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A WORCESTER Signer/songwriter has made it into the Top 20 of a pop chart. KJ also known as Kevin Jon Slade, is climbing the Music Week pop chart (musicweek.com) with his lastest singleWithout You. The song enetered the chart four weeks ago and has been creeping up the chart to join the likes of JLS, Sugababes and Lady Gaga.
The 26-year-old musician from St John's Worcester, has been writing and producing for the last nine years. He was signed to a local record label in 2007 and has been working on his debut album No Panic, due to be released this spring. Kevin Savage, managing director of independent label SavageTrax.com, is pleased with this latest success. He said "It's been a tough few years. We had similar success with another track, Shakin' That', reaching Number 6 back in 2008 but were denied commercial chart success when our distributor went into administration."
Without You is available to download from iTunes or from kjofficial.com. To add to its appeal, the song has been remixed by Moto Blanco, the group behind popular club mixes of Shkira, Pixie lott, Alexandra Burke and Pussycat Dolls songs.

He is very frank about his struggle against the illness in the hope that anyone else who may

“At the time I didn’t realise and I didn’t get any help, so it developed. The panic attacks turned into depression and sometimes just going to the supermarket was difficult.
“In the weeks just before I got my record deal I didn’t want to leave my bedroom. I guess I had to get to the worst point before getting better.”


Getting that record deal, a direct result of putting a selection of his songs on myspace.com, literally changed Kevin’s life. “I’m very grateful,” he said.
“Getting that record deal, pretty much overnight, changed everything. I’ve had to work very hard and put to bed all the stuff that’s happened.”
Next month, Kevin will release his first single, When Fear Gets In The Way. It was written about having fears of getting another panic attack in public, then facing these fears for the sake of his friends and his own sanity. It’s a song very close to Kevin’s heart and one he performed at the Cardiff Mardis Gras - in front of 25,000 people - earlier this month.
“I got quite choked up singing it in Cardiff,” he said.
“When Kevin (Savage - owner of Savage Trax Records) told me we’d got the gig I thought, This is going to be mad’ but I just went for it.
“To be honest, I was incredibly nervous but everyone said for those eight minutes on stage I was a completely different, confident person.”
Kevin has just signed a four-album record deal with Worcestershire-based firm Savage Trax. His single will be available online and from HMV in Worcester.
To hear some of his music go to www.kevinjon.co.uk To keep up to date with his progress visit www.kevinjon.co.uk LAUREN ROGERS