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"Weekend
Daddy" ALBUM & SINGLE available NOW.
About Jack Ezra
Jack Ezra is multi talented. An all-round,
inventor, singer song-writer, teacher and father of Three. His New Album, Weekend Daddy features many songs
about family break up, including the title track Weekend Daddy. Other songs include 911 Daddy Down, Ice On The
Sun, Invisible To You, Your World, Crossfire, Christmas Father and an
instrumental track, Sisters. Jack's music is sponsored by the charity
Families Need Fathers.
QUICK LINKS:
Jack
Ezra's Albums, "Premonition", "Weekend Daddy" & "Watching My
Six" on
iTunes
 Click
HERE.
Weekend Daddy video on YouTube
 Click
HERE.
Weekend Daddy on FaceBook
Click
HERE.
Families Need Fathers Information Click
HERE.
Weekend Daddy Lyrics - Click
HERE.
Weekend Daddy image gallery - Click
HERE.
Premonition Album
information
- Click
HERE. Premonition Album Lyrics
- Click
HERE.
The Weekend Daddy
Story.
An Interview with Jack Ezra. Singer /Songwriter.
Music released for Fathers and
Families on Father’s Day June 21st 2015.
-
Interviewer: So Jack, why did you
call the album Weekend Daddy?
-
JE: It’s the title track of
the Album of the same name. It took me ten years to record that
song. Each time I tried to sing it my throat seized up – you
know, like when you get emotional and you want to cry. I just
couldn’t do it until a few months ago. I’d start singing,… “Your
Mother walked out with the two of you”…and I’d just break down.
I’d keep seeing this image of my kids leaving with their Mum and
I just couldn’t record that song till all these years later.
The thing is most Weekend Daddy’s don’t actually see
their kids every weekend – it’s once a fortnight if they are
lucky. There was one time I didn’t see my kids for three years.
Their Mum had an excuse every time I was due to collect them.
There’re ill, they have a party to go to - something to stop me
seeing them.Years went by until I set up home with my
fiancé. A home specially selected to give both my kids a room
each when they came to stay every other weekend.
When I did see them I was having to travel eighty miles each way
on a Saturday morning to collect them and then the same again to
return them on Sunday evening. This went on for years until
their Mum one-day decided I was not paying enough maintenance. I
had to start serious litigation to get in to
Court to try to see my son and daughter. By this time my
daughter was in her early teens and the judge suggested that she
might not want to see me every fortnight, as she was now old
enough to do her own thing on weekends.
-
Interviewer: Are you any relation to
George Ezra?
-
JE: No. George Ezra’s real
name is actually George Ezra Barnett. He’s a terrific British
singer/songwriter half my age. My surname really is Ezra. When I
was teaching technology in a school, the students spread the
rumour that I was George Ezra’s Dad. Also, when my previous
album, “Premonition”, was released last year, I had to refund a
couple of people who bought my music on iTunes by mistake
because they thought they were buying George Ezra’s music.
-
Interviewer: Why did your Marriage
break up?
-
JE: After their Mum had our
second child she started going nightclubbing a lot and returning
home in the early hours.I didn’t mind at all at first, as I quite liked looking
after the kids and playing music in my basement-recording studio
with the baby monitor on. My brother said one evening, “Where is
she going this time of night all dressed up”. Occasionally,
their Mum would be revising at a friend’s house for her
accountancy exams till the early hours. She also insisted that
it would be good for us to spend time apart so I helped her pack
and she and the kids left one weekend. All she was really doing
was moving in with a guy she was having an affair with for the
past six months. I should have seen that something was wrong but
I was just too trusting or just too stupid.
Interviewer: Are all the songs on
the Album about family break-up?
-
JE: No, not at all. I wrote
“Crossfire” during the Gaza conflict when I was actually in
Israel. I just felt bad for both sides. There seemed no way out
for either side with innocent people getting hurt - caught up in
the middle.“Your World” is just about the Earth – this planet that
we share with each other and possibly how some people believe we
got here.“Get What you Give” is about some people who
meddle in other people’s business a bit too much making the
situation worse for everyone while “Sisters Instrumental” is
just a piece of music which I have dedicated to all sisters who
care for each other.
-
Interviewer: “911 Daddy Down” –
that’s about you isn’t it?
-
JE: It’s about me and a lot
of other Dads who feel suicidal at some point. Sadly, some
actually go through with it and take their kids with them.
