Maxi Jazz
Maxi Jazz Bio
London born Maxi Jazz was the driving force and lead vocalist behind world beating dance band Faithless.With the band he has toured the planet, playing every festival and club worth playing, picking up plenty of awards and thousands of fans in the process, as well as securing a number of chart hits and precipitating a commercial dance music revolution in the process.
Hits like “We Come 1”, “God is a DJ” and “Insomnia” are unquestionable modern classics penned by Maxi and sung in his own unique, soulful rap style. It all started for him by founding The Soul Food Café System as a DJ in 1984 having fallen in love with hip-hop through pirate radio stations. Not long later Maxi founded Namu Records to release music from the collective, and toured in support of names like Jamiroquai and Soul II Soul.
It was upon meeting Rollo Armstrong and Sister Bliss in a studio that would prove to be the turning point in his life, however, as they are the two people with whom he went on to form Faithless. Since then, the group’s live shows have grown and grown, their back catalogue has expanded and they are now one of the most recognisable groups of any genre of music, playing Glastonbury, Bestival, and so many more.
There have been five albums in all, Reverence (which reached number 26), Sunday 8PM (reaching number 10), Outrospective (peaking at number 4) and No Roots (which debuted at number 1) between 1996 and 2004, and a fifth album, To All New Arrivals, came in 2006. Each of these full lengths has explored a range of personal and social issues, including current affairs and social commentary, whilst often touching on spiritualism and frustration (no real surprise given Maxi – and the band’s – own strong beliefs).
Despite having sold more than 15 million albums worldwide as part of Faithless, the band have now gone their separate ways and Maxi spends a lot of his time on the race track. A keen petrol head, he has had a racing licence for years and often partakes in different formula events at circuits around the UK when not providing guest vocals form contemporary acts like trance titan Tiesto and pop behemoth Robbie Williams.
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