Originally from England but now based in Malaysia, my musical journey started when I taught myself to play the guitar at the age of 14, using an old and battered classical instrument that had been handed down via my mum from my great aunt Agnes Capri.
Unable to afford a much-desired electric guitar, I set up a few little home businesses, making chocolates, growing garden plants, to raise the necessary funds. That got me a little Marshall amp and an Aria Pro II Cat guitar. Although, that not being an Actual Fender Strat, and with those being far beyond my means, I later took it upon myself to have a go at building one of my own - which set the foundation for a guitar design venture further down the line, that you can read all about here.
I shortly afterwards formed my first school band. That led on to college bands, playing a mix of original material and covers. And purchase of bigger amps, more guitars, and the obligatory Shure SM58 microphone. And the usual dreams of rock stardom, world domination, fame and fortune.
But life had other plans.
A Masters degree followed by a 25-year career in digital media and User Experience Design, starting in the very early days of the commercial Web, was creatively rewarding but took me away from the music scene - something I returned to only in 2010 when my friend Jamie Freeman asked me to join The Jamie Freeman Agreement as lead guitarist. To which I agreed. That lasted 6 or 7 years and a handful of record releases, before Jamie went to Nashville, and I moved to Kuala Lumpur. Though not because of any creative differences or disagreements!
Jamie’s untimely death from brain cancer in 2022 finally provided the impetus for me to “get on with it” and finish recording an album of my own.
“Bittersweet, Darkness & Light” was released in November 2025 and represents the culmination of 30-odd (and indeed odd) years of writing songs but never quite getting it together to properly record them. Some of the tracks date back to the 1990s, some are much newer. All tell stories, allegories, or evoke situations or experiences - fictitious places and people, but perhaps with grains of truth or little threads of real characters woven in. A couple are loosely or not so loosely inspired by current events.
Style-wise, the obvious references are Dire Straits and Pink Floyd, with Mark Knopfler and David Gilmour being formative influences on my guitar playing and songwriting. Vocally, it’s somewhere down in the ground in the vein of perhaps Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash, Tom Waits, or Chris Rea, maybe with a little Mark Lanegan and a sprinkling of Billy Idol or Nick Cave thrown in.
Other influences in no particular order: Stevie Ray Vaughan, JJ Cale, Tom Petty, The Sisters of Mercy, The Cult, and many of the classic 60s/70s guitar-rock bands, eg Free, The Eagles, The Band, Allman Brothers, Cream, Derek & The Dominos, Queen, Led Zeppelin et al.
© Copyright 2025 Jonathan Hirsch. All rights reserved.
