Johnny Jewel talks to OME about growing up in Texas, sexism in the music industry, and his creative process

A man of many hats, Johnny Jewel has composed music for films like Drive and Bronson while managing his own record label, Italians do it Better, producing for other artists, and performing as a member of three female-fronted indie bands. Two of those bands, Glass Candy and Chromatics, are slated to perform Tomorrow, July 26 at the Historic Cine El Rey in downtown McAllen. His music has been featured on a new video game by SoundPlay, as well as on the runways of various fashion houses; such as Chloé, Chanel, and many other designers.

Not much is known about the enigmatic Johnny Jewel, a Houston native who started with music early in life. He began to pick up the guitar around 12 years of age, growing up in a “church-going family;” instruments were never far away. His first band, formed while he was still in high school, was short lived. And, while it was a start, the group’s work ethic was not in alignment with his own. “I was more intense about our band than the other guys (were),” he said. “Then we started recording and I got really into it. The other guys, like most bands, were more into the social aspect of being in a band like (going to) parties. I was always more into writing and producing.” Life wasn’t all notes and good vibes for Johnny. There’s a dark side to his past. At the age of 17 he was kidnapped, and although he was returned to his house 72 hours later, he admits that this experience changed his life. It motivated him to create a large body of work as a result of confronting his own mortality.

Now Jewel blends music styles by drawing inspiration from a range of genres including disco, rap, techno, and pop. His work with Glass Candy and Chromatics is a continually evolving endeavor. He talked about the lack of a mapped direction for the band’s sound, pointing out that the group’s music comes about organically. “It just happens. We try not to think about what we’re doing, how we fit in or how we can be more popular because that disrupts our creative process. It’s the kiss of death for artists when they start thinking too much about their art.” Jewel is known for unorthodox recording methods like using vintage synthesizers and laying vocal tracks while the group’s front woman, Ida No, dances around with a microphone. These methods make it difficult for songs to be remixed because they tend to “lump” tracks together. Jewel says the band’s recording practices set Glass Candy apart from the herd of modern musicians who are “obsessed” with obtaining perfect sound quality. He says putting too much emphasis on professional-sounding audio can remove quality from a song’s ‘feel’. “All my favorite records sounded rough,” he said. “It was about the feeling. Some were really low-fi or kind of fucked up sounding but they were full of life. I think that’s where we come in.” They were also set apart by their choice early on in their career to incorporate vintage instruments. “The idea of a vintage synthesizer at that time was just as retarded as ‘oh I’m gonna buy a vintage laptop’. It was sort of an oxymoron-like, ‘Why would anybody want that?’. The keyboard I’m going to play in McAllen I bought in Kansas at a gun shop for twenty bucks. It’s what I’m taking on my tour”.
He recounted the band’s beginning. “I started making punk and pop music because I joined a band with Ida when no one else would- she was very strange for Portland’s post-grunge scene. She wanted to do things like David Bowie and weird flapper 20s-based sort of stuff. Really crazy conceptual. Her ideas were so advanced. The rock world is generally kind of sexist. You have mostly guys you have to be in a band with if you’re a girl and the guys are always freaked out by a woman with really strong ideas. It was hard for her to find an outlet for her ideas, then when I met her I was really blown away by her lyrics and her style. I wanted to try to make a band, that was when I first started making pop music”.

Jewel concentrates on aesthetics sonically and visually, leading one to ponder over whether the pretty ladies fronting his bands stem from some sort of muse relationship. He explains: “You’re drawn to people for whatever reason. It just happens. Some of us are blond, some of us are brown, some of us are curly, some of us are straight. At the base of it, we’re all strange. It just sort of happens that way. Actually, when I first started working with Chromatics it was a male singer (for four years it was Adam singing) then it was Ruth when we were living together for almost eight years. It wasn’t like ‘here’s a pretty lady, lets throw her in the band.’ it came way later. It wasn’t forced; it came about naturally. I’m proud to say that we’ve inspired a lot of women to be in music, primarily electronic. We’ve helped push that movement along. I’m proud of it. For me, growing up as a teenager in Texas growing up, I liked Joan Jett and Blondie. Now there’s a new generation of art and the playing field is a little more equal. It’s exciting. I mean, It’s still a man’s world . The music world is still sexist in my opinion but it’s a little bit better. Now there’s more and more power being placed in the artist’s hands. Its a beautiful thing”.

Humans are jealous creatures, wasn’t it difficult to go from being an item to both of you dating members of the Chromatics? “I never really thought of it that way [laughter] cause there was so much time in between.. I don’t even know how long it took…. maybe seven or eight years after Ida and I were dating . Now were one big happy family. Actually, the guitarist in Chromatics is Nat Walker’s (the drummer) brother. So we’re family and we’re exes (Ruth and I are exes now). The thing is, when you meet someone and they’re the opposite sex and you happen to be heterosexual and you have this really strong connection with them you think “oh yeah lets be in a relationship together because the feelings are so intense. sometimes it “works out”… sometimes it doesn’t.”

“Sometimes you realize you have a strong bond with a person that goes beyond a relationship’s politics. It took a while to figure out that everybody was better suited in an artistic environment together. There is no drama there. I honestly cant remember what it was even like because we are just such a close knit family that its hard to think about it that way… Chromatics and Glass Candy are very close.  We’re all close, the “Italians Do it Better” family. We’re one happy cult without the K. We’re friendly and we love everybody but we don’t hob-knob in the industry at all. We don’t collaborate or anything like that. That’s another thing that annoys people but that’s just what we do”.