yes, that would be the file.
this will show the username.

Hey thanks for the response.
aw man that didnt work for me so well. when posted as this
album>tmpl>default.php

starting from line 1, complete with opening and closing tags

defined('_JEXEC') or die('Restricted access');
$user =& JFactory::getUser(); ?>
$user =& JFactory::getUser($this->album->user_id);
echo $user->userame ;
*/
the username is non clickable on the aritsts page and on the album page and the song page..the clickable username returns me back to the artists page.
which makes the most sense. so i guess i can now simplify my question and thanks for your help.

So i then posted the code as per the forum post to get the artists name to link to the cb profile so i pasted this code into both artists>artists.php and common.php (assuming it was one of these for the artists profile backlink which i may have been mistaken)

$user =& JFactory::getUser($this->artist->user_id);
{
echo 'More info: username . '/">Contact Me';
}
?>
did not work for me...any idea if im placing the code in the wrong place or with the wrong tags?

So specifically my question is..
to make the username on the artist page which normally is non clickable instead a backlink to their profile would the above code work and which file would i place that code in because it was never mentioned in the post, and also why did the code you provided not work...did i place the code in the wrong place or with the wrong tags?
Thanks for any help i really appreciate it

the code was not for this to be clickable, it was only to show the name.

also.. what is this: */

?
in line 7 approx. a closing comment tag?

not to offend you.. but do you know PHP? the code you're using is really strange.. the syntax, I mean.