Once in a while, there comes an artist with a sound that outright demands your attention. It’s a sound that completely envelops you and after the track is over, you immediately jump to play it again. For me, Jon Piers is one of these artists. Their songs turn heads with their auteur production and keep you hooked with the elusive lyrics.
Hailing from Woodbridge, VA (shoutout nova), Jon Piers is, as listed on his Spotify bio, another alternative artist trying to get a foothold. Describing him as yet another alternative artist is a gross simplification. Do yourself a favor and go listen to “Buzz” right now. They have managed to showcase absolute range despite their limited body of work. I first heard of Jon through a mutual friend. “Buzz” took me by surprise—the sound was familiar yet the layered production felt so unique. It’s a serious jam, and I’m sure I have already racked up a couple of hours listening to it on Spotify. Jon Piers, recently released their second single “red flag” and we had an opportunity to sit down and talk about all things music. Hearing the context around songs straight from the artist was a surreal experience.
Jon got their start playing the drums in church growing up. The drummer mindset is evident in their songs, as they are very groove-oriented. When I asked where they take inspiration from, Jon said that it’s random shit that just hits him, their exact words were “it just falls out of the sky” and they’re just there as an antennae. They’ve always had melodies and rhythms in their head and when Jon was younger, he used to record himself vocalizing what a beat would sound like. There is always that gap between what we want to create and what our abilities allow. Jon describes their growth as a musician as an iterative process, tinkering until their musical ideas could be reified and that gap could be closed.
smiles
One of Jon’s early musical ventures is their EP smiles on SoundCloud. This was a very personal release that was conceived out of the monotony of working at a moving company (ye’s Spaceship vibes). The production is minimal, with a certain focus on conventional song structure however you can tell that there is something else to their layering skills. Jon does not shy away from interesting changes and they seamlessly showcase both their melodic and rapping abilities. The entire vibe of the EP is Jon voicing his discomfort with haters, relationships, and their then situation. They describes it as trying to do away with the cloud in front of their eyes, and channelling their drive as a testament to what they could create. “blk brd” is seriously a high key vibe 😉.
Jon said that they found smiles to be pure self expression. Their friends obviously knew Jon beforehand, but they said that his friends really saw him after releasing this EP.
Lately, Jon hasn’t released much but they’re still making tons of music. As a creative, their bar is very high and they’re always tinkering with their productions. This balancing act of perfection and something satisfactory is always difficult and as Jon described himself as “historically, shit at releasing” it made me think of Frankie.
Buzz
“Buzz” builds up on an 80s drum machine loop that is immediately reminiscent of the Darkwave Duchess (more specifically “Fruit”). Jon said that this was the exact vibe they were going for. They wanted to reference that feel while giving props to ABRA. Jon mentioned that they really vibe with the 80s sound, and we talked at length about how it’s coming back in interesting ways with the likes of After Hours.
“Buzz” is a serious bop, it’s groovy and unassuming but really packs a narrative punch. It’s about buzzing, that fleeting feeling of floating and misguided intentions; more specifically, a buzzed person contacting the narrator when under the influence.
I know you buzzin
Steady hitting my line
The upbeat tone of the song creates this seeming dynamic where the narrator is playing off of calling this person out for their pattern of seeking companionship during the off hours with the wrong intentions. However, reading into the lyrics a bit, the narrator comes across as very vulnerable and the entire premise just seems depressing for both parties. The narrator is appalled with this person’s behavior and understands that it’s unhealthy.
You ain’t listen when I told you fall back
Boundary where you found me, yeah you saw that
However, the narrator is vulnerable, perhaps due to their own insecurities, and deliberates giving into their weakness because ultimately they want companionship and are willing to look past this behavior. Something I’m sure we could all relate to.
Only cuz I’m weak
Not focused on my needs
Just missing company, cuz you know Im on my own (oooh)
You can find the narrator actively trying to find confirmation within himself in order to excuse this behavior. They are trying to find an image in their mind of a proper and valid relationship and end up projecting something that’s not there.
