He was kidnapped as a teenager and later nearly drowned, but these traumas have been poured into an awesomely rich body of music for film, TV and the dancefloor
“Art is not a hobby, it’s a necessity,” says Johnny Jewel. “I have an unquenchable thirst for sound and tone.”
If you want to find a root for Jewel’s insatiable work rate, you can trace some of it back to a traumatic ordeal as a teenager. At 17 years old he was randomly kidnapped and held at gunpoint for 36 hours – the reasons and motivations still unclear. “That’s something that stays with you,” he says. “I was always driven and determined, even as a young child, but that really kicked it into overdrive and it hasn’t stopped.
Mysterious, dreamy, nostalgia-meets-futurism, wrapped up in glistening neon synths – often sung by talented women such as Ida No and Ruth Radelet, who glide between sultry and ice-cold vocal deliveries – has long been Jewel’s calling card. It was what led to him originally being asked to score Drive – its star Ryan Gosling and director Nicolas Winding Refn are big fans.
While Jewel may have missed out on being fully credited on one of the most influential film scores of the 2010s, Gosling brought him back to score his Lynchian directorial debut Lost River and David Lynch came knocking for his Twin Peaks reboot. This time, Jewel latched on hard and left his fingerprints all over it. As well as his score, Chromatics have two on-screen performances, plus an appearance as the backing band to the late Julee Cruise.
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