Leo Major (aka Janardana) - Bio

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I was interested in music practicaly since I was born. When I was 4 years old, I was very fascinated in my father's old Abba-tapes (I liked the way they looked and how they sounded :-). I listened to Abba through all my childhood. My next fascinations was Italo Disco and later Depeche Mode. When I was 16 years old I started to play the guitar. This was the beginning of my next musical fascination - I started to listen to the rock music. My favourite bands were Deep Purple, Dire Straits or even later The Cure. My first own tracks were recorded on a 4-track tape machine and there was rather rock-guitar tracks, not dance. Me and my friends founded some rock groups, one of them called in polish "Muzyka Wiatru" (The Music of the Wind) released demo album on a cassette tape in several copies. Unfortunately there was a "time for pop" in Poland and nobody was really interested in promoting new rock band.

After 6 years I left guitar and music producing for one year. After this small period when I've been working as a programmist in a commercial company, I started to make music again. This time I tried to produce some more pop-sounding tracks. I recorded almost full-size album but I couldn't finish it. I had a serious problem finding good singer for my tracks. In fact good singer has come many years later btw...

By the next year (1996) I started to listen dancemusic. On the beginning I thought about career in a local polish dance style called disco-polo. That was some kind of still growing polish folklore (btw. it was killed by the polish media due to its musical simplicity - now doesn't exist), but after short time of playing as a guitarist in the polish disco-band "Love System", I decided to make my own euro-dance tracks in English. My first eurodance project was "Love System - See My Desire". I recorded it with polish singer I played with earlier in a disco-band. It was released in 1998 through Magic Records - the biggest label in Poland releasing dance-compilations - on the top compilation "Dziewczyna 5". That was a shock for many people, that See My Desire was together with Enrique Iglesias on the same compilation... I produced many songs in 1998-99 and had been working with many nice singers those days.

By the late '99 my co-operation with Magic Records was close to finish... they've been working only on compilations and I wanted to be promoted. This was a small conflict of interests since they didn't wanted to spend money on promotion. So I started to search for foreign label. One day I received call from dutch label. On a start, dutch company released track "Miss Love - Go Baby". This song and the next tracks of Miss Love was released in few countries, mostly in East Asia. In the beginning of '2000 I made track called "Janardana - I.O.U". That was my first track by the name of "Janardana". I sold that song to Dutch label again, and then, growing Polish dance label Hit'n'hot Music, bought it from Holland. Funny thing, they didn't knew about this track was from Poland. Those days no one believed that polish dance producer could sell something outside. Later, I started co-operation with Hit'n'Hot Music and made many remixes for their polish releases. This way I got some fame in my country as a producer and remixer.

After small period of time I re-newed my co-operation with Magic Records. On the next top compilation Bravo Hits (containing best pop-dance tracks from all over the world) they released my track "Janardana - Take Me Back". Unfortunately no one in Poland even thought about it was Polish production. Everyone have seen dance market in 80% German and 20% Italian. These years, obviously better business for the top-labels from countries like Poland was buying tracks, no promoting own artists. I've made next tracks: "Sky - Into Your Eyes" and "Sky - The Secret Of The Light". Those tracks were released by Magic Records again. Track "Into your eyes" had nice singer's voice and a catchy melody, so it was often played in ex. supermarkets..No doubt, that was a pleasure to listen it during the shopping, but that wasn't helpful for me in terms of promotion, without video, interviews and such.

In the meantime I started to listen to the german and dutch dancey club styles (vocal-trance, hands-up) and also I've met DJ Primo during the internet-chating. Not so long time later we've founded Clubringer. Somewhere on the Net, we've found original acapellas from "Freddie Mercury - I Was Born To Love You" and using that original vocal we've made a club remix for that song. A&R from Magic Records said that track is very good and he decided to forward mix to Kontor Records - the biggest independent techno/dance label from Germany. But from what Kontor's A&R said we understood the track is OK but they already had many German artists to promote, and they were not interested in promoting foreign artists. Sad...but...typical... whatever... We asked another polish label Hit'n'hot Music about promoting this track. They liked it and agreed to help, so we signed small contract for this mix. With their help, the track was accepted by Ministry Of Sound Germany and german label released it on white label, as we've found later - without clearance. So we knew that track was a club hit in Germany through some time, but we heard some rumours that fan-club of Queen didn't agreed for using original Freddie's voice (fan-club?), so there wasn't any serious release later. However I can't be sure if this was true version. Hit'n'Hot wasn't the best partner and till today I have a distance to things they said. BTW. one year after another german label have released another track with original Freddie's voice used. Anyways... release of "Born to love you" was a collapse. On a release there wasn't any information about producers - so nobody really knewed WHO produced this track. Second - we didn't received even eurocent for the release (you should said normal thing for loosers ? yep, probably). Since every DJ in Germany knew this remix, Clubringer missed their biggest chance I think... that's unbelieveable, the way some music labels take care of their artists. That was a serious warn that co-operation with Hit'n'Hot should be finished imediately. Anyways this time it didn't happened. By this decission I started sinking into the mud, that was definitely wrong.

