A. J. Jackson (born Alexander Jackson) is an American filmmaker, musician, songwriter, record producer, and perhaps best known as the lead singer for the band

Saint Motel In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and denomination. In Catholic, Eastern Ortho ...

. He is known for his enthusiastic stage performances.

Early life

Jackson was born and raised in

Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

. He first started playing

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

and writing his own

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

at about age seven. He studied at

The Blake School (Minneapolis) The Blake School is a private, coeducational, nonsectarian PK12 college preparatory day school, established in 1900. Blake is located on three campuses around the Twin Cities area of Minnesota: the upper school (9–12) is in Minneapolis; administ ...

and later attended film school at

Chapman University Chapman University is a private research university in Orange, California. It encompasses ten schools and colleges, including Fowler School of Engineering, Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, Fowler School of Law, and Schmid College of Scie ...

Music career

Jackson started playing in bands around the 6th grade moving from bassist to guitarist and singer in high school. He met Aaron Sharp while attending university in Southern California and they created Saint Motel around 2007. Saint Motel released its debut E.P. ''

ForPlay ''ForPlay'' is the first EP by American indie rock band Saint Motel. The album had a music video for every song that was also included on the CD itself. "Dear Dictator" was featured in HBO's 2013 trailer for Boardwalk Empire. Critical reception ...

'' in 2009 with Jackson as the lead singer and main songwriter. Jackson's songwriting for the EP received praise from ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

''. Saint Motel released the full-length album '' Voyeur'', whose tracks reached the top of the

Hype Machine Hype Machine is a music blog aggregator created by Anthony Volodkin. History Hype Machine was originally a music database created in 2005 by Anthony Volodkin, then a sophomore computer science major at Hunter College.Heilemann, JohCapturing the ...

Charts in 2012, and an EP, ''My Type'', which includes two international alternative top 40 singles written by Jackson, "Cold Cold Man" and the platinum-selling single, "

My Type "My Type" is a song by American indie pop band Saint Motel. It was released as the lead single from their EP of the same name in January 2014. Content On the lyric, "You're just my type - you've got a pulse and you are breathing," singer A.J. ...

". In 2015, Jackson led Saint Motel and dancers at the

Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival (commonly called the Coachella Festival or simply Coachella) is an annual music and arts festival held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, in the Coachella Valley in the Colorado Desert. ...

, as one of the stops on the band's US tour. In 2016 the band released its second full-length album, '' saintmotelevision'', featuring the single "Move" which Jackson stated he wrote while they were on tour in Germany. Inspired by new technological possibilities, Jackson helped make this album the world's first complete

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...

and, later,

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be de ...

full-length album in 2016 and 2017. In 2019 the band released part one of its three part album ''The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack'' featuring "Van Horn", which Jackson said he found inspiration for writing from the town of the same name in Texas while they were on tour.

Film career

After graduation Jackson became a freelance filmmaker directing and editing commercials for companies like Scion,

Hyundai Hyundai is a South Korean industrial conglomerate ("chaebol"), which was restructured into the following groups: * Hyundai Group, parts of the former conglomerate which have not been divested ** Hyundai Mobis, Korean car parts company ** Hyundai ...

, and

Elle Magazine ''Elle'' (stylized ''ELLE'') is a worldwide women's magazine of French origin that offers a mix of fashion and beauty content, together with culture, society and lifestyle. The title means "she" or "her" in French. ''Elle'' is considered the wo ...

, as well as music videos for bands like Royal Teeth and Futurecop!, including his own band Saint Motel. When the band's debut album ''

'' was released they had created a music video to accompany each song of the album. Jackson's film clients include

Barry Manilow Barry Manilow (born Barry Alan Pincus; June 17, 1943) is an American singer and songwriter with a career that spans seven decades. His hit recordings include "Could It Be Magic", " Somewhere Down the Road", " Mandy", "I Write the Songs", " Can ...

, Band of Skulls, and Jason Mraz. In 2008, Jackson and his comedy partners in sketch comedy group, Craptastic were nominated for a MTV Movie Award for a "Cloverfield" parody called "Broverfield"

References

External links

Website (archived)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, A. J. Living people Musicians from Minneapolis 1983 births