Jon O'Mahony

Early years

Before entering the music industry, O'Mahony had a variety of jobs including working at Drumtech drum school in London, and a 3-year stint working as a tennis coach at the Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Florida and the UK where he was also a hitting partner to various up and coming juniors, including the then 12-year-old Anna Kournikova in the early 90's.

Ultra

Although sometimes mistakenly described as a manufactured boyband, Ultra was originally formed by O'Mahony, James Hearn, James Rose & Michael Harwood who were schoolfriends from Buckinghamshire, England in the mid-1990s. After they left school they formed various bands, playing under names such as Stepping Stoned, Decade and Suburban Surfers (where they signed to manager Tom Watkins. After a brief 9 months with the notorious manager, they left him and found a new manager in Tony Gordon, who had masterminded the careers of Culture Club and Curiosity Killed The Cat. They eventually called themselves Ultra (named after the Depeche Mode album), and the following year Nick Keynes joined as bass player after being introduced by mutual friend Neil Cowley, who at the time was the keyboard player for the Brand New Heavies, and more recently performed piano on Adele's 20 million selling album 21.

Chart success

Their demo tape eventually came to the attention of Ian Stanley (ex-Tears for Fears) and they were signed to Warner's EastWest label by Ian and Max Hole, who was later to become CEO of Universal Music Group. In 1998 they released their first single, "Say You Do", written by band member Hearn, which reached No. 11 in the UK. Their next single, "Say it Once", charted at No. 16 in the UK as well as hitting the Top 10 spot in several other territories including Spain, Italy and Australia. Over the next two years they had several singles in the UK, Italian and Spanish top 20, and in 1999, their debut album, Ultra, entered the UK Albums Chart at No. 37. Their final single for Warners was "Rescue Me", which charted in the UK at No. 8, the band's only British Top 10 single. The band sold over 1 million records.

They were very popular with young female audiences, although they insisted that their success came primarily from their songs, not their looks. Ultra performed live and also supported a number of other pop acts including Irish boyband Boyzone in 1997, former Eternal member Louise Nurding for a performance at Wembley, and boyband 911. They were particularly popular in South East Asia and Italy, where they were mobbed by 3000 teenage girls at a record signing in Milan.

The band performed on Top of the Pops three times, as well as saturated UK and international TV coverage over a two-year period. Their biggest audience was at a festival in Seville where they performed to over 100,000 people.

Just before recording of their second studio album, Max Hole and Ian Stanley left the company to be replaced by Cheryl Robson and Christian Tattersfield. Production had started under temporary Warner MD Ian Grenfell, and big name producers Ian Stanley, Steve Robson, Ash Howes and Claudio Guidetti (producer of Laura Pausini and Eros Ramazotti) were drafted in. However, half way through recording, Tattersfield decided that the band were no longer right for the label and they were dropped without finishing the record. The band had split up but reunited to release a second album, The Sun Shines Bright, in 2006.

Rider

Following from Ultra, O'Mahony, Keynes & Harwood formed a new group with a number of different short term vocalists including Ryan Molloy. Singers Alistair Griffin and James Fox were both briefly members of the band at different times.

In 2002, and with Molloy as lead singer, the band wrote and recorded a song to celebrate the World Cup, called "England Crazy", which they recorded as a one-off project as Rider with Terry Venables. This project was re-signed to their old record label East West, but only reached number 46 in the UK chart due to a lacklustre campaign from the label. It has since been featured on a number of football-themed compilation albums.

Goldust Productions

O'Mahony, Harwood and Keynes set up a music production company, Goldust, writing and producing for other artists such as Bryan Adams, Kylie Minogue, Natasha Bedingfield, Phixx and Liberty X. They also wrote music for movies, with title tracks on the Andy García movie Modigliani, and The Magic Roundabout.

Oceanic & LA Sound Studios

O'Mahony left the Goldust partnership in 2009 to pursue other musical ventures under the name Oceanic. As well as writing and producing for various artists, Oceanic also became a record label and management company, and home to UK band Honey Ryder. Under the Oceanic umbrella is the 6 studio recording complex LA Sound in West London, home to various other producer/writers including Steve Brown, David Dawood, and Richard Spiller.