Advertisement728
 
 
 

Recommended

by ReverbNation
Rob...

Robert Post

Pop / Alternative Indie...

Aalesund, NO

Tim...

Tim Be Told

Pop / blues / soul

Charlottesville, VA

Dav...

David Simnel & The Pi...

Pop / Classical / Folk ...

Southampton/London, UK

 
 

Contests/Events

ReverbNationQuantcast
ReverbNationQuantcast