Features : Ja’son Manwill’s passion for rock takes him to quarterfinals of America’s Next Top Hitmaker

For Grammy nominated rocker Ja’son Manwill, the competition to be America’s Next Top Hitmaker is the latest step in a career as a performer, songwriter and producer.

Between steps were some challenges that could have caused him to surrender to the emotion in the title of his Grammy nominated single “Despair.”

Instead, he is now a quarterfinalist in the Hitmaker competition, which puts him among the top 1 percent of contestants.

He wants fans to know this about him: “I have been through so much in such a short period of time that I appreciate life to the fullest, and I want to make sure every time a fan comes to my show, they get the best show they’ve ever seen. I leave everything on the stage.”

His specialty is rock, his own and his take on rock classics. He has a voice built for the job and the guitar work to go with it.

His first instrument was the piano, and from there he progressed to the point where he now plays that and guitar, drums, bass, cello and 24 other orchestral instruments.

 “When I was growing up, I played piano, then from piano I learned bass, and then from bass I learned guitar.”

His career to date has had more twists and turns than a dirt road in the Rockies. In the beginning, he played in Chicago area cover bands. In 1995, he wrote “Despair,” the song that eventually got him a Grammy nomination. That’s a story, too.

He was in a relationship, a serious one involving a ring, but one day she gave him the ring back. Sort of.

“Basically, I got the ring back not from her but her mother, and the day I found out was the same night that I watched The Wedding Singer and Adam Sandler’s song about Linda. Immediately after I watched that movie, I went to my bedroom and started writing ‘Despair.’”

At the time, he said, he was listening to Green Day and Blink 182, so the music is “an homage to them.” The vocals were inspired by the Sex Pistols.

“At first it was really, really dark, and it evolved from there.”

About that same time, someone close to him told him that he had no talent and no voice and he took it to heart.

“Basically, for 12 years I stopped doing what I loved because someone close to me told me that I wasn’t good enough.”

During those years, he made a living traveling and speaking and doing training seminars.

“I was a speaker and trainer traveling all over the world, to three continents, and I was on some of the top stages of the planet.”

But after his day job came music.

“At night, I would go to the hotel lobby and I’d say, ‘Hey, where’s a karaoke bar? Where’s an open mic bar?’ And I would go there and perform.”

Gradually he regained his passion and drive for music.

“Every time I went somewhere, that’s what I was doing.”

One night in Wisconsin, he was playing Led Zeppelin’s “All My Love,” and someone came up to him and said, “Hey, would you like to be in our band?”

“Like, it was just that simple.”

That was 2007. Two years into that renaissance and he was back, about to make it big. He had an interview scheduled on MTV and then, in a freak accident, he suffered a traumatic brain injury when he raised up while getting cilantro out of the refrigerator and hit his head on the freezer.

The blow struck a soft spot on the back of his head. “I was 2 pounds, 14 ounces when I was born, and that soft spot on the back of your head, which normally grows and fills in, did not do that for me.”

Three days later he was in an ICU, experiencing a hundred seizures an hour. That was his life for years.

In the 2014-15, period, he said, “I decided that I was going to be the cause versus the effect of my environment and, no matter what, I was going to get back on the stage again because that’s what I love doing.”

He describes that time as “tough.” He hadn’t played any instrument for years, but he persevered and, eventually, “I left everything and went to Paris, France. I played with people from ‘The Voice,’ and I was playing every day in the squares with them. I got my passion back to play again.”

Back in the states, he continued performing at karaoke and open mic bars, wrote the music for Ashley Garland’s award-winning song “Mother,” from the film Nawal the Jewel, finally produced “Despair” and was nominated for a Grammy.

Since 2022, he said, “I’ve been taking my music to a whole ’nother level,” performing at karaokes and open mics.

In addition to his appearance on “Hitmaker,” he is getting ready to put out some music.

A pair of songs is coming out in October: “It Bites Like a Serpent,” “which is like a Doors-slash-Ozzy Osbourne type of song,” and “Fright and the Fear,” “a Metallica inspired riff with melodic things that you’ve never heard.”

Before then he has a three-track EP he will release as soon as he gets it back from production. “Finding Love Again” is an AC/DC-Guns and Rose type of thing.” “Prisoner” is like Guns and Roses with Days Of The New and a “’90s type of feel.”

“And ‘Rise Above It All’ is the true story of a person that was addicted to drugs for 40 years, got off them, started helping other people get off them, and he wanted me to tell his story.” It has some Led Zeppelin vibes and it also has “this Elton John, Billy Joel type of flair.”

Every song he does, he said, is different.

Connect to Ja’son Manwill on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts, and cast a FREE vote for Ja’son to be featured in Rolling Stone Magazine this September at https://tophitmaker.org/2024/ja-39-son-manwill.

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