13th March 2024:
As I said on Saturday, the album was (mostly) written in a very short space of time, like 6 months. I'd just started therapy which is a wonderful way to unpack your past and bawl your eyes out to a complete stranger. All jokes aside, it made this album + saved me from the circular anxiety & depression that found itself at my door for the last 25yrs. I wasn't expecting the gig to be as cathartic an experience as it was, and yet here I am. What a road.
For that reason, music's not a matter of life and death. It's much more important than that.
Thanks love u, and of course you can listen to the album 'Built On Ruins' in here
20th November 2023:
"Life is suffering" as some Buddhist once said and although you might see that as a catchy tag line to open this entry, I guess my interpretation is that there's always some degree of discomfort threading through our existence. I was thinking just now how despite all the upheaval over the years, music has always been a constant.
📌Sitting on my bedroom floor at 15 listening to the first Damien Rice record.
📌Picking up a copy of The Chili's 'By the Way' on the way back from a school trip.
📌Blasting the first Justice record when I passed my driving test.
📌Sticking on Foy Vance's 'Joy of Nothing' as my world collapsed at a port in Lisbon.
📌'For Once in my Life' by Stevie Wonder bouncing off the walls of the registry office.
Whatever's going down, music is both a bookmark and a teleportation device to a part of ya life and I just think that's great.
I'm warming up the engine to stick out both a new song (Sour) on Friday, as well as the debut record next March, it's cool to think that maybe some of these songs might become bookmarks in other people's lives.
So yeah, life is both glorious and rough, at times. But with the right soundtrack, it can be fucking beautiful.
Hugs
John x
23rd July 2023:
I always get agitated these days when a song creeps past 3:20 which is either a reflection of my own attention span or just the quest to write the perfect 3 minute song that I seem to have ventured on by mistake 20yrs ago.
I don't know if I'm any closer, you learn less the further you get I reckon. But it's an adventure for me, that takes some of these thoughts buzzing round my head and makes them somewhat tuneful.
Lyrics-wise, I kinda think it's your duty as a human to share your experiences (good/bad/ugly) to help other people realise they're not alone. Especially the bad/ugly- that way your experience wasn't in vain if it helps someone. I guess I just settled on the song-format in trying to do that.
Once more, I'm rambling. Maybe there's something you can take from this on a cloudy, humid Sunday as the butter melts on your sourdough toast and your artisan coffee scolds your tongue.
Either way, I'm excited to play some songs for other humans on Aug 19th (Tickets here) as well as commit my hummable-thoughts to digital tape in/on the days after.
Stay cool,
John x
PS: The pigeon in the picture below is called Carole and she's from Swansea, before you ask.
27th April 2023:
Music’s weird innit. Part of you wants your favourite band/artist to make the same stuff that you love, but part of you doesn’t want them to make the same songs over and over, treading water.
Tomorrow’s EP is somewhere in between, 3 songs recorded in the same session, stripped back but also a bit deeper lyrically. Deep enough to be relatable hopefully, not too deep that it’s self-indulgent. An emotional trapeze to balance on, so to speak. Maybe I’ll join the circus if this all goes to shit/I get bored.
Also these three songs serve as an appetiser to my DEBUT F*CKING STUDIO ALBUM which I’m recording over the Summer. That is definitely not stripped back, got the band in the studio with me, I’m mildly aroused at the sheer thought of it to be honest. No mean feat at 35.
Of course, a gig in the Summer (the day before we record actually), at Brighton Electric. Tickets here. Bring your friends, tell them I’m good/allow for pleasant surprise if I’m better than good.
John x
13th March 2023:
When I was in my early 20s and in a band I was so obsessed by the idea of "making it" that I lost sight (most of the time) of the stuff I really enjoyed about making music which was just that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you do something you believe in.
A few years later and I ended up working as a full time "pro" musician lolol and ofc there was good times but that fuzzy feeling wasn't there too much in the grand scheme of things.
Now I'm in my mid-30s and I've realised that all I want making music to be for me is for fun. Posterity.
That's enough.
This is controversial, so buckle up: It's satisfying for me to have a day job, to save up money to record, purely to record songs with my mates. No dreams of stardom. No side-hustle. No financial monetising or branding.
It's just not me.
After many years trying to get that fuzzy feeling back, it's there again. I get to write whatever I want when I want and stick it out into the world, play a few gigs a year with some awesome musicians and friends and fam attending, give 20/30/40 people a fun night out.
That's it.
For me, it's enough.
And it's great.
And I love it.
2nd March 2023
I had a gig last night, the first since the 2021 headline show and to be honest I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do it again ‘cos I felt like I’d achieved everything I wanted to/maybe I’ll just hunker down in studios rather than sweat under the bright lights.
I dunno if it was the combination of playing new songs, having people come who hadn’t seen me before, or the chaotic decision to neck a coffee 30 min before playing, but I was shaking like a shitting dog before I went on. I always tell people “I don’t get nervous”. John talks bullshit.
Anyway point is, I loved it. It felt good to chat nonsense in between songs again, to sing, sweat, dribble. Many bodily fluids. There will most definitely be more (gigs, not fluids).
Turns out I’ve got a lot more to say, and a heap of new songs to play. More on that another time.
For those who were there, it was a joy to see your smiling faces and bobbing heads. Thanks for your faces and heads.
31st January 2023
When I finish a song, one minute I’m like “this is the best thing ever, put me up there with Dylan, baby!” and the next I’m chucking it in the bin, “this is shite, worst thing ever, what was I thinking”.
I saw a gig once (I know, cultured) where the singer said writing is trying to walk the tightrope of having absolute belief in everything you do, and complete disregard for it.
Also, side note I hate when ppl put themselves on a pedestal ‘cos they are “writers”. Everyone’s creative. If you bake a cake/chat to someone down the pub/ rearrange your living room…you’re making something out of nothing.
I digress. January has faded away like a fart in the wind, 2 new songs of mine are coming out Feb 24th, and I have a gig on 1st March. Tickets below.