He took piano lessons while growing up and sang in Holland High School's show choir, Vocal Dimensions. As a teen, he played in different local rock bands including The Way We Dress and Night Shift. In the late 1980s, he moved to Los Angeles where he slept on a friend's couch the first year and lived on a diet of junk food and beer.
Career
James Michael has worked as a record producer, songwriter and/or engineer/mixer with many recording artists including Kelly Clarkson, Alanis Morissette, Meat Loaf, Mötley Crüe, HammerFall, Scorpions, Hilary Duff, The Rasmus, Papa Roach, Trapt, American Bang, Saliva, The Exies, Deana Carter, Sammy Hagar, Lillix, Sarah Kelly, Taylor Momsen, Halestorm, Jack's Mannequin, Brides of Destruction, Shahnaz and Marion Raven. He put out his first solo album in 2000 entitled "Inhale". Michael wrote and mixed the entire album and often played all of the instruments, with the exception of a few guest artists. He released the song "Los Angeloser" on May 7, 2009, on MySpace. Michael gave the song "Los Angeloser" to Meat Loaf which was released on Meat Loaf's album "Hang Cool Teddy Bear". Michael sung backing vocals on the song. Michael is co-founder and lead singer of the rock band. The band's debut album, The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack, produced by Michael, was on the Billboard Top 200 Album chart for 26 consecutive weeks and featured the No.1 rock track of 2008 and gold-selling single "Life Is Beautiful". He also co-wrote and handled production for the band's second album, "This Is Gonna Hurt", which debuted at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 200 and its second track, "Lies of the Beautiful People", went No. 1 at Active Rock radio. Michael produced, mixed and co-wrote Mötley Crüe's last studio albumSaints of Los Angeles that debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart. He also co-wrote the song "Higher Than Heaven" for James Durbin's "Memories of a Beautiful Disaster" album released on November 21, 2011. He produced Papa Roach’s new album, "The Connection", which debuted at No. 17 on the Billboard Hot 200 album chart. Other projects from around this time include writing the track "People Like Us" for the Kelly Clarkson "Greatest Hits – Chapter One" project, mixing Hinder’s new album "Welcome to the Freak Show" and writing with and contributing vocals for Halestorm. Michael's solo song "Learn to Hate You" premiered on November 26, 2012, online. Michael met up with Sixx and Ashba early in 2013 to start writing songs for a new Sixx:A.M. album, which turned out to be "Modern Vintage", released in 2014. The band followed up with "Prayers for the Damned" and "Prayers for the Blessed" in 2016, before going on hiatus in 2017. In February 2018, it was announced Michael was forming a new band with Ashba, Pyromantic.
