Berkley is the musical moniker of Andrew Jones, who composes laid back pop grooves driven by shaky electric guitar tones and chiming keyboards. After exploring broad musical territory from 2016’s power pop collaboration with members of The Offspring to 2017’s “gorgeous” (AV Club) long-form multi-media experimental synthesizer project Sound for Bombs, Jones sharpened his focus on electronic elements and pop song forms.
Born and raised in Pueblo, Colorado, now residing in Portland, Oregon (after a lengthy stay in Denton, Texas where he engineered and produced records for emerging artists) Jones took to the American songbook and pop mainstays early in his youth, recording himself on his childhood cassette player singing along to The California Raisins’ Motown covers and early 90s chart toppers like The Cranberries, Vanessa Williams, and Boyz II Men. When he received a relative’s guitar to experiment with at age 12, he taught himself how to play in one summer using transcriptions of Third Eye Blind and Foo Fighters records. By the end of the year, he had moved on to southern California punk rock and European heavy metal. After touring in his own punk and metal bands through his teens and into his early 20s, Jones dipped his toe in the Los Angeles songwriting scene, ultimately finding himself among a team of writers developing early ideas for Michael Jackson’s comeback album.
Following Jackson’s death, Jones reevaluated his path in music and stopped writing and performing for three years while he taught university writing and literature. Jones’s muses returned in 2010 when he quit his teaching job to immerse himself in jazz guitar studies and rekindle his relationship with music and his primary instrument.
Jones left his jazz program when his teacher insulted Iron Maiden. Finding a new home in north Texas, Jones appeared on the 2014 tribute album for Tim and Eric star David Liebe Hart, dipped his toes back into studio recording with former Cher bassist Bob Parr, and widened his influences with 2017’s synth laden Sound for Bombs.
For the next two years Jones wrangled the breadth of his influences in his songwriting while establishing himself as a notable recording engineer. He produced two celebrated EPs for Colorado’s Spirettes, the debut album for Dallas’s Budapest, and an EP that earned NPR buzz for North Texas’s Amari Amore. Jones also found a home assisting in recording sessions at Echo Lab in Denton, a recording studio frequented by Elle King, Midlake, and Shakey Graves. There, Jones channeled his production and songwriting talents into Berkley. In Berkley, Jones found a palatable recipe for his wide range of influences and a renewed outlook on writing and performing.