Luckily for me I had lots of family support at the time and got
through it. I would never dream of leaving my kids behind
without a Dad.
Interviewer: Weren’t you in the
papers and on the radio a few months ago about inventing
something for the deaf?
-
JE: Yes. I invented a system called “Invisible Subtitles”
so the deaf and hard of hearing could see captions during a
movie while the rest of the audience don’t see the subtitles.
I’m a fully qualified Design & Technology teacher and also a bit
of an inventor with dozens of filed patents - but that’s another
story.
-
Interviewer: How do you have time to
teach, invent and do your music?
-
JE: I guess I am a very
creative person. It just pours out of me. If I see something, a
niche in the market for a product – I work on it. If I have an
idea for a song like “Ice On The Sun”, which means “things that
are impossible”, I work on it. I love music as much as I love
technology and love teaching technology to kids and I think that
they respond to the fact that I do all this other stuff.
-
Interviewer: I understand you are
not going to your daughter’s wedding next month?
-
JE: No I’m not. I was
invited to attend by my daughter. She said “Dad, Fred, her step
Dad, is paying for the wedding so he’s walking me down the
aisle”. Really matter of fact. I was heartbroken. I explained
that it was a Dad’s honour to walk his daughter down the aisle
and give her away. I spoke to many people about it and most
people agreed with me while some said I should go to the wedding
no matter what. I saw my daughter after that and she seemed
quite OK that I was not going. “You didn’t even send me an
engagement card”, she said. I know sometimes things get lost in
the post but this time a lost card really caused a lot of pain
and heartache.
-
Interviewer: Didn’t your daughter
send you a wedding invitation card also?
-
JE: The card was yet another stab in the heart
for me. It said, “Fred and Amy Roberts request the pleasure of
your company to the evening reception of the marriage of THEIR
Daughter”….The word THEIR really got to me. I asked my daughter
about it and she said that she was fine with how the card was
written. I was expected to watch another man walking my daughter
down the aisle, stand on the side-lines and smile and take video
of the event. It's amazing how all these years later the ripples
of a divorce are still felt by all involved.
-
Interviewer: Do you keep in regular
contact with your children from your first marriage?
-
JE: No, I haven’t seen Bob,
my son, for a couple of years now. He went off to train as a
surfing instructor in Australia but I do get the odd email and
Skype. Meanwhile my daughter is settled with her fiancé - she’s
got her own life - she’s close in miles but I can’t help feeling
that her mum and my divorce has made us quite distant from each
other. In fact I wrote “Invisible to you”, on the album, which
kind of sums it up, really.
-
Interviewer: You have a new wife and
family now - what do they think about all this?
-
JE: My wife has always
supported me through my break-up and divorce. In a way, she’s
been the strong one. She came to Court many times even though
they wouldn’t let her in sometimes. I’m sure it’s hard for any
new wife or girlfriend to accept someone else’s children in
their own home and just as hard for the kids to get on with the
new woman in Dads life. Sure, it was tense at times. My son from
my second marriage, didn’t know he had a stepbrother and
stepsister for many years but when we thought he was old enough
and ready to find out, he seemed to accept it without any
problems.
Interviewer: Has all this caused
problems in your family?
-
JE: Yes, it has. I have
fallen out with some of my close family over it. They insist
that I should have been a more forceful, proactive, Dad and
think that I should do this and do that about the situation.
I don’t think a Dad should be treated like an ordinary member of
the audience at his daughter’s wedding. I will still see my
daughter after she is married. She’ll still be my daughter just
as my son will always be my son.
Interviewer: Didn’t your kids change
their surnames when they were still quite young?
-
JE: Yes. I was only told
recently that when my kids were at school, their mum had their
names changed to Fred’s last name for convenience – for the sake
of school trips, holidays etc. Only, I’m sure you can’t really
do that legally – can you? Or at least surely, you must need the
permission and signature of the real Father to change your
children’s surnames officially by DeedPoll.
-
Interviewer: How did that make you
feel?
-
JE: I was gutted. My own
kids – eradicating my surname and changing it to their step
Dad’s surname. I felt that my kids wanted to cut themselves off
from me. I spoke to my daughter about it recently and she said
she was young and didn’t realise it meant that much to me. It
didn’t help that certain people in the family said it was OK and
that what their mum did was fine and it was all right with them.
