Jacob Bannon

Jacob Bannon (born October 15, 1976) is an American musician who is the vocalist, lyricist and graphic artist for the metalcore band Converge.

He is the co-founder and owner of the record label Deathwish Inc. and the author of many visual works for independent punk rock and heavy metal musicians.

Bannon has also composed and performed experimental music as Supermachiner with Ryan Parker and more recently as Wear Your Wounds.

Bannon was born in 1976.

He grew up splitting his time between Andover in the Merrimack Valley, Charlestown, and East Boston on some weekends.

At 17, he graduated High School early and chose to work until heading to college.

Converge is an American metalcore band formed in the winter of 1990 by vocalist Jacob Bannon and guitarist Kurt Ballou, they were later joined by bassist Jeff Feinburg, and drummer Damon Bellorado.

They started by playing covers of hardcore punk, punk rock and heavy metal songs.

The band soon graduated to playing live performances in 1991, after recording some demos on a 4-track recorder.

Converge have enjoyed a relatively high level of recognition.

Their popularity began to rise with the release of breakthrough album, Jane Doe.

Converge's records have gradually become more elaborate and expensive to produce.

This progression began with their move from a small independent label (Equal Vision Records) to a considerably larger one (Epitaph Records).

Special releases have traditionally been handled by Bannon's record label, Deathwish Inc.

After Supermachiner released Rise of the Great Machine and after Converge had completed recording Jane Doe, Bannon started writing and recording solo material under the name Dear Lover.

He relocated to metro Boston and attended college at The Art Institute of Boston, earning a Bachelors In Fine Arts for design in 1998, and subsequently taught the subject on a college level for a brief time.

He also won the "Excellence In Design" accolade from the school.

For a brief time, he instructed at the same college in their "Continuing Education" program.

After working a variety of freelance design jobs at firms, he became a freelance Artist/Designer primarily working in the Independent music community.

He is a vegetarian and follows a straight edge lifestyle.

Although a number of releases were lined up none of them saw the light of day except a demo version of one track "Grant Me the Strength" which was made available for download on Converge's website in January 2003.

The track was supposed to be part of en EP titled The Blood of Thine Enemies, but the EP was never released.

From 2005 to 2008, he has been nominated for the title of "World's Sexiest Vegetarian" by Peta2.

He is concerned with the greyhound-racing industry, and is a dog owner, having owned rescued greyhounds, pitbulls, among others.

Bannon is also an avid mixed martial arts and kickboxing fan, having trained boxing, Muay Thai, and obtained a license as a MMA instructor in the state of Massachusetts, working occasionally as a judge.

Accordingly, Deathwish has sponsored some MMA fighters.

Bannon is known for his extensive tattoos.

He received his first tattoo at the age of 15, which has subsequently been covered by other tattoos.

He has been tattooed by Darren Brass, among many other artists.

In January 2005 Dear Lover recordings were said to have been in the editing and mixing process, and it was believed there would be multiple releases of Dear Lover recordings which included the Wear Your Wounds double album throughout the year, however this did not happen.

In March 2008 the single "The Blood of Thine Enemies" was released on Deathwish, Bannon released the song under the name J.Bannon.

Bannon has said the song was never intended it to be part of an album, only to be a stand-alone piece.

Converge's website also changed the use of the name Dear Lover to J.Bannon in the upcoming section where the Wear Your Wounds album was listed.

Initially planning since 2008 on releasing solo music under his name only, in 2012 Bannon began using the Wear Your Wounds name for these projects.

This allowed others to collaborate and work with Bannon on future projects.

The track was later featured on Supermachiner's 2009 album Rust.

There was also a Dear Lover double album planned titled Wear Your Wounds to be released on Icarus Records.

On November 16, 2012, Bannon and Ben Chisholm of Chelsea Wolfe released a split 7-inch EP titled Wear Your Wounds and Revelator, it was the first time Bannon released anything under then name Wear Your Wounds.

In 2013, Bannon was the subject of a short documentary directed by Ian McFarland entitled "Rungs in a Ladder."

In the documentary, Bannon reflected on important moments in his life and his motivation as an artist.