Johnne Perez, Vocals and lyrics,accoustic guitar, Charlie Campagna, producer & co creator,accustic and electric Guitars, bass,loops,cello,samples,string arrangments, cosmic tearing,electric weasle
all star guests:Joey peters/drums/percussion
female vocals/Barbara Cohen on Baby get well & the Goodtimes
Erinn Alden on Monsoon season, and Julie ritter on baby get well.
Influences
love & desire,this crazy world were living in, fearlessness, the universal her, night-swimming,shadows,secrets,warmth,oceans,how bodies intertwine and souls engulf like flames
mouths ,lips,skin,hungry flesh, emptiness, wanting more...knowing more exists between us
the fascination of the opposite sex...knowing our animal ways...expanding
Soundwaves into space_massive attack,U2,bjork,portishead,lou reed,the cure,bob dylan,bob marley,david Bowie,the doors,jimi,fela Kuti,nick cave,mazzy star,leonard cohen,damian Rice,Tricky and so much more...
Sounds Like
Honey
sex
late nights
surrounded by something bigger then just us...
love songs to the Universe...
Warm & enveloping...like they are written for me-she said.
Johnne Perez
"Songs for Her" 4 song E.P.
As those who know him can attest, where Johnne Perez goes, adventure tends to follow. But to this Maui-raised, L.A.-bred musician, it’s all about “the power of saying yes.”
The singer-songwriter’s new musical collective, blends folk-rock introspection with fetching electronic textures in the mold of portishead, Massive Attack, Beth Orton and other kindred spirits. Gathering an impressive roster of local performers, Perez assembled the troupe’s four-song EP intermittently over a period of months – in between jaunts to Hawaii, Cambodia, Thailand, El Salvador and Katrina-ravaged Mississippi, where he variously farmed, helped truck in relief supplies, sang songs for dispossessed kids and shot footage for documentary films.
Perez strives to balance his musical experiences with such perspective-altering voyages. “I’m living this dream of a life, between cultivating creative projects and helping people,” he offers, adding that creativity and philanthropy tend to bolster one another: “On my travels, I was reminded of the power of music to be a bridge between people, cultures and countries,” he says. “These experiences fueled my creativity when I came home.”
The charismatic, seemingly indefatigable Perez first came to local prominence in the late ’90s, as the frontman for the raucous alternative band Slush. Known for their wildly energetic shows and notorious for their leader’s debauched, Dionysian parties, Slush made one well regarded album, “North Hollywood,” before giving way to another explosive outfit, Johnne Perez & the Contenders, which issued a live disc in 2002.
Despite his flair for gathering large crowds of attractive people with an inclination to shed their clothes, Perez says getting out of the insular Los Angeles club scene was vital to his muse. “I was tired of the clubs and wanted to expand as a musician,” he relates. “This was coupled with playing at Burning Man and making intense, collaborative music with people over a period of weeks. I no longer had the desire to play in clubs, because I could play all night on top of a bus driving through the desert with naked girls wearing wings and feathers and bones.”
His experiences with Burning Man and affiliated subcultures, along with his growing affinity for electronica (particularly trip-hop), drew him away from garage-rock. “I’ve been trying to cross-pollinate the electronica scene with the organic singer-songwriter scene,” he explains. “My songs are very direct and emotional, influenced by people like Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen and Ben Harper, but the production gives them an expansive, primordial atmosphere. Electronics have turned everything widescreen, adding so much texture and bottom end and really using the studio.
For "songs for Her", Perez teamed up with local producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Charlie Campagna (Trip Dance Theater, The Quarks) and enlisted such longtime co-conspirators as his brother, Joey Peters (Grant Lee Buffalo), on drums, bassist Jon Button (Shakira, Robi Rosa), singers Julie Ritter (Mary’s Danish), Barbara Cohen and Erin Alden, and esteemed local players Glenn Fox and Matthew Steer. The resulting four tracks wed heart-on-the-sleeve vocals with expansive production – as well as everything from cello to backwards guitar.
The EP’s lead track, the intimate and rocking- “Baby Get Well,” is slated to accompany the closing scene of the upcoming feature film “.45,” starring Milla Jovovich (about whom Perez once penned a tune). “It’s the kind of song people feel is written just for them,” he notes. “It was written for a friend – it’s about desire, wanting the one you love to be happy and healthy and laughing at the world again. The recording features French verse recited by Ritter and a wailing, cathartic coda by Cohen.
The other compositions are just as emotionally naked. Perez describes the delicate, acoustic “Monsoon Season,” which also features a vocal contribution by Alden, as being “about that feeling of wanting someone brave enough to break you open.” “Dissolve,” meanwhile, celebrates a “life that shines” in these “dark days,” layering strings and glockenspiel over a brooding trip-hop arrangement.