Meanwhile I was doing everything in my power – going to Court,
travelling hundreds of miles each weekend, just so that I could
see my kids on a regular basis.
-
Interviewer: Did you feel that your
album Weekend Daddy was like therapy for you?
-
JE: Oh, yeah definitely.
Music has always been therapy for me. If I couldn’t let it all
out – I would just crack. Take “Christmas Father” for instance,
on the album. The things I mention are one hundred percent true.
I used to see my kids on Boxing Day and that was my Christmas
day with them. This went on year after year. “Wrapping presents
all alone then call the kids up on the phone”. It happened
exactly like that – it was awful.
-
Interviewer: So what do you hope
your music will achieve?
-
JE: It’s already been good
for me getting it out of my system but it is also now starting
to connect with new Dads that are currently being treated badly
by their partners and going through a tough time. The Charity,
“Families Need Fathers” heard about my album and together we are
showing Dads that they are not alone – there is a help network
available for them.
-
Interviewer: Do you have a video to
go with Weekend Daddy?
-
JE: Yes, it's shot in 3D HD I might add - with some help from my young son
behind the camera. I haven’t released it in 3D as there is not
much call for it at the moment. What it has got running through
it, is loads of actual clips of my two children from my first
marriage as they are growing up mostly shot on the Weekends I
had contact with them. I think it adds a real feeling of honesty
and reality to the song - that this really happened to this
person – to this family.
-
Interviewer: So Weekend Daddy by
Jack Ezra is being released for Father’s Day?
-
JE: Yes, I really wanted it
to come out around that day so all Fathers can connect with what
I am saying. Fathers, Mothers and children in a good
relationship should be grateful for what they have and Dads that
are new Weekend Daddies need to know that they are not alone and
we can all celebrate Father’s Day together.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
MUSIC BIOGRAPHY: Jack Ezra.
At the age of eleven Jack won his first guitar in a bet with his cousin.
The challenge was that he had to learn how to play all the chords for
the song, "House Of the Rising Sun", in four hours. Jack had never
touched a guitar before.
All through school he won poetry, essay, and song writing competitions,
and it was not long before he was gigging as lead singer & guitarist
with his band, "Twice Nightly", managed by the not yet, famous and
influential, Lucian Grainge, CBE, Chairman and CEO of Universal Music
Group. It was during this period he received offers to join other, more
well known bands as a lead singer or guitarist, whilst rubbing shoulders
with Bob Geldof and the, soon to be signed, "Boom Town Rats".
Instead, Jack went off to Art College to begin his love of film & art &
design. Jack has since become a great innovator and inventor in the
world of 3D. But that’s another story....At that time he formed "Fast Forward" with his brother Solly on drums.
This band was managed by Jim White who also managed
"Alex Harvey" & "Nazareth".
Still a record deal eluded the band. Meanwhile Jack's song writing was
noticed by "Eaton Music" and through a publishing deal, songs were
submitted to many named artists including Tina Turner. From his
portfolio, "Just a Moment Away" was chosen for the EuroVision/ Song For
Europe Contest, and made it as far as the top 24 out of 2000 applicants.
Solly, Jack's brother, was now the drummer in "The Reaction", the band
with Mark Hollis which went on to become "TalkTalk" in the 80's. It was
not long before Jack was also part of that band. However, working with
Mark H proved impossible for the two brothers and Solly signed with
another band called "The Eyes", whilst Jack began his four year Art &
Design BA Honours Degree course at Cat Hill.
It was at this time that the introduction of the Fostex, multitrack, 4
track cassette, PortaStudio became available and this marked a turning
point for Jack's music. He was now able to go solo as a singer
songwriter and musician. The 3D Experience Ltd was born and now, years
later, Jack moves between his passions, developing future technology,
creating 3D content including films and music videos, and writing music
and sound-tracks for all of the Company’s 3DHD video productions.
After obtaining both, his BA Hons. Degree in
Art & Design and also a PGCE teaching qualification, he worked as Studio
Manager at the Samurai Music complex in London. It was here he honed his
music production skills working with dozens of new and also well known
artists including, "Boy George", "Erasure" and "Level 42". Jack bought
the basement of his flat and set up his own professional recording
studio, all the time teaching Design & Technology in a local school and
dabbling in the new field of Three Dimensional Video. It was at this
time he merged his two passions, and single-handedly produced the first
ever 3D Music Video from technology he developed.
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