Midwest-made crossover artist charts solo success that eluded him when he was young

Sebastian James assumed until recently that his music career had already peaked, the hometown hit-maker shared.

In 2011, the 18-year-old Riverside native and Park Hill South graduate started touring the country as the drummer for the Nigel Dupree Band, opening for bands like Korn and Stone Temple Pilots. But this year, at 30, he launched his solo career and his first two singles “American Made” and “When We Were Young” are taking off, each landing on the Top 40 charts.

“It’s crazy,” James said. “This was something that I’ve dreamt about for the past two decades. Having already done some of those larger tours and those not being life changing like a lot of people would maybe have expected, I figured, ‘Oh, that was probably it. That was my shot.’”

James’ debut album, “Old School Cool,” is set to be released Oct. 4 under the independent label he co-founded, Tungsten Records.

“When We Were Young” — about young love, summer days, and experiencing the world through the rose-colored lens of yesteryear — reached No. 23 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary Chart and No. 20 on the iHeartRadio Adult Contemporary Chart, while “American Made” — his debut single about how Americans are all made in the U.S.A., yet are unique in our own way — reached No. 39 on the Mediabase Chart and remained there for more than 14 weeks.

“I’m just scrolling through and I’m looking at the charts and I recognize every single name in the Top 100 except mine,” he noted. “So it’s one of those things where you’re just like, ‘Wow. Is this real?’”

“But at the end of the day, it is,” he added. “I’m just super humbled, super blessed, and honestly, a little anxious to just do it again.”

With musical inspirations like classic rock icons Van Halen, Kiss, and the Eagles, classic rock/southern rock band the Black Crowes, and singer songwriter Billy Squier, James describes his style as rock/country crossover with a Midwest twang.

As for his songs, he noted, his small town roots bleed through lyrics about his family life and the hardships he’s faced.

“A song like ‘American Made,’ if you look at that video, it not only was filmed really in my backyard and on a lot of the streets that I grew up on,” he said. “But it also touched on a lot of those bits and pieces of my life like the cars and the hands-on time with the kids.”

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From idling music to ‘going full throttle’

Growing up with his musician as a father, James wanted to carve his own path, he shared, mainly focusing on sports as a kid.

“(My dad) was pretty prominent in the area,” he continued. “He always had long hair and tattoos. And I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t want anything to do with that. That’s not my story and so forth.’ Or at least, I didn’t think.”

Then at age 12, James noted, he started to change his mindset. After seeing 1980s rock bands in concert like AC/DC and Poison, he was hooked.

“I remember seeing Kiss specifically and being like, ‘Wow, I would do anything to get up there and do that,’” he said.

So on top of playing sports, James picked up the drums.

“I really just spent a lot of time in the basement, learning to play by ear,” he explained. “At the time, I couldn’t read music. I didn’t really receive any classical training or instruction, but I just picked it up. I was like, ‘Well, my dad’s a great singer, great guitar player, so drums is the thing that I could probably be better at than him pretty quickly.’ So that was the path I went.”

Pretty soon, James said, he started playing in clubs around the Midwest with his dad, continuing that until he graduated high school. Then he got a call from Nigel Dupree, son of Jesse James Dupree from the band Jackyl and the TruTV show “Full Throttle Saloon.” He auditioned for the Nigel Dupree Band and got hired on the spot. He later was featured in seasons 4 and 5 of the TruTV show.

“This whole plan that I thought I’d had — college prep and all this stuff I was going to do — took a left turn,” he continued. “We went out and we started touring pretty much like two months after I had to audition. So I learned all these songs, and then we went out on the road for close to the better part of two years.”

“That was where I really cut my teeth,” he added. “That’s where I got to play on a lot of those big stages and national spotlights and be an opener for a lot of those groups that we looked up to.”

At the same time, James was taking online classes at Park University, where he eventually earned his MBA in 2018.

“I’m in the back of a van during the day, doing my classes, and at night, doing these huge, huge shows,” he added. “So it was definitely a grind.”

Sebastian James; photo courtesy of Tungsten Records

Mentoring the next Sebastian James

James stopped touring with the band in 2014, welcomed the first of his three children, and started a group called the Rock Gods, a Las Vegas-style tribute act. Then about a year and half ago, he sat down with a couple of friends and decided it was time to put out some original music. But instead of treating it like a passion project, they approached it with a business mindset.

“We started to say, ‘Hey, how is this going to work? Where does the revenue come from? What do the expenses look like? What are the things that we can do?’” James explained. “So we probably approached it differently than about 99 percent of musicians, probably just because I was older at the time.”

“If I was 18  like when I first started  it probably would have been a totally different trajectory,” he continued. “But we were like, ‘Hey, we’ve all got kids and other businesses and priorities. So if we’re going to do this, it has to work.’ And so we just came out guns blazing.”

One of these business decisions was co-founding his own label as an umbrella for his own music, James said.

“I think it was the right move for the state of the industry right now and where everything is at,” he noted. “It’s nice to know that with all the hours and time that I’ve put into writing these songs, that they will at least remain in my name.”

He also has a passion for helping younger artists, James added: those like him 10 years ago who didn’t know what to do next.

“I look forward to the next phase of the label, to where we can start to recruit additional talent beyond myself and future records,” he explained.