Over the course of the next few years, work here brought them into contact with the likes of George Martin, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Mark Knopfler, Yes, and Michael Kamen, but by the late '80s the world and his brother had acquired MIDI gear, and the novelty of just using Air's Studio 5 had worn off. Together with Dave Harries, Malcolm Aitken and John Goldstraw, they set about designing and building the MIDI room - Studio 5 - at Air. In 1985 they sold the studio in Canada and returned to the UK armed with their Fairlight. Having taken one look at the vibrant London scene, the pair decided that this was where they wanted to be. Hereafter, the business really began to take off, and when, in 1984, JJ and Dee were asked by EMI to produce an album for a new band called Rational Youth, they came to London to mix it at the famous Air Studios. Yet during this period JJ also gained some recording experience demo'ing songs at ATV and working as a tape-op at Toronto Sound Studios in the late '70s, this provided him with the inspiration to build his own studio with musician friend Dee Long.īuying an old farmhouse with a large barn in Buttonville, a suburb North of Toronto, they installed a 16-channel console and a Fairlight, and cornered the local demo market before upgrading to 24-track when Bob Ezrin came in to produce Alice Cooper's Dada album. This led to a couple of fairly fruitless stints as a staff writer both there and at CBS, coinciding with equally unrewarding results from his participation with a number of bands. Nevertheless, several years after his 1963 emigration to Toronto, Canada, 'JJ' had graduated to playing bass guitar and composing material for assorted bands, and in 1974 one of his songs landed him a publishing deal with ATV Music. "For my first piano lesson I was given a piece to learn, and I just went away and re-wrote it!" Duran Duran with producer 'JJ' Jones (right).īorn in London in 1957 before moving with his family to Jamaica in '59, John Jones cut his musical teeth playing the piano when he was just three years old a couple of years later, the precocious kid had composed his first minuet.
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