Jon Sadlier has been playing music all his life, he started out learning the piano from the age of 6 and completed all his grades by the time he was 17. He then achieved a gold medal from the Royal Irish Academy of Music at age 18 for piano. 

 

At this age he taught himself the guitar and began playing in local bands. Draft was his first venture with his close friends Colm Duffy and Jim Donnelly, they enjoyed sharing the stage with names such as Director and the Coronas and wrote some great rock songs also with the help of another friend Hughie Devine. After the lads moved away to London, Hughie and Jon continued with a new band called The Ambertones and they recorded their debut EP at Temple bar music centre. 

 

The EP had minor success with write ups in Hotpress magazine and national newspapers. They also had a sell out show in Crawdaddy and The Academy 2. 

 

Recruiting new members for the backline the lads had a year of gigs in the Bray fest, Whelans and the Village. They recorded a singe “Sparks to Flames” in the reputable Grouse Lodge studio which housed such talent and Michael Jackson, Will I am, Snow Patrol and many others. The single was a charity song for MND and the lads raised thousands of euro. The song was playlisted on RTÉ and had some great responses. This led to them getting a showcase with Sony Ireland. They received positive feedback but were told adjustments needed to be made and the lads went their separate ways. 

 

Hughie and Jon continued on under a new guise “Hunting the Brave”. The lads went back to the studio with a good friend and genius, Scott Halliday who had the pleasure of working with some amazing talent in Prince, Lisa Hannigan and James Vincent McMorrow. For a few years they worked on an album that never got finished but they ended up releasing some singles from it “Bolt from the blue” which was 98FM Home grown heroes song chosen by Dermot and Dave. The video was shot by Dara Munis who has a great track record and has worked alongside Hozier to name a few. Hunting the Braves biggest achievements were yet to come as they recorded a single “Ultraviolet” which hit the radio stations and did very well. It was FM104s song of the week and was playlisted on 2FM which led to the lads getting to go live on air with Nicky Byrne and perform. On the same day which has never been done in RTÉ’s history they got to go live also on another 2fm show with Colm Hayes and Al Porter. Following all this radio the lads were asked to play on the main stage and the Independence music festival in Cork, with the help of Scott Halliday and Alan Elliot (Drum and Bass) which was a massive honour. 

 

That November Jon released a charity single for Age Action “Dare to dream” and again raised thousands for the charity. This caught the eye of Christmas FM and Jon’s single became their Christmas song of the year as the nominated charity that year was also Age Action. The single was also the Playlisted on RTÉ Radio 1 and received lots of great comments and praise. 

 

Since then, Jon has been gigging all over Dublin and Ireland with various groups, some with his brother Dave Sadlier and also a group called “The Mash UP” with the help and Eoin Redmond (Drums) and Paul Rochford (Bass). You can catch all these upcoming gigs in the gig dates section of the website. Jon also does a lot of solo gigs playing a mixture of piano and guitar songs. “I do everything from weddings, funerals to late night after wedding sessions, second day weddings and even back garden summer bbq’s” Jon Added. 

 

Lately he has been working behind the scenes with lots of different types of music and recording them at his home studio. “There will be some mad stuff coming soon, trust me”.