Jay Smith

I’ve been playing music since an early age and started playing the violin when I was five. That was the first time I was on stage as well with my grandfather who was an entertainer. Then I found the guitar and I found my passion.
I started a band and did mostly covers before I developed into writing my own music. I've been in a band since I was thirteen and recorded my first demo then.
I was in a band called Ekai’s gate, then we started the band El Mago. We were a grunge band who ended up a metal band. After a while, since I didn’t play the guitar in that band I wanted to start playing again and go back to regular rock n’ roll like when we started out. So that’s where Von Benzo was hatched. The story goes we met this guy at a party named Lorenzo von Benzo, so we stole the name. All the way up until I was asked to be involved in a certain TV-program, I was still playing with the same guys I was playing with since I was thirteen.
After winning Idol we recorded our second album with Von Benzo. Jay Smith and The Reservoir Dogs followed for my full album King Of Man.
Right now I’m playing around with an acoustic sound, which fits me better when I'm on tour. I decided that I wanted to go a different way and at least try to play the blues and country. I came up with the idea of having it sound more like what I do when I play live, mostly acoustic performed. My record label paired me up with Mattias Tell and so far we've recorded eight singles and my latest album Young Guns. /Jay