For Florida singer-songwriter John K, his debut album, Love + Everything Else, is a snapshot of his journey in “figuring out what it means to be an artist” and a representation of how he fosters authentic connections.
The 10-song album was originally conceptualized as a collection of love songs that were written over the course of three years. It included the runaway hit, “if we never met” which quickly earned a platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
Love + Everything Else eventually took a life of its own as it virtually became an embarrassment of riches for John K when it started to yield more hit singles and fan favorites including “6 months,” “happiness” and “cheap sunglasses.”
“It was the first song that kind of broke the mold, being one of the only few songs on the album that’s not about love. That one just felt so good that we knew that it had to be on the album,” he said during an online interview.
“In a nutshell, it was just ten songs that I have personally fallen in love with over the last couple of years. They were all in a special place, hoping one day that we could piece them all together,” he surmised.
For John, quarantine became the time to release these songs into the world, stating that the social isolation had given him and his team “time and perspective to push it to the finish line.”
Moreover, the album allowed John to reflect on what being an artist meant for him. It “reflected his journey” in terms of finding out what type of artist he is.
“I’ve learned a couple of things. I’ve learned that for an audience to really connect to your music, you have to be really honest in the telling of your music. That will allow the vocal to connect, and you can hear and feel it in the song. And it’s really important for it to be true. So I learned to be vulnerable and how to open up,” he said.
John also expressed that he learned to trust the process and meet the music halfway, which he describes as “knowing what the song needs.”
“I’m learning more and more to go to the song,” he stated, “I learned to not oversing something or make something that it’s not. It’s just to kind of connect to the song where it’s at. I try not to do too much with it, I just find from the inside out what this particular song needs, and it’s a non-stop process of constant self-reflection,”
One of the signatures of John’s music is his ability to perfectly capture the essence of summer, and while he admits he doesn’t quite know how he does it, he does presume his upbringing near water had something to do with it.
“I’m a true Florida boy, born and raised, I grew up by the water, so I guess summer in some sense was just kind of in me. But when it comes to melody, it’s just a feeling, and that’s the best that I can do,” he said.
Another thing John employs in his creative process is a close collaboration with his team. For him, if the song is “not something I’m going through”, it should be something someone in his team has gone through or is going through.
“I feel that you really need to have a connection to that actual moment,” he explained. “It’s hard to write a song full of hypotheticals, and every time I try to go down the story road, there is always something missing because it’s not real. So I’ve written songs dedicated to my dog, to my wife, to my friends, my family, and I always try to connect it through a deep deep personal level. That’s a huge, huge key in connecting it with people,”
Released in the Philippines thru Sony Music Philippines, John K’s Love + Everything Else is available on all major streaming platforms.