“Good Times” is a dark, hypnotic sensual excursion that also features an expressive vocal cameo by Cohen. “It started with a cassette 4-track recording I was working on late one night,” recalls Perez. “I was short of tapes, so I put in this old ’60s cassette; it was slowed down and backwards. And it bled through onto the track with this cosmic ripping sound. So I sang over it, and I brought it into the studio.” While the song bemoans the transient nature of life’s pleasures, Perez emphasizes that it’s also about coming to grips with impermanence. “Everything’s always changing; we’re the only ones attaching any permanence to things,” he declares. “If anything, I’m trying to embrace it in my songs. Everything’s on a cycle in the natural world. If we can see this, we can be on the ride, enjoying life, because that’s what we’re supposed to do.”
Though he is the principal voice and songwriter, Perez is quick to share the credit. “This project is connected to all these amazing people who are artists in their own right,” he insists. for "Songs for her"He and Campagna met periodically over several months to work on the songs, bringing in their talented friends whenever possible. In between these creative bursts, Perez traveled to Hawaii, where he owns property and engages in organic farming, and engaged in relief work in the Gulf States and abroad. “All I did was say yes to an e-mail,” he marvels of his initiation into disaster relief. “The next thing I knew, I was driving a truck to the Gulf with $50,000 worth of medical supplies, food, water, crutches, vitamins – the necessities. I wanted to help in any way I could, and to see with my own eyes how this disaster had affected people.”
He volunteered with actress Patricia Arquette’s doyourpart.org and Medicines Global (for which he became director of the Youth Ambassador Program), traveling to Southeast Asia, Central America and the Gulf States. “At first as I was loading supplies onto relief trucks, and I thought, ‘I could be driving these trucks,’” he remembers of his journey to Katrina-ravaged Mississippi. “Then I was a relief-truck driver and thought, ‘I could be shooting footage of this disaster and using it to remind people of the need that still exists after this story has faded from the headlines.’”
The resulting documentary film, “Biloxi,” shows the power of grassroots volunteers as a first response to disasters, he declares, because their compassion and attention to human needs filled a gap that FEMA and the Red Cross couldn’t.
He also trekked to El Salvador, along with a six-person team of medical experts, in the aftermath of a volcanic eruption. “Once again, music was there to bridge the language gap and help us get through to people,” he says. “Being there called on every single skill I possess; I used everything in my repertoire just to communicate with children and make them laugh and smile.” He says he intends to make a film about his experiences there.
He also promises to launch several new music projects before the year is out. Difficult though it has sometimes proved to maintain these varied and demanding enterprises, Perez finds himself energized by all of his adventures.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to put things in place so I’m not hustling for $100 a day, which I did for 15 years in L.A.,” he relates. “When I’m here, I’m hanging out with my amazing friends, staying up, making music, being creative. But it’s self-centered. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s nothing like traveling with some doctors and medical supplies in a pickup truck and going into disaster zones and helping women and children. But all these experiences – the crazy parties, the marathon studio sessions, making movies, standing on the side of a mountain halfway around the world, bringing supplies into flooded towns – are meaningful to me. I’m saying yes to all of it. It all feels good, and each part of it feeds all the others.”
Thinking about you a lot in the last few weeks. I wanted to drop a note and say hi. Lets find a time to talk - are you state side? I don't suppose you are going to be in NYC the first couple of weeks in August? I am doing a guest artist gig at a workshop in Woodstock and then I will be in the city doing research for my dissertation. I also may be able to be in LA the last week in October, I am not sure about that. I am presenting a paper at a conference in Las Vegas, and thought, if I can squeeze out the extra bucks ( I have to pay for the travel to LV on my own) I would like to spend a couple of days in LA. But if not this year, I will be there next summer. I am trying for some short term teaching positions maybe in San Diego? This is a really long comment, I am going to stop. I miss you my friend, more than I can express in this note.
Hola Juanito... There is a show at The Getty Center not to be missed. Not just because I'll be the percussionist for the two shows, but because Maria de Barros is truly a star worth seeing.
Sounds of L.A. continues with the diverse melodies and rhythms of lusophone Africa.
The concert opens with a return visit by Cape Verdean singer Maria de Barros, who brings her irresistible joie de vivre back to the Getty Center. She shares the stage with Congo-born Angolan Ricardo Lemvo and his band Makina Loca. Both de Barros and Lemvo are truly multicultural polyglots, equally at home singing in everything from Portuguese and Spanish to English and French.
March, 1st 2008 at 8:00 P.M. March, 2nd 2008 at 3:00 P.M.
The Getty Center is located at 1200 Getty Center Drive in Los Angeles, California
Reservations required. Reservations available beginning Thursday, February 21, 2008, at 9:00 a.m. Call (310) 440-7300 or Click for more info: http://getty.edu/visit/events/sounds_la_2008.html
hey johnne how are you man? i stumbled upon your page and read your bio - really inspiring stuff dude. Hope all is well with you and looking forward to the next couple of beers we'll have - anything strange with you these days? i'm living in sydney at the moment - cool place. if i don't speak to you - happy christmas! Gerry
Hey Johnne! How's it goin'? Just dropping by to say hi. Pison and I are loving Boston but dreaming of heading back to Nepal. Hope to meet up with you when we make it to the west coast. Much love, stay real.