In September 2002 we have made track "Clubringer feat. Yulia - Wriemia Agniej". This track was primarily recorded in russian language (due to the polish success of "Tatu" russian group). I stil tried to co-operate with Magic Records and finally they set-up this track for their next best-selling compilation "Bravo Hits". Unfortunately track wasn't ever released. Magic's A&R got bored with this track after 2 months of listening and he throwed out it from the next release. In 1998 this was looking like working with serious guy from the serious label. 4 years later it finally seemed like working with school-boy having some luck in his life and building a good prospering label. Well, ok I didn't wanted to be a looser. I asked Hit'n'hot Music (yes, again:-)))))) about releasing CD with this track. They agreed and released this track. They made rather small promotion, but that was obvious. I already supossed what they can do or they can't, anyway their A&R was very charmy and he really knew how to speak with artists and what is more important, Hit'n'Hot was only one label actually trying to promote dance artists in Poland those days. At this time also I recorded first tracks with Kate Lesing - that was english version of Wriemia Agniej - english title was Sound Of My Dream. Early spring 2003 I signed exclusive contract for Clubringer with Hit'n'hot Music (I was crazy probably or the summer was too hot)...and that was the beginning of the end of Clubringer (as expected).

In the meantime, quite interesting co-operation with Kate Lesing, came together with some new recordings. We recorded cover of Maggie Reilly's "Everytime We Touch" famous track. First, this cover was presented to Hitnhot Music and they started getting clearance for that. In the meantime I got quite good proposition from Germany. I was loyal to Hit'n'hot Music. I asked them to buy this track for 1/3 of price proposed by Germans. Anyway, they passed, because they wanted it for free.. If I was 100% loyal to them, I should give it to them for free, but unfortunately I wasn't. I remember that they did really nothing to "Born to love you" so I choosed contact from Germany. Track was sold to Germany, where was released by ZYX - one of German majors. Finally "Everytime We Touch" has been released on a vinyl and CD by the name of "Trinity". Track climbed to the 65 position on German DJ Playlist (GDJP). Unfortuantely as we've found later, there was a beginning of the end of German dance market, there was already a lot of simmilar tracks over the toplists, so nothing really exciting happened. Of course there wasn't also any significient incomes from this release since many other persons were involved in that. Nothing weird.

I have produced few other tracks later, like "Clubringer - Go West" cover - released by Hitnhot Music in the summer and "Kate Lesing - Rivers Of Avalon" - released by Dutch company. Dutch company paid me advance but I completely don't know what happened with the track (probably nothing) and it's a pitty because track was good. Anyway I needed money, my little daughter has been born in a short time and I became family man.

In the meantime, release of "Go West" maxi-CD came together with unfortunate co-operation with DJ Progress, who was a part of Clubringer since a couple of months. I won't go into details but finally the result of never-ending battles between me, Hit'n'hot Music, DJ Progress was the end of co-operation with both DJ Progress and Hit'n'Hot Music. Finally !

There was a lot of changes from the beginning of 2004. I met DJ Silver, a formidable DJ and showman and we have founded East Clubbers. Very good producing co-operation between us (that was something really fresh and promising), resulted in our first album E-Quality which was produced in 3 months (with a big help from Kate Lesing). Album was released by our friend from Deejay mix club in Poland and it was sent to the many deejays and also radio stations (unfortunately these less known - that wasn't rather serious radio promotion). Two first hits: "Equal in Love" and "To the moon and back" (cover of Savage Garden), was often played in local clubs and radio stations. Beside of that, we made very strong internet promotion on all over the world. Just because of this success, I definitely abandoned Clubringer project. In the same time German dance market totally collapsed, so the project Trinity was aborted also. Track "Walk Alone" - which had to be a follow-up for "Trinity - Everytime we touch", with all remixes, was acquired by East Clubbers. We received many signals from whole Europe and North America, that music of East Clubbers is famous.

In 2005 we're still worked on the tracks of East Clubbers, but also I've founded VipZone which statred to deliver quality samples to producers on all over the world. Funny thing, VipZone had to be only a member-zone for a Time4base production group, where group members had to exchange their samples. Unfortunately idea was bad since not many producers really wanted to share their samples, even the Time4base members. I think some people are greedy ;-) So with a nice co-operation of my internet-friend from Germany (Groovemike) we created VipZone online shop which became quickly famous in a producers crew. Comparing to thousands of poor commercial samplepacks on the market, VipZone products containing top-notch quality sounds for own use, also royalty-free vocals, was really good idea...

In 2006 I decided to stop telling everyone that East Clubbers is working. In fact we didn't recorded anything since many months. My previous contacts with labels and other persons from music-biz were stressful and with East Clubbers we also didn't achieved any significient change. Some releases by small labels (one woth mentioning release in Austria - track "More More More" which was a vocal version of our first hit "Equal In Love"), some tracks on compilations and one rather redundant contract with another small polish label. Nothing really exciting. I think I was feeling little tired and wanted to get some breath. In the meantime I started working on my own professional mastering studio and still have been extending Vipzone by adding new samplepacks. Since there was many spelling problems and also some unwanted contracts still appeared in conjunction to the "Janardana" nickname, in the middle of August I've decided to change my artist's pseudo to "Leo Major".

October 2006, East Clubbers recorded their track "Sextasy". DJ Sqren joined the team and video clip has been made. This time I decided also to leave East Clubbers. I think I wasn't able to get any satisfaction from producing music anymore. I decided to stop playing gigs much earlier, so I think that final quit was only a result of my previous decission. I just did not felt as a part of the team since several months so continuing was without sense... Track "Sextasy" was popular in Poland since it was (finally) played in the main dance Polish radio-station, anyway being more famous as a part of East Clubbers wasn't so much important for me this time.

To be continued...

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