Jonny On A Quest
Budding Texan Jonny Jukebox’s Life, Music, and Non-Conformance
Like life, sometimes music comes at you fast.
This industry is forever changing — swinging between adapting to the trends of current popularity, and satisfying the cravings of a massive, monstrous audience looking to consume. Lizzo’s recent explosion in popularity is an example of the former; Lil’ Nas X’s rise is easily an example of the latter. In the modern era, dependent on fast accessibility through streaming and social engagement, indie artists know their chances at fame are better (and more instant) than ever. The results may not be immediately gratifying, but if the content is there, it just depends on when.
Texas product Jonny Jukebox is just waiting, ready to reach that next level.
“I think that RPGs are a metaphor of life,” the musician tells me. “And I think leveling up and reaching certain levels is a metaphor, so I always try to tie those in with whatever I’m trying to talk about.”
I. Press Start
If you’re asking who Jonny Jukebox is, you should know first — you’re behind. His first album, Adonis XIV, was released in 2016 and it attracted him a loyal base of ‘beans’, as he likes to call his fans (or ‘heathens’, at times). In his own words, “Jonny Jukebox is a young, black, weird, nerdy kid from Texas who likes to express himself through various ways, and one of those ways that he is more prominent in is music.” He walked me through his musical journey and it’s something that seems to come straight out of an RPG.
When I asked, “How long have you been doing music?” Jonny’s answer was “For a long time, like, well over 10 years calculated altogether, but I for real, for real started music when I was in middle school.”
Don’t fret if you’re just catching on, though — there’s much, much more to come: “It seems that I’ve been doing music for long, but in the released vault, I’ve only had one project, so I’m just starting to carve my image and how I want to be presented as Jonny Jukebox on the stage,” he admits.
(Yes, that means you still have the chance to put him on to your friends and take credit — don’t worry, that’ll stay between us.)
Like most beginners on a journey, Jonny’s music career did not take off on smooth sailing. “I was the only black kid doing rock in my school, I used to get made fun of all the time…and then I stopped-” he takes a quick beat before reminiscing, “Well, I didn’t really stop, I got kicked out of my rock band in my freshman year of high school. My bassist was like, ‘man, you’re being too much R&B! We’re not R&B. Your voice is too this-and-that’, so, they kicked me out…”
“But I mean…don’t really need them now, so…”
As one of Adonis XIV’s most popular tunes, “Ice Cold Revenge” goes, “Least you could do is just let me know/So I can go on home and plot on my own/Ice Cold Revenge/…and watch you burn, baby, burn.”
II. Difficulty Adjustment: “Challenging Will Only Make Him Better”
The 11-track, video game-themed Adonis XIV made its case as one of Spring 2016’s numerous commended, everlasting projects among the likes of Beyoncé, Drake, ASAP Ferg, James Blake, and Chance the Rapper. It’s summarized as “introducing” Jonny to the world “…as he narrates the woes of a post break-up over chilling productions.” While it’s been over 3 years, it remains a fan favorite that is intoxicating front-to-back, at least to most of us — one person doesn’t seem to think so: its own creator.
“This may just be me being an artist, a pessimist, weird, you know — but I feel like Adonis XIV wasn’t that good,” Jonny admits. “I feel like, it was just for, you know, ‘I’m going to make these songs on how I feel’…” he quickly regroups — “Like, I love it! I feel like there were songs like, ‘Callin’ U Babie’ — that song’s amazing — ‘Consider Me’ is a great song, but I feel like overall, it wasn’t that good.”
Trust me, no one was as surprised by this revelation as me. In the midst of my shock, I told him “if you don’t think that was good, what you think is good must be insane!”
Although Jonny has a tougher retrospective on his debut, it’s popularity is undeniable — on Spotify alone, Adonis XIV compiled over 80,000 streams along with 3 awards, and is appropriately labelled as a “cult classic”. Larue Mag raved that “It’s refreshing but not ‘try hard’. I think that’s where Jukebox prevails…. Making this (which delightfully took me by surprise) one of 2016’s best albums/mixtapes from any singer that has came out. Yeah…I said it.”
Those are tough standards to follow up on, and not everyone is up to the task. Think of it as beating your favorite Nintendo game on ‘Beginner’ — but there doesn’t seem to be any sense of doubt that Jonny can handle it. If you ask Dan Sir Dan, a frequent collaborator of Jonny’s, an easy task would be more of a sign of trouble: “I think that challenging will only make Jonny better…I feel like giving him a beat out[side] of the wheelhouse is completely different than giving him a beat that accommodates him in general.”
