| Intro | British singer, song-writer, and musician | |
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Musician Record producer Film producer Singer Songwriter Composer |
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| From | United Kingdom | |
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Business Film, TV, Stage & Radio Music |
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| Gender | male | |
| Birth | 24 April 1971, Dudley, United Kingdom | |
| Age: | 49 years | |
| Star sign | Taurus | |
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Jasbinder Singh “Jas” Mann (born 24 April 1971) is a British songwriter, musician, singer, record producer and film producer. He was lead singer of Babylon Zoo, known for their 1996 UK chart-topping single “Spaceman” and No. 6 album The Boy with the X-Ray Eyes. He has produced/distributed over 20 feature films, including the BAFTA-winning documentary The Imposter, and was executive producer of Simon Pegg’s A Fantastic Fear of Everything.
Early life
He was born in 1971, Dudley, West Midlands, England, to a Punjabi Indian father and a mother of Sioux descent. Mann formed his first band at the age of 15, with his friend Adam Toussaint; they were called The Glove Puppets. Mann personally funded a 7″ vinyl single, sold through local record shops in 1987.
The Sandkings, another Wolverhampton band, enlisted Mann as their vocalist in 1988. The group, named after a 1981 collection of sci-fi short stories by George R. R. Martin, released seven singles and an EP with Mann between 1988 and 1992 as well as an album. They scored three Top 10 hits in the UK indie single chart.
The Sandkings were the opening act for Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses in the early 1990s, but Mann left the band because of creative differences.
Babylon Zoo
The single “Spaceman” charted at No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart, in January 1996, selling 420,000 copies in its first week. It became the fastest selling single in the United Kingdom in over thirty years, since The Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love”. “Spaceman” became a number one chart hit in 23 countries, including the United Kingdom. As of November 2012, “Spaceman” was the 74th best selling single in the history of the United Kingdom, selling 1.14 million copies. An album entitled The Boy with the X-Ray Eyes was produced at Mann’s New Atlantis Productions music/artwork/video centre. It was released in 1996 and peaked at No. 6 in the UK Albums Chart, though it did not match the success of “Spaceman”. The following two singles charted in the UK top 40. Three years later, in 1999, a follow-up album was released entitled King Kong Groover. Neither the album nor its single, “All the Money’s Gone”, were top 40 entries.
After “Spaceman”
In 2004, Mann staged a competition in which he asked fans to sum up their lives in one word, which he would then write into the song lyrics of his new album. In 2005, he announced he would be issuing the new Babylon Zoo album, Cold Clockwork Doll, although this has yet to be released.
In 2008 Mann co-founded the Indomina Group, a vertically integrated independent studio, based in Los Angeles and the Dominican Republic, as well as Pinewood Indomina Studios in the Dominican Republic. Production of the live action Afro Samurai film with Samuel L. Jackson was announced in 2011, but Mann sold his ownership to the Vicini Group after an investment from the IFC. Indomina shut its US office to relocate full operations to the Dominican Republic.
Mann is also a Board member of the children’s charity ‘International Child Art Foundation’, providing arts programming in schools that inspire creativity and empathy.
In 2013 Mann co-founded Virgin Produced India, a film production company in partnership with the Virgin Group.