Justin Alan Gage (JAG) was born in Southern California in 1984. But he didn’t stay there long; he was 4 months old when his parents moved to France. That is where he grew up and went to school. It is a strange concept for Americans to think that an American is a foreigner in another country and is treated the same way!
At the age of 5, he started attending a music conservatoire, (a government classical music training school) where he learned music theory and started getting voice training. He also studied classical drumming there.
At the age of 14, the family had another big move. They moved to the south coast, they could not have gone farther and stayed in France. That was not only true for the distance, but the mindset and the life style of people.
During those 2 years around the move, Justin is bounced around 6 different schools and almost as many apartments. In these tough teenage years, Justin falls back on writing… poems, stories, letters, just writing.
He keeps singing and playing and is asked to do so in church and school events. Eventually a first song comes out. ‘You bring out the best in me’ was a thank you to the friends and family that had stuck with him in hard times where many relationships ended painfully.
At the age of 18 he picks up the guitar. This multiplies the songs that come out and the opportunities to play, as he is no longer bound to needing accompaniment.
In 2004, after a massive relationship failure, he enlists with the US army infantry. Having little space for music there, writing is the only contact with loved ones. After several incidents there, often triggered by his history in France, he doesn’t complete his training and returns to write and play.
Most of the unusual situations he has been in are the source of most of his songs. A way to tell the story, but in a way that other might feel that they have lived that in a different way.
