Jamie Treays is a singer-songwriter from London who performs under the moniker Jamie T. He was born in Wimbledon on January 8 1986. He began playing at open mic nights in south west London, after attending one held by Alfie xxx, then of Larrikin Love.
Treays suffered from panic attacks from an early age, a condition that would go on to influence his debut album, ‘Panic Prevention’, as well as series of club nights he ran in the early days of his career and mixtapes hand out at his gigs.
‘Panic Prevention’ was released on January 29, 2007. “Like no other record since The Streets’ ‘Original Pirate Material’, it’s the sound of a pirate radio station you wish existed: a rag-bag of ska-punk, junk-shop hip-hop, DIY drum’n’bass and vocal interludes sequenced to flow like a mix-tape,” NME wrote on its release, declaring Treays to be a “genuine voice, the sort of untrained, maverick personality that doesn’t come along too often.” The record was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize later that year, while Treays picked up the Best Solo Artist award at the NME Awards.
Two years after the release of his debut album, Treays shared a new song ‘Fire Fire’ online, ahead of announcing his second album, ‘Kings & Queens’. The record, which broached subjects like alcoholism and violence in the musician’s typical character-based style, was assessed by NME as sounding like: “a man aiming for bigger and better things, and becoming a national institution in the process.” Released on September 7 2009, the album reached Number Two in the UK Albums Chart. Shortly after ‘Kings & Queens” release, Treays cancelled dates in Australia, the UK and Europe, citing laryngitis as the reason behind the move.
Treays toured the album, concluding at Southampton Guildhall on October 2 2010. After then, the musician disappeared from view to work on new material. In December 2012, a collaboration with Rancid’s Tim Armstrong (under the alias Tim Timebomb), ‘Wrongful Suspicion’ surfaced but it wasn’t until July 2014 that new material from the singer-songwriter would be released. ‘Don’t You Find’ was premiered on BBC Radio 1 on July 15 2014, a fortnight after Jamie T had confirmed his return to the live stage with a short run of dates.
On July 29 2014, he played the first of those shows – his first gig in almost four years – at Glasgow’s School of Arts. A month later, he made a surprise appearance on the Festival Republic stage at Reading, having tweeted details of the set a few hours beforehand.
Third album ‘Carry On The Grudge’ was released in September 2014.
