Stuart Zender

Zender was born in Sheffield, England. He comes from a family with a musical background, Zender's father was a musician, his uncle was a flamenco guitarist, and his older sister participated in punk bands.[2] His family relocated to Norristown, Pennsylvania when Zender was seven years old.[2] He moved back to England at age 15,[2] where attended Leighton Park School in Reading, UK for a year in 1988–89 before being expelled. Zender left his home when he was seventeen with two thousand pounds that his mother had saved, to give him a head start in life.[3]

As Zender said, he never had good business acumen, so instead of investing that money in some way, he visited a music store and bought a Warwick Streamer bass guitar which cost nearly the whole amount given to him by his mother. Before picking up a Warwick, Zender played a Music Man Stingray bass guitar. Of his early bands, the most famous was the prank rock group Fabulous, a 1991 outfit chiefly made up of NME writers and photographers. He also said that in another interview, he played a drum with a circus group without animals at that time.

Zender was one of the members of the band of Jamiroquai. Jamiroquai has been in existence since 1992. He joined the band when the album released in 1993. To be auditioned for Jamiroquai, Stuart met leader Jason Kay (Jay Kay) through Nick Van Gelder(the first drummer in Jamiroquai), acquaintance of the circus group. While enrolled in Jamiroquai, he became famous by playing impressive melodic basslines. Zender was asked to become an official Warwick basses endorser. He received a number of unique custom shop Streamer models.

Zender left Jamiroquai in 1998 during the recording of their fourth album, Synkronized, because of conflicts with the band leader Jay Kay. The circumstances behind his departure have never been fully revealed, but Zender told of his anger that he and the other band members were not being credited enough for assisting in songwriting and producing. He also said that he resigned to spend more time with his new wife Melanie Blatt, one of UK girl group All Saints, and their new baby Lilyella.

After Jamiroquai, Zender had his own project with the British soul artist, Don-E, called "AZUR" which signed a record deal with d'Angelo's label.[4] However, the project was shelved and was then available on the Internet for a short time. He has also played bass guitar with other artists, including All Saints, Omar, Lauryn Hill, D'Angelo, Gorillaz, Samuel Purdey, Ms. Dynamite and Stevie Wonder. He and Melanie Blatt were together for seven years. They have one daughter, named Lilyella. Some of Zender's most recent work should have been with his latest band "LEROI". Zender explained they were signed to Geffen Records in Los Angeles but the deal fell through after the heads of the company, Polly Anthony and Jordan Shurr, who signed them, were made redundant.

Zender left Los Angeles in summer 2006 to become the musical director and bass guitar player for Mark Ronson. The release of the album Version in 2007 proved to be a larger success than first expected. He has played bass guitar for Ronson at events such as "Radio 1's Big Weekend", "O2 Wireless at Hyde Park", "Global Gathering" and "Glastonbury", and festivals all over Europe including "Montreux Jazz Festival" in Switzerland and "North Sea Jazz Festival" in Rotterdam. They were also special guests on Jay-Z's UK tour.

Having left the Mark Ronson band in 2011, Zender runs his own record label, White Buffalo Recordings, and formerly ran the music publishing company Made Youth Inc.