James Raftery(I)

James Raftery is an actor, musician, and songwriter who was born on May 9, 1966 in Hartford, CT. At 18, he began attending NYU's Tisch School of the Arts for acting. There, he studied at the Stella Adler Institute and with Beatrice Straight at the Michael Chekhov Studio. In 1991, he starred in Night Owl, a low budget independent feature film about a vampire in the East Village of NYC, alongside John Leguizamo, Holly Woodlawn, and Caroline Munro. After a stint in L.A. doing theater with actors including Molly Shannon and Ed Asner, he had a supporting role in the 1998 film Barriers with Annie Golden. Soon after, Raftery shifted his focus to music and songwriting with a band/moniker called Rat Wakes Red in 1999 and subsequently released three albums and an EP along with several music videos over the next few years. In 2017, he released his first solo album - "Everything" - as James Raftery. The self-produced album also saw the release of two music videos in 2018 and 2019.