Ever since I was a four year-old kid jumping around the living room singing along to 'Bad' by Michael Jackson - still one of my favourite albums - music has been a huge passion of mine (along with movies, but that came much later). When I was ten years old my parents bought me my first keyboard and signed me up for piano lessons. Before I even knew what a chromatic scale was, I was was writing my own songs – although they were only melodies at that point. It wasn't until I was seventeen (when teenage angst reared it's ugly head) that I first started writing lyrics. The first song I wrote a full set of lyrics for was a melancholy tune called 'You Knew', about unrequited love. Hardly a ground-breaking subject, but it showed me I had what it took to articulate a feeling melodically and lyrically, and it gave me the push I needed to write lyrics for the hundred-odd wordless tunes I had lying around. It's seven years later and I am still behind, but I'm catching up!

Two years ago, when Michael Jackson died (RIP), I was incredibly upset – he had been one my favourite artists practically all of my life, and I never got a chance to see him perform live. His passing inspired me to do something I very rarely do – I sat down at my keyboard and wrote a song, music AND lyrics, in about twenty minutes. I hardly ever write music and lyrics simultaneously – one usually comes weeks, even months after the other. The song was called 'This Is It' – I played it on my keyboard and recorded the vocals in my bathroom using a crappy microphone I had lying around the house. I made a video of it together with MJ footage and uploaded it to YouTube. I received so many lovely responses, and they encouraged me to start recording my music properly. So in late 2010 I recorded my first EP - 'Pair Shaped' (available on iTunes, CD-Baby and Amazon)

Singing has never been a great desire of mine – I sang in choirs when I was a kid, but for me, it's always been about song-writing. I'm a decent piano player and an okay singer, but I'm pretty confident in my ability to write a good tune, and as I learned from recording 'Pair Shaped', there are few things more satisfying than hearing a song you wrote on your keyboard at home turn into a fleshed-out, fully-orchestrated song. Here on my profile, you can hear six of the seven songs from the EP (including 'This Is It'). I am currently recording a new album, which I hope to release by the end of the year. What kind of music do I like? I like music that is personal, powerful, unique and satisfying, and I'm influenced by many different artists – from the theatrical rock of Meat Loaf and Queen to the soulful and heart-breaking emotion of Damien Rice and Janis Ian, and the old-fashioned classic song-writing of Paul McCartney and Elton John. I'm generally against manufactured pop, but every now and then a pop song comes along that's so catchy and slickly produced that it's impossible to resist. After all, music is meant to be experienced and enjoyed, so I hope you enjoy mine. Eric Bay (March 2011)