Jon Moss - Early Life

Early Life

Moss was born in "Clapham Jewish Boys Home" at Wandsworth, South London, and was adopted when six months old by Rosetta Aubrey Moss (née Goldsmith, b.1929) and Lionel Joseph Moss (b.1927, d.1999), an upper-middle-class couple from Jewish ancestry. His father, owned a clothing store called Alkit, located at Cambridge Circus. Jon grew up in Hampstead, attended Arnold House School (1962-1970) and Highgate (1970-1975).

Music was an important hobby in his childhood; he used to play well known pop songs on the family piano. His elder brother David was drummer in a band at school and had a Wayward drums, which Jon borrowed to start to play when he was thirteen years old.

In Highgate School, he developed a fascination for sports, especially boxing, but he did not want a professional sporting career. It was also at Highgate that he formed his first band, Pig Williams, along with his friend Nick Feldman (who would later become a member of Wang Chung, which had two top-ten hits in the U.S.) Together they performed at several school events. After finishing high school, Jon held various jobs, including working at his father's clothing store, as a cake salesman and as a sound engineer at Marquee Studios. He regarded going to university as a waste of time, although he briefly considered the idea of studying Greek at the University of Cambridge.