Adam Jones from Action Talent drinks with Vernon Kay!

Action Talent International is a live agency, representing music artists, DJs and media talent. Our roster includes award winning touring acts and national radio talent. Adam Jones took time out to give us a lowdown of how he got into music and DJ’ing.

“I started out in music many moons ago (way back in 1999 to be exact) Tired of playing in bad bands I decided to start DJing and caught onto the tidal wave that become (for me) the Tidy Era!!! I was hooked on Hard House and in 2001 set up my first night ‘Bitchin’ back home in North Wales.

After some awesome night with the ‘Bitchin’ guys (and girls) I packed up my decks and headed to University in Leicester to study music and media. As my musical tastes started to change (nothing would ever beat the Orange Lisa Lashes Euphoria album for me!!!) I started playing out in the big bad city and held a few residencies about town, the main one being the old DeMontfort University Student Union! Whilst palying here I got spotted by an agent and my work load tripled! I had the fortunate position whilst at Uni of being able to live on DJing and not your usual part time slave labour.

Once I graduated from Uni I was offered a job by my agency to go and work in their HQ in Reading. At first I turned them down but then so did the other candidate for the job so they offered me more money (I wouldnt recommend this tactic for anyone else negotiating a job in the current climate, let alone the music business lol)

So…in September 2004 I moved to Reading and found myself managing the god of garage DJ EZ which was an eye opener to say the least! I had to learn about Garage music very quickly and also how to deal with some of the most dodgy promoters I’ve ever come across!

During this time I also started working with the Radio 1 DJ’s such as Scott Mills and Vernon Kay, becoming Vernon’s DJ/Drinking companion for most of his gigs (for the record he’s a really top bloke) as well as working on my own productions in my little bedsit/studio…..

April 2005 is a month that I will always remember as it was when my landlord at the time (Si Paul) came in and said those immortal words ‘I loved the track you did, I think we could have a hit!’ He was referring to a track I had done that sampled the 80’s hit ‘Man In Motion (St Elmo’s Fire) by John Parr. I had called the track New Horizon and had been playing it out around the clubs as a cheeky bootleg. Gut Records (R.I.P) signed the track and after numerous headaches in getting it licensed and John Parr re-vocaling the track it was finally released in June 2006. The track did well considering it was ‘overlooked’ by Radio 1 (what do they know about music, eh?) achieving a number 1 on the MTV dance chart and a modest 42 in the nationals (and more importantly I got to tell all my family and friends that I had a record out, that was a major ‘to-do’ off my list of life achievements haha)

I spent another year in the industry after this but became disillusioned with the business and decided that I needed to take a different direction with my life. I quit the business in May 2007 and took a job in recruitment (DONT EVER DO THIS! RECRUITMENT SUCKS BALLS, AS DO A LOT OF THE PEOPLE THAT WORK IN IT) Needless to say I left that after a brief period.

The day I quit was the start of my return to this wonderful business, As I was telling my boss that I was going my phone rang and I was offered a job on the road doing some tour work (talk about good timing) and so I was off!

In November 2007, Whilst out on the road I was head hunted (literally) by Action Talent (International) and I have been an agent here ever since. You can check out my roster at www.actiontalent.co.uk.

I still DJ all the time in various places and have a few new nights planned for 2009 as well as some HUGE projects at work!

Good Times!!!! ;-)”

Tags: action talent, adam jones, DJ EZ, Radio 1, Scot Mills, Vernon Kay