The parents of Jānis realised that he had a musical instinct when he started to sing at an early age. So from 1994, he studied at the Riga Dome Choir School in his hometown of Riga, Latvia. Here he joined a boys’ choir and spent his childhood singing and studying music-related subjects, as well as English language and vocal jazz pedagogy. Of the vocal groups Jānis has sung with, the most significant was a 6-voice male ensemble called Cosmos. With this group, he shared in winning several Latvian music recording awards and won the young singers’ competition ”New Wave” in 2004. In 2006 Cosmos participated in the Eurovision Song Contest in Athens and he has sung on stage with The Real Group, Bobby McFerrin, Björk, A-Ha, Al Bano, and many other wonderful musicians. In response to his opportunity to sing bass with The Real Group, he believes that they are one of the main reasons he has always enjoyed singing in vocal groups, and he describes it as ”a childhood dream come true”.