Percy Jones
Percy Jones
Brand X’s ‘fretless’ bass and his inimitable trademark sound
Liverpool Scene in a rare live performance, February 1969, featuring Percy Jones.
It’s no exaggeration to say that Percy Jones is far and away the most noticeable musical voice which listeners first associate with Brand X.
Among his peers and admirers who caught on to him as soon as Brand X came onto the scene were famed composer Brian Eno, who’s often been described as “a fan of Percy’s”, and virtuoso guitarist Steve Hackett, who reflects, today, that while some observers had casually compared his style to that of the great Jaco Pastorius, it was in fact Percy who chronologically emerged with his own unique fretless sound and “should be given full credit for it” – a sound that no living entity can wrap their head around…
Percy Jones was born on December 3rd, 1947, and grew up in Abbeycwmhir near Llandrindod Wells, Wales. He studied electronic engineering at the University of Liverpool, before joining the band Liverpool Scene, from ’68 to ’72, and recorded three albums with them. He eventually began playing with Robin Lumley and Jack Lancaster in jam sessions that would lead to forming Brand X in 1975. He also performed briefly with Soft Machine for a short stint in 1976, while Brand X was already active.
Jones appeared on Eno’s Before and After Science, and Another Green World, on Steve Hackett’s debut solo album Voyage of the Acolyte and played on Roy Harper’s Bullinamingvase, all within a short time of Brand X exploding on the British scene. He also recorded sessions for a number of avant-garde players like Jon Hassel, and David Sylvian.
After Brand X disbanded in the 1980s, Percy Jones became a session player in Manhattan, and saw the end of the great club era: CBGB and OMFUG’s, Max’s Kansas City, and The Bowery. As a session player, he performed with Nova, Tiger, Susanne Vega’s Days of Open Hand, he appeared alongside musicians Robert Fripp, Jon Hassell, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Holger Czukay on David Sylvian’s Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities, and subsequently on several of Richard Barbieri‘s albums, Masami Tsuchiya’s Ippu Do, The Plastics, Tunnels, Paranoise, (formerly known as Noise Are Us), PAKT, and MJ12.
Percy reformed Brand X with John Goosall in the 1990s and again in 2016 for the band’s final reunion tours. A power struggle erupted that caused him to reject the arrangement with his managers in the US and before Brand X could resume any touring, the unimaginable occurred: the Covid-19 Pandemic took guitarist John Goodsall.
Percy’s musical CV is rife with experimental projects: he played with a New York City trio Stone Tiger (featuring guitarist Bill Frisell and drummers Mike Clark and Dougie Bowne during different periods) in 1982/83 Jones was also the driving force behind Tunnels, an improvisation collective which released four albums including Progressivity and Live From The Knitting Factory.
Jones is also an avid amateur radio operator and has developed several innovative, compact antenna designs for the amateur radio HF bands.
Since the passing of his lifelong band mate, Percy remains, along with Robin Lumley, the staunch guardian of Brand X‘s musical legacy, and the band’s only leader and decider-in-chief. A band which he’s chosen to retire, largely to protect the band’s legacy from theft, after some exhausting battles with management companies whom he felt he couldn’t trust as far as he could throw them in the swamp that’s the music business.
Percy founded the band MJ12 with drummer Stephen Moses, and continues to play, mostly in North America. As a solo artist, he also records sessions with an array of modern and experimental players all over the world.
Percy Jones lives in New York, with his wife Joyce Francis-Jones, a fine sculptor and artist who exhibits at Blue Tree Gallery on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. They have a son, Dylan, who lives in Norway.
Jones is writing all new compositions for a new creation, his own upcoming band which he named BOX of NOISE.
Percy Jones on the Post Brand X era, and keeping an eye out for scavengers who might be trying to stain Brand X's legacy:
"Brand X can't go on without John; not in any way that myself or Robin could accept."
"Brand X can't go on without John; not in any way that myself or Robin could accept."