James Bay

From a young age in the small town of Hitchin in England, James Bay had a love for music. He started playing guitar after being inspired by Eric Clapton and Bruce Springsteen. As time wore on, he kept at guitar and eventually attended the prestigious British and Irish Modern Music Institute (BIMM for short) in Brighton. He didn't last long at BIMM, though, as he was more preoccupied with playing open mic nights than rigorously studying. By 2012, he was living in London regularly playing open mic nights and more. At one of these shows, his set was recorded and later uploaded to YouTube. His video was discovered by a representative from Republic Records, who wound up signing Bay to their label in early 2013. By the summer, he released his first EP entitled The Dark of the Morning digitally. It was well received but didn't make too big of a sales splash. The following year, Bay released Let It Go, which debuted to much acclaim, charting highly on iTunes and other digital storefronts. It also contained his first single, "Let It Go," which spawned a music video. Later in 2014, he released his third EP that contained "Hold Back the River," which reached No. 2 on the U.K. charts. In early 2015, Bay finally released his debut full-length album, The Chaos and the Calm, which sold more than 64,000 copies in the first week of release. Bay's successful first album led to him opening for Taylor Swift on her 2015 British tour. Bay's sophomore album Electric Light was released in May 2018.