Tyrone Wells

All Music Guide:

The son of a preacher and the youngest of five children, Tyrone Wells was only allowed to listen to gospel music growing up in Spokane, WA, although he was eventually also exposed to artists like Stevie Wonder and James Taylor. As a teenager he moved to Fullerton, CA, to attend college, and soon joined the Christian rock band Skypark as the lead singer. After releasing a few records with the group, including two on Epic, Wells decided to leave Skypark and work on his solo material. He began performing at a local Fullerton coffeehouse, McClain's, on a weekly basis, and soon was selling his self-released albums at these shows. In 2003, after signing to True America, Wells issued Snapshot, and in 2005 Close: Live at McClain's came out. That same year the singer/songwriter set about on working on his next full-length, Hold On, revisiting songs he had been writing during the past two years. Wells' big break came in 2006 after performing at the National Association of Campus Activities Convention in Boston, when he was approached by several major labels. Eventually he chose Universal Republic, which sent Hold On to stores in early 2007, following it with Remain in 2009.

Wikipedia:

Tyrone Wells is a singer/songwriter in the folk-pop genre from Spokane, Washington. His songs have been featured in television shows (Intervention, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, Rescue Me, One Tree Hill, North Shore, What About Brian, Numb3rs, The Mountain, Windfall, Wildfire, Ghost Whisperer, As the World Turns, The Bedford Diaries, Three Moons Over Milford, Meet the Barkers, Felicity, The Vampire Diaries) and film (Everyone's Hero, My Sister's Keeper, Rails & Ties, Something Borrowed) and Scrubs.

Career

Wells was born in Seattle and raised in Spokane, Washington. He has said in interviews that he was inspired by his older sisters who "brought out the music in me" but did not begin songwriting until his move to California. While attending Hope International University in Southern California Wells joined the band Skypark.

In 2000 Wells launched his solo career, playing acoustic shows in Orange County, California. In 2006 Wells signed a recording contract with Universal Records. They re-released his independent album Hold On on the internet in 2006, and released it in stores on Feb. 6th 2007. On Hold On, Wells worked with producers Chris Karn and Marc Ford.

Wells released his solo album Remain on January 27, 2009. The first single from Remain, "More," reached #13 on the Triple A radio charts. The second single "Sink or Swim" was used in promos for the season 6 premiere of Grey's Anatomy.

In 2009, Wells performed at Hotel Carolina, an annual two-day singer-songwriter festival held in South Carolina. On May 2, 2010 Wells's EP Metal and Wood was released to the public. Along with touring, Wells participated in a benefit concert in Santa Barbara, California for Haiti survivors.

In September 2010, Wells's song "Time Of Our Lives" was used in the series finale promo for American daytime soap opera, As the World Turns, as well as The Vampire Diaries episode, Memory Lane (Season 2, Episode 4).

Wells is a regular performer in San Marcos High School (Santa Barbara, California)'s benefit event for Unity Shoppe of Santa Barbara, Kids Helping Kids. He was the featured performer in the 2008 Kids Helping Kids event and opened for Mat Kearney in the 2011 Kids Helping Kids event. Both events took place in the Granada Theater in Santa Barbara, California.

He will be performing at the El Montecito School at San Roque's annual 'Evening of Thanksgiving', a gala to be held at the Fours Season's Biltmore in Montecito in March 2012

Remain album

Wells traveled to London to work on Remain. “Half of the album was done in London and the other half completed here in the states,” says Wells. “I didn’t know what kind of record I was going to make before I got to London, but something just seemed to click while I was there that really defined what I wanted to do with this album.”

Wells worked with songwriter and producer Martin Terefe (Jason Mraz, KT Tunstall, James Morrison) and Iain Archer (UK indie artist and Snow Patrol co-writer) in the UK, and Tim Myers (formerly of OneRepublic), David Hodges (formerly of Evanescence) and Matt Scannell (Vertical Horizon) in the U.S.. The song “Losing Ground,” one of a handful of production/songwriting collaborations between Wells and Terefe, was written and demoed in less than 3 hours during their first writing session together.