Jay William Ellis was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on October 3, 1990, to Daniel and Jenny Ellis. He was raised in Southeastern Wisconsin, and started playing guitar at the age of 14 under the tutoring of Brandon Shilts. At 16, Jay and a few others formed Kenosha's Killdozer and began playing local shows to Kenosha and surrounding other regional masses. Later the band was reformed into the band Do Not Resuscitate (DNR). The band dissolved in late 2009. Jay went on to do a brief stint with the local Kenosha metal band Woe to the Earth playing lead guitar, before leaving the band early 2011. After struggling to put together another band for quite some time, he began to work on his own solo project with his friend and now Producer for Continuum Records, Mark Hannes in 2013. The two have set an October 2014 release date for the solo debut album Beyond the Coil under the name of Ellis. Jay's influences consist of, but are not limited to:Old School Influences: Pantera, Metallica, Slayer, Nevermore, and TestamentModern: Intervals, Threat Signal, Animals As Leaders, The Human Abstract, Guthrie Govan, Periphery, After The Burial, Veil of Maya, Conquering Dystopia and/or anything else Jeff Loomis is now doing or will be doing.