'Behind The Mic - July 06' by Sara Bee

Born and raised in New York City, Jes Brieden realised, from a young age, that singing was her passion. While enrolled in Art school, her truly unique vocal style and range was discovered. By the age of 16, she was making her first vocal recordings as a reference vocalist and a back up singer for several artists with major recording labels. Jes plays keyboard, guitar and has performed live with bands and DJs all over the world. It is her unique voice that has led her to collaborate with many producers, with standout tracks including As The Rush Comes with Gabriel and Dresden (as the band 'Motorcycle'), Talk like a stranger with Deepsky and Everything with you with D:Fuse.

Set to release her debut artist album 'Disconnect' later in the year, I hope you all enjoy the latest Behind the Mic interview and gain some insight about one of the dance industry's brightest stars.

You are best known as an artist from your work with Motorcycle, Deepsky and Solar Stone. Was creating music for the underground dance scene something you set out to consciously peruse, or was it something that happened more by chance and circumstance-

I've always been making music. Writing and singing have just been a way of life for me since I was little. I come from a musical mother. I started in pop/dance music and then moved to LA and got my guitar out, started playing my piano, got a band together and started gigging all around. I was also working in a studio in LA. I started writing songs with Mike Olson who also worked there. He was very into trance at the time and we ended up writing a song called Starchildren. It was during the time when MP3.com was big and you could actually make money from that site. It became a sort of cult underground trance hit and we signed it and Paul Van Dyk included it on his 'Politics of Dancing' CD. A lot of DJs were spinning it as well and Noel Sanger remixed it. I still get e-mails to this day about it. One DJ in particular sought me out. D:Fuse and I ended up writing Everything With You and Living The Dream. We worked with Scott G from Deepsky on those tunes and then I wrote Ghost and Talk Like A Stranger with them. I was at a gig with D:Fuse and I met Dave Dresden and the next weekend was working with Dave and Josh in San Francisco and Motorcycle began! We wrote As The Rush Comes during that weekend and the rest is history. It's funny, though, because I began in dance music and went in many different directions yet I have come full circle. So I guess it was meant to be.

You are currently working on your own solo album as JES. What can listeners expect from your new album-

Well it's going to be a mix of things. I'll be putting some mid-tempo songs on it that will be remixed into dance songs as well as some great, edgy, faster tunes. I write so many different kinds of songs, so it's been quite a difficult task picking out the ones I want and narrowing it down - I have so many favourites. We call it 'Rocktronica'! It is defiantly edgy and electronic influenced. I worked on some of the songs with Steve Sidelnyk who has worked with Bjork, Massive Attack and The Verve so it has some of those flavours as well as Sean Speuler who worked with William Orbit. I'm calling it 'Disconnect' and it's been a while in the making! I'm very excited about it, because I want to show a lot of different sides to my fans. I actually have been doing some of the songs in my shows for a while. I am warming up the crowds to all the new songs and they already know the words to some so that always a great sign.

Will you be touring to promote the album- How important is performing live to you as an artist-

Yes, well I've never really stopped touring or performing. I really miss something in the music when I can't get out and share it, performing the songs for people is what keeps them alive. I think< Tags

• red bee
• Jes Brieden
• behind the mic