The Passenger

Melvin James is a multi-talented rock newcomer from Minneapolis who presents his debut album The Passenger. Melvin James was produced together with one of the most renowned producers of the US scene: Bill Szymczyk, best known for his success with the Eagles albums. MELVIN JAMES' Passenger music is based on down-to-earth sixties rock, transposed with today's consciousness and made to sound modern but not cold thanks to Bill Szymczyk's feeling for natural sound. Melvin was born in Iowa, and music occupied him from his youth, although he had to fight hard against his small-town environment to become a rock'n'roller. "Back in Des Moines, I was always a bad boy to all the neighbors," Melvin recounts, "I'd ride my motorbike through the front yard when I went to pick up my girlfriend, and the parents would run after me, scolding. Respect was a foreign word to me then.... " Rock music, however, he took seriously: "As a teenager I was always playing in bands. Mott The Hoople, David Bowie, the whole glitter thing fascinated me. I was experimenting with recording techniques long before I'd seen the inside of a real studio." At sixteen, Melvin James recorded his first songs with older friends in their studio before moving to Minneapolis and forming the Crash Street Kids. In 1983 they released an album which received a glowing review in Rolling Stone After the split of the band, Melvin James continued on his own, hitting the record labels with demos and playing regularly with new people on the Minneapolis club scene. On the Passenger album some of these demos were used, Melvin James played a lot of instruments himself for his album, supported by class drummer Joe Vitale (Joe Walsh among others). "I sing in my lyrics about things I've really experienced. My rebel attitude, the struggle and disappointments are in there, love and pain, but also other sides of life."