Wise John is a really interesting artist with a unique sound, as displayed in his track, Mr. Love. Those who like their pop music a little more experimental should check the track out at the end of this interview!
By Jane Howkins
You recently released a song titled Mr. Love which we reviewed. What can you tell us about the song?
Mr. Love is a bit of a musical oddity wrapped in a tasty package. It’s a love song that’s not about a person, but the experience of love itself; it modulates through 5 or 6 different keys (depending on how you count) but it’s got an earworm pop chorus; it starts as a soul groove, moves into indie rock for the verse, and then closes out with a stripped back piano-man outro.
I wrote it sort of as my answer to ELO’s Mr. Blue Sky, which to me is the happiest song ever written. When I first heard it as a kid I think I spent about 2 weeks listening to it on continuous repeat.
And I had some fantastic help making it – Quinn Devlin produced it, and I borrowed from his network of incredible session musicians to fill in the instruments on the session. I was also incredibly grateful to have my talented and versatile friend Elise Trouw sit in on drums.
Quinn’s sound borrows a lot from Van Morrison and classic soul & Americana records, whereas my instincts lead me more towards classic rock and power pop, so this track ended up being an interesting combo of the two.
The visual aesthetic of the whole thing came together with a ton of help & guidance by my partner, Berit, who also sang backing vocals on the track.
How has the reception to Mr. Love been so far, and where can Mr. Love be purchased?
I’ve been really honored by the reception so far! It got written up by a number of blogs, added to some lovely playlists, plus my friends like it (most of em’, anyhow). Some fan art has already been made. My fave so far was an AI generated image of bread being raptured into heaven, which the person who made said is what this song made them feel like. That really spoke to me. A friend of mine also said Mr. Love sounded like me in song form, which was pretty darn nice.
You also released an album titled A Wonderful World a while back. What can you tell us about the album?
Well, that was my pandemic album. Also the first piece of music I ever released. I wrote most of the songs at the start of 2020 and produced the thing out with my friends Alex Strahle and Adela Pfaff, with the help of lots of other fun and lovely characters. It sounds a bit like if Toto and Tom Waits did a collab. At the time, I was working a full-time job programming medical devices, so we recorded it in my spare time on weekends or weeknights.
Most of the songs center around the feeling of being trapped in a situation others might envy. The emotional core comes from a very personal feeling of feeling trapped in my career, my hometown, and my life in general, but I also drew heavily from a perception the population of my hometown, and to some extent of America as a whole, feels trapped and often miserable living a life that is the envy of the world. There’s an internalised and repressed sense of guilt that comes from living a life of relative comfort that in many ways comes at the expense of others.
To quote the title track of the album, “Manicured lawns, malls filled with delights/if it weren’t for the outside, it would be a wonderful world.”
I didn’t consciously think I was writing an album when I wrote these songs, but they all came out of the same couple of months of my life and so I think that’s how they ended up being so thematically cohesive in retrospect.
Has the pandemic hindered your work much?
Yes and no. I quit my day job in January 2022 to focus on music. Before that, I didn’t really have the time or energy to play live shows anyhow (although my first one in LA did get canned due to the Delta variant). I also had to cancel a show because I got Covid in May.
But all-in-all, I’m not making a substantial enough income off of music to have had the pandemic ruin anything for me yet. Hopefully that changes soon (the income, not the ruining).
Do you plan to release any more singles in the near future?
Oh yes absolutely. I’ve got 3 more coming out in the next couple months – the next, called Marry Another Man, will be on October 21st. We recorded Mr. Love and Marry Another Man on the same night so they’re sister songs, though they sound pretty different.
Do you have plans to release an album or EP anytime soon or is it too early?
Mr. Love itself (as well as the next 3 songs) all comprise an EP called The Mr. Love Sunset Show. All four songs are love songs in one way or another – Mr. Love is a song about the journey of love in the abstract, Marry Another Man is about trying to convince your ex to marry you instead, Atlanta (a duet with Elise Trouw) tells the crazy true story of how my parents got together and Afterglow is a lament for catching feelings in a casual relationship. Four very different views on love, sharing a retro vibe.
Your music contains a number of different genres. What/who influences you most as an artist? What have you been listening to recently?
Hmm, yeah. Lately I’ve been explaining my music as “what you get if you smash Bob Dylan and ELO into each other using the Large Hadron Collider”. I think that kinda gets the point across – I’m a bit obsessed with these big, complex, ambitious instrumental and vocal arrangements, but that ultimately I’m telling stories, mostly from my life, and all these elements only mean something so long as they’re in service of the song.
I think arrangement-wise, I’m most inspired by late 60’s Beatles, the Beach Boys, the big band arrangements Frank Sinatra sang over, Tame Impala and ELO.
Writing-wise, I’ve been compared most often to Rufus Wainwright, Tom Waits and Dylan, at least in form and structure. I grew up loving Jack Johnson and Coldplay though, and there’s still that simplicity at the core of what I write (at least I think so).
I also am super duper inspired by jazz-singer songwriter bedroom crossovers like Eloise and Bruno Major, although I haven’t released anything that sounds much like them. I’d like to though.
You’re based in New York City. What is the music scene like in your part of the world?
It’s really lovely, so far. Much more close-knit than you’d expect. I moved here in 2020, so I haven’t had much non-pandemic time to get to know it all, but I’ve met a lot of people through Quinn (who I met at a bar) and also through open mics. You start meeting the same people over again. Even though my sense is that most big label recruitment is coming off of online success these days, New York musicians are still out here playing our hearts out at the same old great venues, and I really love that. New York loves to put on a show and doesn’t feel obligated to explain it to you. Live music here rocks.
Do you have any tour dates lined up for the UK?
Not yet, but I’d like to! I actually am lining up a tour in Norway for summer 2023 though – I met some great musicians through playing a show in Bergen while visiting a friend, and we’re working on the logistics as I type for a little 2-week jaunt around the country playing music.
Any last words for the fans?
Thanks for listening to my music! Connecting with you makes navigating the music business worth it. Also, I’ll be setting up a weekly songwriting livestream here soon, so come say hi on my Instagram to get news on that, so we can hang out live!