SoundCheck
About Chris RedjamAvid Music Lover, Beer Drinker Extraordinaire, Radio Presenter and Music Producer.
As far as I can ever remember back, and it’s a fair old way, my life has been filled with music, my earliest memories being the great thrill of watching vinyl 45’s drop from an elevated spindle, on an old blue Fidelity HF35 my parents owned, that could hold five of them stacked on top of each other. As the playing arm lifted, the needle would drop precisely onto the outer edge groove of the record to start the next song and unleash the sounds of 60’s and 70’s bands of the time through bean can style speakers that would resonate around the room and instantly cause us all to launch into strangely syncopated movements in, what we considered to be, in time to the music. Happy Daze. Fast forward a few years and my love of listening to music developed into learning to play the guitar, drums and a bit of keyboard, form several bands during, what for me, was a very exciting time for music in the mid 70’s and also found myself working in a night club and booking bands of the time too. I did a number of gigs with my most successful band including playing at the legendary London Batcave and the KIR club in Hamburg, releasing a couple of singles, featuring on some compilation albums and having one fairly successful 12 inch single that topped the regional indie charts of the time. |
The inevitable meet a girl, have a family and get a “job” then occurred although I never lost touch with music and built a couple of studios along the way for various musical projects I instigated and was involved with.
When the family were grown up and doing their own thing I managed to put myself in a position that enabled me to return to music and this time in radio. I am currently a full time presenter of three 2 hour shows and also have plans to release some local Bands and Artists songs on my newly created Redjam Record label.
I currently spend daylight hours immersed in auditioning songs I am sent to review and select for airplay on my shows, that I then record and produce. I also enjoy chats with bands and artists that have found their way to me, some of which have ended up as interviews on my YouTube channel and have been aired on my radio shows.
I am currently residing in the UK betwixt deepest Devon amidst woods and rivers and in stupendous Somerset amidst canals and Tors where I live a pure and organic lifestyle tempered with a wild spirit of adventure.
When the family were grown up and doing their own thing I managed to put myself in a position that enabled me to return to music and this time in radio. I am currently a full time presenter of three 2 hour shows and also have plans to release some local Bands and Artists songs on my newly created Redjam Record label.
I currently spend daylight hours immersed in auditioning songs I am sent to review and select for airplay on my shows, that I then record and produce. I also enjoy chats with bands and artists that have found their way to me, some of which have ended up as interviews on my YouTube channel and have been aired on my radio shows.
I am currently residing in the UK betwixt deepest Devon amidst woods and rivers and in stupendous Somerset amidst canals and Tors where I live a pure and organic lifestyle tempered with a wild spirit of adventure.
About Patty NoaBorn in NJ, living the dream in Madrid. I’m a glitch: a fiery energy bomb drawn to calmness and a devotee of causing a ruckus by making the world a better place.
You can find me leading Alt-Rock band FORTVNA, singing, songwriting and co-hosting the SoundCheck show with radio presenter Chris Redjam. Creativity. Imagination. Fantasy. Curiosity. Ever since I can remember, these principles have been leading my way. It didn’t matter the form to which they translated themselves into. I remember a childhood full of daydreaming. And I guess I’m still doing it. In my childhood, I fell in love with video games like Pokémon and anime series like Naruto, which led me to spend hours and hours drawing and painting. |
When the art world started to move online, I then dove into DeviantArt and its community: a place where creative beings like me coexisted, shared their stories and shaped new ones together. It fueled my imagination and it uncovered lots of new music like pop punk and, what used to be called, emo music. I think I owe it to all those unexpected chain of events falling in love with music as I did. It wasn’t until I found out about artists like Linkin Park, All Time Low, Avril Lavigne, Paramore or my guilty pleasure Tokio Hotel, that I got so obsessed about bands I started imagining myself leading my own. I was around thirteen by then.
I started my first band when I was sixteen and have been in bands ever since. Over the last few years I have toured Europe with bands like The Calling, played music festivals, travelled around Spain, got our music into TV, but I also learned the hard way that expectations are different from reality. In the attempt to strive for perfection and success I lost myself and the principles that had been leading my way. Music was my life but it was also draining it away from me. So, when the world stopped in the pandemic, my old band stopped as well. It had been a hard decision, but I knew that I had to do things in a different way this time, because I wasn’t ready to give up yet but I needed to find a balance between a calm soul and making a rock band work. And that was how FORTVNA was born. In less than two years, FORTVNA’s music has been warmly welcomed: more than 120k streams of our music videos on Youtube, 35k streams on Spotify, radio airplay on both FM and online radio stations and press appearances all around the world. In addition to all of this, we won a contest held by the Irish brand Guinness and our single MOMENTVM was included in the in-store playlists of all Converse stores in Singapore.
Having a healthy mindset has become the most essential matter to me. I now see life through a different lens. I left the job I’d been working in for more than three years to reconnect with myself and work on my music, which has always been my true passion. Now, I seek back Creativity, Imagination, Fantasy, Curiosity. I seek calmness but I also seek fire. I’m committed to finding out how creativity can make us better individuals, how music can make us find inner peace. I’m focused on helping out the world we live in by bringing sustainability into music and artistry in every kind of way so that we can leave behind a better planet than when we got here.
I started my first band when I was sixteen and have been in bands ever since. Over the last few years I have toured Europe with bands like The Calling, played music festivals, travelled around Spain, got our music into TV, but I also learned the hard way that expectations are different from reality. In the attempt to strive for perfection and success I lost myself and the principles that had been leading my way. Music was my life but it was also draining it away from me. So, when the world stopped in the pandemic, my old band stopped as well. It had been a hard decision, but I knew that I had to do things in a different way this time, because I wasn’t ready to give up yet but I needed to find a balance between a calm soul and making a rock band work. And that was how FORTVNA was born. In less than two years, FORTVNA’s music has been warmly welcomed: more than 120k streams of our music videos on Youtube, 35k streams on Spotify, radio airplay on both FM and online radio stations and press appearances all around the world. In addition to all of this, we won a contest held by the Irish brand Guinness and our single MOMENTVM was included in the in-store playlists of all Converse stores in Singapore.
Having a healthy mindset has become the most essential matter to me. I now see life through a different lens. I left the job I’d been working in for more than three years to reconnect with myself and work on my music, which has always been my true passion. Now, I seek back Creativity, Imagination, Fantasy, Curiosity. I seek calmness but I also seek fire. I’m committed to finding out how creativity can make us better individuals, how music can make us find inner peace. I’m focused on helping out the world we live in by bringing sustainability into music and artistry in every kind of way so that we can leave behind a better planet than when we got here.
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