He's played with Bill Wyman from the Rolling Stones, he taught Coldplay’s lead guitarist and he has worked on top chart albums.
Who is he? Jan Beck and he has now brought his musical expertise to Copeland.
Living in the Ennerdale area, the 41-year-old professional musician has come to work on a new album, go out on tour and offer tuition locally. Jan is multi-talented – he is a specialist guitarist, drummer and saxophone player.He has worked in Sweden and in this country and is now a session musician, primarily in jazz. He recently moved to Cumbria where he met Clare Messenger, who is also involved in the business JBM-Studios. Jan started drumming when he was 22 years old and never looked back. He turned professional at the age of 24.
Since then he has built up an extremely impressive CV but remains surprisingly modest. “I played in the late eighties with Bill Wyman, I have worked with Tina Charles and The Relatives,” he told me. “I also write drum programmes and did a lot of work for Will Young’s first album as well as a bit on Rachel Stevens’ Funkydory album.”
Jonny Buckland, guitarist with Coldplay, went to Jan for lessons from the age of 13. He taught him guitar, bass and drums.
“I knew him as a kid, he came to lessons when I was in North Wales,” said Jan.
And he worked with him until he hit the big time with the band – or so he thought. “He brought the band’s first EP to me and I said you won’t get very far with this – technically it wasn’t very well recorded.”
Jonny wrote some of the album at Jan’s studio in Wales. Jan taught the band 26 Feet and to name drop further he has worked with John Squire, of The Stone Roses and with Dave Goodman, of Sex Pistols fame.
Jan came to Ennerdale with a view to take six months out to practice and “re-invent” himself. He rented a house and then met Clare, who has lived in the area for the past six years. “I plan to go on tour this year with an album as a one-man-show. I will start writing in the next few weeks.”
Jan will also be teaching and passing on his expertise to beginners through to professionals. He has a studio and teaching room as well as a practice room, where, for example, drummers can go and practice with headphones and click tracks. “Drummers are notoriously difficult musicians because they can’t practise anywhere – but they can come here,” he said.
Source: http://www.whitehaven-news.co.uk
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