Flipping through my mind
Searching for reminders
Subbing for sublime
There is some prime imagery and wordplay early on. Jon uses the color green to symbolize a healthier time in their relationship, using green leaves as a metaphor. They follow it up with rustling leaves, which is more common during the fall when the trees wither away—an analogy of their relationship. Thus, falling back into this is especially disheartening.
Back when seeing you and green was all that
The rustle of the leaves, i could fall back to you
This might be a total reach but there is something lyrically special behind this track that can’t be totally explained.
Jon said that they wrote the lyrics first, and then worked on the music. The original beat of the song had a darker, melancholic feel (more like “red flags”), with the mood matching the narrative more closely. However, channeling different artists they were listening to at the time, such as Brent Faiyaz and ABRA, they restructured and completely changed the texture of the song. This created some ambiguity around the message of the song and the feelings involved. In one sense, perhaps this internal back and forth within the narrator is what it is, and the upbeat melody makes it ok. Elusive indeed.
red flag
Jon said that they weren’t even going to release “red flag”—it was going to be shelved 😱. We have their girlfriend, Genesis, to thank for this phenomenal track as she ultimately convinced him to put it out there. This track’s premise is more straightforward, it’s a short lament about ignoring red flags in a relationship and how they ultimately come to regret it.
I should’ve
Listened to you back then
It’s got an interesting structure where the whole song is basically a single verse bookended with the chorus. Aside from the obvious premise, the verse enters a Poe-esque territory where the woman is exaggerated and personified as a killer, possibly in the literal sense with actual skeletons in the closet; and the victim is none other than the narrator as they are left “swimming in dirt.” However in the end, the final demise is on the narrator himself as they were warned by the woman but failed to acknowledge it due to their naivety in thinking they could fix it.
Love blind me looked over said, “look I can heal her”
If I’m honest, couldn’t fault you fully, told me as i entered
I spent a long time absorbing this song just from the production standpoint. It’s a totally different vibe than “Buzz”, which Jon said was purposeful, as they wanted the listener to not be reminded of their earlier works and wanted to really showcase their range. I love that the texture of the song is so unconventional. The closest box I guess is alternative R&B but the samples he uses and the way the vocal filters come together really make this track stand out. I also love the minor production choices Jon made that really contribute to the overall texture, e.g. the lighter flicks and the reversed sample acting as the bass drum in the beginning.
Futura Free
We ended our conversation by just talking about our favorite artists. We were exploring all the artists that we seriously vibe with and Jon said something that has stuck with me for a while now. The artists that they (and myself for that matter) always keep coming back to are the ones that channel the underground ethos. This isn’t limited to independent artists that few people know of, but rather artists with the spirit of the underground that never become complacent and live at the edge of discomfort. Artists that are pushing himself and seeking fulfillment through creating dope music.
Some artists come up without it and others end up losing it, however, only artists with the spirit of the underground are able to make good shit. Someone embodying this ethos from day one for both of us is obviously none other than Frank Ocean. Honestly we ended up discussing blond/blonde for over twenty minutes.
It’s hard to characterize a favorite song off this album but Jon said that “Ivy” really spoke to him. They’d never heard a song like that before.
The effects on the guitar, the way the song goes, the bareness of it, the different effects to it. There’s so much energy at the end, the way he screams the word trouble; it’s all so moving, the crashing of the guitars, everything he was talking about was so specific; I get it
For Jon, Frank is one of their favorite artists, because he’s beyond bold on his albums and has the courage to be so vulnerable. They gave the example of this line from “Self Control”; enough said:
Keep a place for me, for me
I’ll sleep between y’all, it’s nothing
Jon is actively working on an upcoming EP, Like the Lagoon, as their first major project. Sometimes
artists release eponymous albums named after themself. Since Jon is not just another alternative artist,
they’re respecting this tradition with their own twist. Let me just leave it at the fact that Jon’s
birth color is blue. They’ve been working on this for a while and, knowing Jon’s drive to constantly
challenge himself, I can only imagine how many versions of tracks they’ve been through. Regardless of
when it arrives, I already know that it’s going to be a serious vibe and I can’t expletive wait.