James Maslow

James Maslow
James Maslow in 2010
Born	James David Maslow (1990-07-16) July 16, 1990 New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, singer
Years active	2008–present
Home town	La Jolla, California, U.S.
Television	Big Time Rush
Religion	Judaism
Musical career
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano, bass, drums
Labels	Columbia Nick
Associated acts	Big Time Rush

James David Maslow (born July 16, 1990) is an American actor, and singer, known for playing the role of James Diamond on Nickelodeon's Big Time Rush and is a member of the boy band with the same name. He also starred as Kevin Mohr on the Sony Crackle original series Sequestered.^[1]

In 2014, Maslow competed as a contestant on the eighteenth season of Dancing with the Stars, in which he reached fourth place.

Early life

Maslow was born in New York City, New York, and raised in La Jolla, California.^[2][3][4] His father is Jewish and his mother is Catholic; he was raised Jewish. He attended Hebrew school six days a week during his childhood, and celebrated becoming a Bar Mitzvah.^[5][6] He has described himself as a "religious and spiritual person".^[5][7]

At the age of six, Maslow began training as a singer when his parents placed him in the San Diego Children's Choir.^[3][8] He attended La Jolla and Torrey Pines elementary schools, Muirlands Middle School, and San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts.^[8] He had a small role in the San Diego Opera's production of La bohème when he was 10 years old.^[8][9][10] He attended acting camp at the La Jolla Playhouse, got his first agent when he was 14, and performed as Marius in a production of Les Misérables.^[8] Quitting the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts (SDSCPA) mid-way through the 10th grade, Maslow switched to Coronado School of the Arts (CoSA). He graduated from CoSA in 2007 in the musical theater department.^[8]

Career

Big Time Rush

Big Time Rush is an American pop singing group that formed at concerts 2009, consisting of him, along with three other members, which are Kendall Schmidt, Carlos Pena, Jr., and Logan Henderson, all on vocals. Maslow is one of the lead vocalists of the band.

Nickelodeon cast for the new sitcom in 2007. Maslow sent in his audition tape and received the role of James Diamond two years later. An album of original songs from the first season plus some others was released October 11, 2010, entitled B.T.R. It sold 67,000 copies in its first week and was certified Gold by the RIAA five months later in April 2011.

On November 21, 2011, the band released their second album called "Elevate" which sold 70,000 copies on its first week. Maslow and his band mates co-wrote 8 out of the 12 songs. Maslow wrote "Elevate", co-wrote "Love Me Love Me" and the first single from the album, "Music Sounds Better With U". The UK version of the album included a bonus song called "Epic" which he also helped write.

Maslow and Big Time Rush have a third album called 24/Seven which was released in June 11, 2013. The band promoted the album with the tour shared with Victoria Justice called the Summer Break Tour.^[11] which began on June 21 and ended on August 15.

On late Winter 2014, Maslow and the band went to their latest tour called "Big Time Rush Live 2014 World Tour", where they performed in Texas and 7 countries in Latin America. Big Time Rush has sold over 21 Million records worldwide to date.

Other projects

Maslow made his acting debut in 2008 as Shane in an episode of the Nickelodeon show iCarly. He also appeared in urFRENZ in 2009, in which he portrayed a character named Brandon. In 2012, he filmed an episode of See Dad Run, playing the role of actor Scott Baio's former TV son, Ricky.

Maslow was featured on the cover of the July 2014 issue of FitnessRx Magazine.^[12]

Also in 2014 Maslow was cast in the 2015 Lifetime television movie Seeds of Yesterday in the leading role of Bart Foxworth.^[13][14]

Other music projects

During 2013, Maslow went back to his YouTube channel, after a year hiatus, with a surprise for his fans. He was working on his very-first cover and asked them which song he should cover, stating it would be posted on his channel later on. And just as promised, on May 3, he posted his first cover of Zedd's song "Clarity". The video has reached over 2 million views to date as of 2014 since the day it was posted.

As time has passed, Maslow has been collaborating with Cimorelli on their cover of Justin Timberlake's song "Mirrors" and writing a song called "Never Too Young" with MattyB. On July 1, he made his second cover of Maroon 5's song "Love Somebody". Each of the uploaded videos have garnered over 2 and 8 million views respectively to date.

As of the first half of 2014, he hasn't said anything about uploading new covers or uploading new songs of his own yet on his channel, but he had stated to be working on new music during the second half of the same year.

Starting February 2015, he came back on his YouTube channel after another year on hiatus and once again asked to his fans song requests for his third cover. Exactly a week after, on February 9, he posted his third cover of Jennifer Lawrence of The Hunger Games song "The Hanging Tree".

With the success of his third cover, and almost every week during the same month, Maslow has done his fourth cover of Magic!’s song "Let Your Hair Down" on February 16, and an acoustic karaoke of Jack Johnson’s song "Better Together" on February 22.

Over two weeks later, on March 10, he posted his fifth cover of Ed Sheeran’s song "Thinking Out Loud". Over the whole process of his covers, were his fans whose has been completely strong at requesting songs, and this was enough proved when Maslow posted an acoustic cover of another Maroon 5's song "Sugar" on March 24. He released his first single "Lies" on July 24, 2015. He has also released another single called "Circles" on October 23, 2015. In addition, he has two covers, "Cheerleader" and "One Call Away" available for purchase on iTunes.

Dancing with the Stars

On March 4, 2014, ABC announced that Maslow would take part in the 18th season of Dancing with the Stars. He was paired with professional dancer Peta Murgatroyd.^[15] During his time on the show, Maslow earned the first perfect score of the season for his contemporary dance to "Let It Go" from Frozen on Disney Night.

Ultimately, Maslow made it to the finals, but was eliminated on the first night. Maslow finished in fourth place, with an average score of 26.9 (excluding scores from guest judges). In a vote on Twitter, Maslow was nevertheless chosen "in a landslide" to perform an encore of his freestyle dance during the season finale.

¹The Guest judges were Robin Roberts (Week 3), Julianne Hough (Week 4), Donny Osmond (Week 5), Redfoo (Week 6), Ricky Martin (Week 7), Abby Lee Miller (Week 8) and Kenny Ortega (Week 9).

²For this week only, as part of the "Partner Switch-Up" week, Maslow performed with Cheryl Burke instead of Murgatroyd. Murgatroyd danced with Olympic ice dancing gold medalist Charlie White.

Filmography

Awards and Recognition

Maslow received a nomination in 2014 at the annual Young Hollywood Awards for hottest body which he lost to former Dancing With The Stars competitor Derek Hough. ^[16] In the same year, Maslow again received recognition for his charitable efforts with the annual VH1 Do Something! "Celebs Gone Good Awards", though he failed to make the winners list as Taylor Swift had won that time for the third consecutive Year.^[17] In addition to these nominations, James Maslow was nominated as Favorite International TV Star at the Australian Kids Choice Awards between 2010^[18] and also again in 2011.^[19] He has also been recognized with an Australian Astra Award nomination for Favorite International Actor or Personality at the 2011 event, but did not win.^[20] In 2014, Maslow along with cast and crew of the Sony Crackle drama series Sequestered received 2(IAWTVA) International Academy of Web Television Awards for Best Drama Series and one for Best Ensemble Cast losing both bids.^[21]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to James Maslow.

• James Maslow at the Internet Movie Database
• James Maslow on Myspace
• James Maslow on Twitter