Jonny has kept us waiting for a sophomoric follow up for some time now, which helped earned him Frank Ocean comparisons from a few — myself included. Sometime in late 2017 the artist rebooted completely on it due to a significant contributor to the project committing questionable moral behavior. Jonny would eventually reveal that It’s Still Beautiful, the name christened to his upcoming work, is coming soon — and, along with his contributors, he can’t help but laud over it already. “I’m just so proud of that album. It’s way…light years [ahead] conceptually, I feel like I was more clever with how I approached the concept of breakups, it’s just…way better.” Fellow Indie artist MAVE said on Twitter that he is “excited” and expects to “shake up the world” with it, while engineer jake lowk3y “can confirm” that it’s “sounding [fire].” ARTLMUSIC SOUND suggests that It’s Still Beautiful “will be sonically uplifting and emotionally compelling to his listening audience. Be ready to shed the layers of yourself and mold into something new.”
In describing It’s Still Beautiful, Jonny says its focus is on helping others in recovering from negative personal experiences, like he had to. “I was in a toxic relationship,” he discloses, “…You try to make it work, and sometimes people don’t want to fucking make it work with you. You have to realize that it’s not you, and let it go. So I wrote. Every stage of where I felt a way in my last relationship, I wrote something down.” Sonically, you can expect this go around to be a “lot avant-garde…I was just really tired of people trying to box me into R&B, you know? I’m more than that, and black people as a people, we’re more than that. I wanted to mix a bunch of sounds.”
In the meantime, Jonny has found some time for side quests, finding a musical partner in Orlando producer Dan Sir Dan, which so far has produced the singles “Dancing On My Own” and “LICK”. Along with their other collaboration “Policy”, “Dancing On My Own” was in Sir Dan’s 2018 album The Other Things In Life. “‘Policy’ and ‘DOMO’ are two of the catchiest songs I ever made,” Dan explains to me, “and he killed both of them. I feel like with him it’s effortless. I give him a production and it’s unreal, the melodies and all that songwriting, seriously it’s unreal.”
Jonny claims that ‘DOMO’ was his favorite collaboration and that “I think if I was at another place in my career, it would have been way bigger than what it was.”
In regards to “LICK”, it was labelled “unapologetically lusty…” and “one wolf call away from being a Tex Avery cartoon brought to musical life” by Austin music site Ovrld. MiEUX Magazine compliments Sir Dan for his production on the single, which “build[s] the canvas for Jonny to wax poetic…”
Jonny also released a surprise 6-track EP, I Made This 4 U, on April 27th, completely inspired by a new relationship the musician found himself in. Listening to song after song, from “Ur So Cool” (“Let’s keep it a hundred, let’s keep it a G — even out of all the hundreds, you’re the one I want to see”) to “X” (“you’re so much better than my ex, you’re so much better than the rest”), you start to not only feel, but share in the love that Jonny’s enveloped into, and you’re bound to find a track of choice that you’ll keep on repeat. He described how it came together: “I was feeling some type of way, I was feeling so fucking happy…and so I told myself, on the way to buy flowers that, ‘why would I buy flowers when I know how to make music?’ so I just made music.” While Jonny was slightly candid to me, IMT4U is where he bares all. “I never wrote one lyric down — there were things on that project where I kind of messed up, intermède wise, but I kept it in there just to evoke that raw feeling that I felt…that everything was impromptu…I needed some positivity and some yellow, as I like to say.”
“I made a whole EP dedicated to the love of my life.”
III. Next to the Stage
Like many public figures, Jonny gives the sense that he values keeping as much as he can private, but he’s very candid and cordial with his beans. The Texan described on his Instagram the “ups and down and downs and ups” life has given him as of late: “I’ve been in love with the most beautiful, interesting, mind blowing, increasingly intriguing human I’ve ever met. Unexpectedly[…]and it has me in the state of awe every time my mind thinks about it.”
Jonny’s life isn’t always as fairy tale-like as it sounds, and he has to deal with very real issues — “Even though my whole ‘brand’ is about being yourself and being carefree. I haven’t even been doing that truly…I hate that.” As we spoke, he referred to how, as a black male singer, he’s constantly pushed into fitting into stereotypical molds, which are sometimes self-contradictory — “In R&B and pop, especially with men, they try to put us in the ‘sexy’ box. I remember being in Florida, [managers] were pitching ideas for my project before I started being indie, they wanted me to bulk up and rival with certain popular male singers. I’m like ‘hello, I’m not like them at all.’…“so, for [Adonis XIV], it was just about being sexual as I know how to be, not like seductive R&B singers or anyone like that… but my next album is more about me, all about healing.” Creatives know that when they’re new on the scene, getting your image right when you first come out can make or break a career, so turning down the industry-crafted direction in turn for staying true to one’s self is a risky move. “My creative process to everything is ‘let’s just fucking doing it!’ I don’t have like a…” — here, Jonny cues an impromptu harmony — “I don’t Mariah Carey it…I mean, I probably should, ’cause she’s freaking amazing…”
At this point though, Jonny has figured out what his aim is. He’s earned a following that is “100% organic”, and that he has the opportunity to make his music as he wants to: “I feel like as I grow, and as I reach over this hill of people in masses getting to know me, I already have that homegrown base, and that’s beneficial for me because I don’t have to have any facetious or anything that’s fake. I have people that, no matter what I do, they’re always going to support me. It may be slow, but I’d rather have the come-up be slow than the come-up be slain. So I’m thankful for it.”
