For Florida singer-songwriter John Ok, his debut album, Love + All the pieces Else, is a snapshot of his journey in “determining what it means to be an artist” and a illustration of how he fosters genuine connections.
The ten-song album was initially conceptualized as a set of affection songs that had been written over the course of three years. It included the runaway hit, “if we by no means met” which rapidly earned a platinum certification from the Recording Business Affiliation of America (RIAA).
Love + All the pieces Else finally took a lifetime of its personal because it nearly grew to become a humiliation of riches for John Ok when it began to yield extra hit singles and fan favorites together with “6 months,” “happiness” and “low cost sun shades.”
“It was the primary track that type of broke the mould, being one of many solely few songs on the album that’s not about love. That one simply felt so good that we knew that it needed to be on the album,” he stated throughout an internet interview.
“In a nutshell, it was simply ten songs that I’ve personally fallen in love with during the last couple of years. They had been all in a particular place, hoping someday that we might piece all of them collectively,” he surmised.
For John, quarantine grew to become the time to launch these songs into the world, stating that the social isolation had given him and his staff “time and perspective to push it to the end line.”
Furthermore, the album allowed John to mirror on what being an artist meant for him. It “mirrored his journey” when it comes to discovering out what sort of artist he’s.
“I’ve discovered a few issues. I’ve discovered that for an viewers to actually hook up with your music, it’s a must to be actually sincere within the telling of your music. That may permit the vocal to attach, and you may hear and really feel it within the track. And it’s actually necessary for it to be true. So I discovered to be weak and easy methods to open up,” he stated.
John additionally expressed that he discovered to belief the method and meet the music midway, which he describes as “realizing what the track wants.”
“I’m studying an increasing number of to go to the track,” he said, “I discovered to not oversing one thing or make one thing that it’s not. It’s simply to type of hook up with the track the place it’s at. I attempt to not do an excessive amount of with it, I simply discover from the within out what this explicit track wants, and it’s a continuous means of fixed self-reflection,”
One of many signatures of John’s music is his capacity to completely seize the essence of summer time, and whereas he admits he doesn’t fairly understand how he does it, he does presume his upbringing close to water had one thing to do with it.
“I’m a real Florida boy, born and raised, I grew up by the water, so I suppose summer time in some sense was simply type of in me. However in terms of melody, it’s only a feeling, and that’s one of the best that I can do,” he stated.
One other factor John employs in his artistic course of is a detailed collaboration along with his staff. For him, if the track is “not one thing I’m going via”, it needs to be one thing somebody in his staff has gone via or goes via.
“I really feel that you really want to have a connection to that precise second,” he defined. “It’s exhausting to write down a track stuffed with hypotheticals, and each time I attempt to go down the story street, there may be at all times one thing lacking as a result of it’s not actual. So I’ve written songs devoted to my canine, to my spouse, to my associates, my household, and I at all times attempt to join it via a deep deep private stage. That’s an enormous, big key in connecting it with folks,”
Launched within the Philippines via Sony Music Philippines, John Ok’s Love + All the pieces Else is accessible on all main streaming platforms.
