Jason Mendonca is the vocalist and guitarist of the British progressive blackened death metal band Akercocke. He's half British and Brasilian, has family in Rio De Janeiro.

In the late 1980s, Jason formed Salem Orchid with long time friend David Gray, but the band split up in 1992, and Jason relocated to North London where he listened solely to electronic music. During this time, inspired by the idea of creating sounds that had never been heard before, he set about recording several records under a variety of pseudonyms and collaborating with a number of similar minded producers from the London electronic underground. Mendonca and associates were also responsible for the notorious VFM parties at which he appeared with his Satanic Gabba project, Disciples of Belial.

Some years later, in the mid 1990s, he got back into metal and met up with Gray again. Thus, in 1997, Akercocke was born. With the release of their fifth full-length album, Antichrist, the band were faced with controversy from Christian groups. A printing plant in the United States even refused to print the album's inlay booklet due to supposed "satanic materials". Jason said he did not find the booklet "overtly anti-Christian" and the printing plant's unwillingness was "really ugly. And it smacks of fascism to me."

When Akercocke scheduled a tour date in Belfast on May 18, 2007, the band received more controversy, this time from Northern Ireland's Christian groups who claimed they were spreading a satanic message to Northern Ireland's youth. On May 16, 2007, Jason appeared on BBC1's debate programme, Nolan Live, where he defended the band's right to play the gig.

Mendonca also served as production-runner on the 1993 feature film 'The Secret Garden'.

[edit] References

• "Akercocke official website". http://www.akercocke.com. Retrieved 2007-12-21. 
• "Jason Mendonca on IMDb". http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1132822/.