Make no mistake, Jonny makes modifications to his artistry as he goes along — “I’m starting to be more structured. Right now, I go to rehearsals, I’m starting to have new management.” — but he’s just doing him, and that works. He’s as self-critical as he is braggadocios, has doubts and fears the future — but who doesn’t? In Dan’s words: “Dude’s a creative through and through, he genuinely cares about his craft and does a lot to differentiate himself in the music realm.” What separates Jonny the most, that only few people can do to popular acclaim, is his ability to ‘just fucking do it’. Jonny gives us the songs we’ve wanted to make and possibly didn’t even know we were missing.
The most bizarre notion about Jonny’s ability: he’s just refining it. “I’m just starting to carve my image and how I want to be presented as Jonny Jukebox on the stage, so all the other shit — just the real rehearsal, how I want my vibes as far as I look and my style, ’cause I feel that’s important to express as well — but I don’t have just one way to do anything. I just make sure I drink some tea and go out there, and I fucking sing and bop.”
IV. Have Funn
As I opened with, the music universe is volatile. At any second, the floor can come out from under you. Texans and the cowboy aesthetic are in style right now, but that may not last for longer than what will feel like a moment. Jonny’s work doesn’t really conform to any trends anyhow, but he recognizes that he’s got a long way to go before he can outright transcend falling out of favor, even in the indie realm: “in the released vault, I’ve only had one project.”
But now that he has the fanbase, the resumé, the underground success, a team and a muse to keep him inspired, it will take a lot for this artist to fall. In my eyes, he’s on his way to music royalty.
I asked Jonny about the concept of royalty and he appropriately described it as “peculiar” and “a random concept…that’s available to everyone.” Attributing a music artist under a designation such as this can be daunting, should not be taken lightly, and may be disagreeable to some. I’ll leave Jonny’s words, and his work, to make the case on its own. “I think whatever you tap in, whatever makes you happy, whatever gives you purpose, then that’s your royalty. Your confidence is your royalty, and it’s there for you no matter who you are, it’s available to you.”
The royalty in Jonny’s life fits in that definition. They play an essential role to his artistry, like most creatives. The who includes “My mom for sure, my baby…my inner circle, my family,” while he notes that he “think[s] everyone attached to me is royalty in their own right”. What is the royal factor for him, and his fans, is the work he produces that he dreamt of as that kid everyone said no to — even those of us who aren’t artists or musically inclined can relate to that. As Razma says in the PlayStation/PSP game Final Fantasy Tactics, “If you need someone else to fulfill your dreams, it loses its value, wouldn’t you agree?” Dan Sir Dan, who calls Jonny “one of my best friends…[he] got me out of a dark time in my life”, reveals to us that his next album, Happy to Be Here, is focused on “being in the moment and collaborating with the people I love to work with”, so you can expect Jonny to be featured. The two along with Mastad0n and ABSTRACT CONQUEST will hopefully be giving us a royal parade more collaborations to appreciate; Jonny also hopes to work with SZA and Charli XCX, among others.
With each passing day we’re anticipating It’s Still Beautiful more and more, but in the meantime, Jonny’s enjoying life, even though he has a lot of work he plans to do. Evidenced by the sporadic excellence of IMT4U and his honest shrug at a record of excellence like Adonis XIV, Jonny Jukebox bleeds music — he is music. Whatever other terms you use to define him, sure, but make no mistake that the game being played here goes beyond sales and mainstream appeal. He’d bedrawing or painting if he wasn’t making music — in fact, he used to sell manga books in middle school. I asked if that meant we’d get a Jukebox-designed album cover one day, and the Texan shrugged “I suck now…but I’m sure if I focused on drawing back when it was good for me, I would’ve been great…Now, I could draw, maybe, stick figures…one black stick figure.”
Similarly, Jonny’s parting message for readers (besides, “free JT” of the City Girls) is for them to “be yourself, and be happy, above anything…and you can do whatever the fuck you want to do.”
To his fellow artists and creators, Jonny’s number one message is that “there’s no one way to be creative, don’t let them to put you in a box because you’re black, and…have fun, ’cause everything else will come afterwards.”
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Listen to Jonny Jukebox on all major music services, including Apple Music, Soundcloud, Spotify, TIDAL, YouTube, and more.
