John-Robert Debuts New EP 'Garden Snake'
John-Robert has also shared a new music video for his latest single “Road Trip”, directed and shot by Bryce Glenn and Sean Cavalier, Good Morning Studio.
By: Michael Major Dec. 08, 2023
The wait is over for Garden Snake, the brand new EP from singer/songwriter John-Robert A collection of songs that skillfully blur the lines between acoustic folk and pop, Garden Snake features recent singles “Westward Bound” and “Sweet Child”. The album is out now and available via Nice Life.
John-Robert has also shared a new music video for his latest single “Road Trip”, directed and shot by Bryce Glenn and Sean Cavalier, Good Morning Studio.
“It's a return to form inspired by my musical upbringing in Virginia,” John-Robert shares about the new EP. “This project feels the most like myself, and the songs feel lived in. While the writing process was me grieving the loss of a previous relationship; the recording process was a celebration of all the new ones.”
Join John-Robert in celebrating the release of Garden Snake with a special release show tonight at Genghis Cohen in Los Angeles. Tickets are still available, here: https://bit.ly/3txzIwy.
Fans can also look forward to catching him on tour in February, supporting Bailen on the west coast dates of their upcoming tour. John-Robert will be featured on stops in Santa Ana, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland. For a full list of upcoming shows, please see below or visit: www.beacons.ai/john.robert.
About John-Robert:
When John-Robert left his Edinburg, Virginia, hometown (pop. 1,070) for Los Angeles in 2019, he did so with starry-eyed ambition – a teenage songsmith bypassing a Berklee College of Music scholarship to chase his own musical manifest destiny. And it quickly materialized: Grammy-nominated producer Ricky Reed (Leon Bridges, Lizzo) signed him at age 19 to Nice Life/Warner Records, helping integrate John-Robert's lilting blend of traditional folk and Appalachian country into the modern pop landscape.
His debut single, 2019's “Adeline,” has become an 11-million streamer, and collaborations and co-signs from the likes of Alessia Cara and Camilla Cabello, respectively, have further cemented him as a deeply auspicious writer on releases like 2020's Bailey Barely Knew Me and 2021's Healthy Baby Boy, Pt. 1. Now, on his new EP, Garden Snake, the artist hailed as “a small-town teen poised to become the next big singer-songwriter” by Live Nation's Ones To Watch explores the pull of his past in a captivating six-song collection, bursting with the grassroots musicality of his Shenandoah Valley birthplace and the homespun purity of his earliest songwriting endeavors.
“My dad nurtured my love of music in a way he never received himself growing up,” John-Robert remembers. “When I was in elementary school, he'd take me to Cooter's Shenandoah Jamboree, which was run by The Dukes of Hazards' Ben Jones, and open mics at local bars. He was always encouraging me. His motto was always, ‘the worst they can say is no.'”
After an impromptu a cappella performance at a local Relay for Life cancer fundraiser, John-Robert, then 13, was handpicked to perform on Ellen, where he was gifted a $5,000 Guitar Center gift card he used to purchase a laptop and interface. Before long, he'd taught himself to produce his own recordings, which he crafted alongside YouTube covers of songs from the likes of Coldplay, KISS and Ed Sheeran.
It's in this way that Garden Snake is, at its core, very much a throwback, melding the rich storytelling of the self-described “top-shelf” country he was exposed to as a kid with the buoyancy of contemporary popular music. Accentuated by high-capoed guitars, delicate fingerpicking, double bass, and soothing harmonies, the musical menagerie John-Robert fills on Garden Snake showcases not only his elastic versatility as a songwriter but also his hard-worn DIY mentality.
Ruminating on friendship, loneliness and the search for identity and inner peace, the songs on the self-produced Garden Snake are rooted in truth but seem cinematic, the soundtrack to a coming-of-age epic. From the back-porch breeze of “Come Pick Me Up” and colorful chants of “Sweet Child” to the West Coast bedroom pop “Road Trip,” foot-stomping “Westward Bound” and red-clay shuffle “Good Day'll Come,” the project radiates the spirit of the John-Robert's upbringing at the intersection of both small-town America and the internet age.
That shapeshifting skill, centered in his hometown roots, is what's taken John-Robert this far, and you can trust it'll be there in everything he created. He's poised to do a lot of it moving forward, as he notes that Garden Snake is but the first entry in a long line of releases that will find him spreading his sonic wings further than ever before. (“I want people to be able to mosh and dance and everything in between,” he says with a laugh.)
For now, the EP represents a healing exercise for the 23-year-old songwriter, a way to pull himself out of professional and personal turmoil and reconnect with the people and places that made him who he is today – the banks of the North Fork Shenandoah River and rolling hillsides, the home-cooked meals and close-knit community. It's the place he found himself physically in 2020 as the COVID pandemic began, and a destination he's since learned is only a song away.
“Garden Snake is a time capsule,” he says. “It was like trying to make a Virginia record in LA. I'm really proud of myself for seeing it through. It was character building, but I proved to myself I could make it out the other side. It's something no one can take away from me.”
Upcoming Tour Dates w/Bailen
2/15 – Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room
2/16 – Los Angeles, CA @ Troubadour
2/17 – San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel
2/21 – Vancouver, BC @ Fox Cabaret
2/22 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile
2/23 – Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theatre
Photo credit: Bryce Glenn
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