Today we’d like to introduce you to Jay Denton.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Jay. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Growing up in Dallas, TX, and fully immersed as a multi-sport athlete, a music career was about the farthest thing from my mind as a kid. I learned how to play the guitar, like my dad, when I was in middle school, but my focus was more on sports and then global events, which led me to the University of Southern California to study international relations. While music wasn’t my priority, I did however start writing songs pretty early in life, and while my friends were learning covers of alternative, rock, and pop songs, I always wanted to create my own thing.
When I moved to Los Angeles for college, I zeroed in on international security, conflict resolution in the developing world, and humanitarian crises with my studies, but in my off time was either hitting the beach to surf and play volleyball or write songs. I tracked my first album underneath a loft bed in a fraternity house my sophomore year but still didn’t think about music as a career pursuit.
The summer before my senior year, I trained with US Marine Corps at Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Quantico, Virginia, and after graduating from that, I had my whole senior year to decide if I’d accept my commission and join the Corps, or choose a different path. Heavily influenced by the Invisible Children movement, Sam Childers (“The Machine Gun Preacher”), and the film Blood Diamond, I decided not to go the military route and instead try to work in crisis areas internationally that didn’t have a military presence. That took me to India, East Africa, and other areas looking for ways to get involved in the counter human trafficking movement or work with Sam Childers in South Sudan to help in child soldier rescues.
With the conflict resolving in South Sudan and several doors closing to do direct action work in the counter human trafficking world, I found that my guitar and my songwriting were more influential in my travels than anything else. This led me back to Los Angeles and then to Nashville for a few years, where I taught Krav Maga and defensive tactics while starting to finally pursue songwriting as a career.
I worked for over half a year on tour with The Band Perry, teaching them Krav Maga on the road in the US, Europe, and Canada, before returning to LA where I record my debut full album, “Locked”, which released in 2016. The traction from that album allowed me to start building my own studio, ENDURE Studios, in Los Angeles.
My interests were torn between two very different worlds – that of the music and entertainment industry and the world of global conflict resolution – and I always wanted to bring them together eventually. I finally started to do that in 2019 when I traveled back and forth to Beirut, Lebanon to write and record and album with Syrian refugees who were forced to flee their home country. Then returning to the US, I paired up the songs with LA artists to create a global album blending languages, styles, and stories. The full deluxe edition of the album, “For Home”, under the moniker ENDURE, released on August 14th, 2020, and a documentary about the project, “Endure: Lebanon” released on Amazon Prime September 29th, 2020.
Now I’m continuing to write and produce music for multiple artists in LA as well as myself, and am starting to plan the next ENDURE international project in East Africa in 2021. My goal with ENDURE Studios is to create a platform for artists across the world, whether in major cities like LA, NYC, and London or coming straight out of some of the world’s most severe conflict zones, to tell their stories and make music that amplifies their voice across the globe.
Has it been a smooth road?
My path as a songwriter, artist, and producer has been anything but smooth. When I first starting writing with other artists, I teamed up with a singer named Jessica Erin, and after a short two months self-booked tour across the nation in her SUV, we got an offer for a big-budget tour right out of the gate – which sounded like an immediate success story. We moved out of LA to start that tour in TX, and within days of the tour kickoff, the organization that hired us collapsed, and I was broke, jobless and homeless on my parents’ couch trying to figure out the next step.
I rolled into Nashville where I didn’t know anyone and crashed on the couch of my best friend’s high school ex-girlfriend’s fiancé….you may need to read that twice… There I hit wall after wall with my career, lived for a while in an attic type room that didn’t have a bed or a wall – just wood pallets with cardboard stapled to it, and where I couldn’t stand up fully without hitting my head. I remember laying face down on the floor one night praying for any way out of that situation. Three days later, I got a call from the manager for The Band Perry.
Even after working with The Band Perry and moving back to LA, I found myself teaching Krav Maga from 7-10am, then writing during the day, then going back to teach again from 7-10pm to pay the bills while still keeping the ball rolling with my career. At one point, I considered leaving music to join the Navy Seals, and at that crossroad, I decided that if I didn’t quit, the only way I could stay in music was to learn to produce and build my own company – since no others were offering me a deal.
So basically for me, it was years of failing forwards that led me to start my studio, and I had to learn how to do everything from writing, recording, producing, playing every instrument in my tracks, singing, mixing, and mastering myself before things starting moving the right direction. Ironically, now I’m grateful for the years of struggle and long hours because they build a resolve I don’t think I could have gotten any other way.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with ENDURE Studios – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
I believe one thing that sets ENDURE Studios apart as a company is the global element to our mission and our music. The international albums that we make connecting artists from LA and crisis areas across the world is something I’ve never come across elsewhere and really makes us unique. Our vision is to build a platform through music for people across the globe that have endured some of the most difficult circumstances, to show their talents, tell their story, and connect with listeners that would never hear them otherwise.
For me, as a producer, I think what sets me apart is that I’m a songwriter first and foremost, and I love talking with my artists in depth about their story and what they really want to say – then build everything around that foundation. There are definitely producers with more tricks than me and with a more instant radio-catchy style, but I find what makes me most proud is when I write songs that my artists truly feel captures their story and their intention. I also think my stubbornness and my never-quit mentality from training as a fighter makes me stick it out and push to get the most out of every song I write/produce.
Lastly, we’re really working to build a community of artists and creators here and make a space that feels like home to everyone that walks in the doors of the studio. I find that by creating that level of comfort in the space, we can dig into the deepest levels of vulnerability – which I truly believe is where you find the best music.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
LA is one of the most international, diverse, and creative cities in the world. The fact that you can go to different parts of the city and be completely immersed in a different culture is something that constantly inspires me. From the food to the different backgrounds of people, the different types of career paths, to the unique ideas that come out of LA, that diversity is what drew me here in the first place, and is why I moved back and plan to stay.
My least favorite thing….parking is definitely up there. I’ve been able to beat some of the traffic issues with my motorcycle, but not being able to park and not having a very good city-wide public transit system makes getting to the other side of LA a massive pain. Also, I do think LA can sometimes get a fairly toxic and judgmental elitism, where we think we can tell the rest of the world how it’s supposed to think. I think that’s the flip side of being one of the most influential cities in the world.
Pricing:
- Endure: Lebanon Documentary – FREE for Amazon Prime users through the end of October
- ENDURE album “For Home” – $9.99 on iTunes
- ENDURE T-Shirts and Giving Keys – $25/Shirt, $50/Shirt+ENDURE Key
Contact Info:
- Website: www.endurestudios.org
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @endure_studios
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theendurestudios
- Other: https://www.amazon.com/Endure-Lebanon-Jay-Denton/dp/B08DRYL8SG
Image Credit:
Jake Green, Devon Feldmeth
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