Jon Freeman - PMRG Room 10/11/14
From: Tampa Bay, Florida
Age: 20
Contact: jonathan.s.freeman@gmail.com
Website: soundcloud.com/jon-freeman-music

Q+A with the Artist--

--How would you describe your sound?
I would say it's kind of like these indigo-colored contained explosions. Maybe like...a melancholic wandering in the mountains.

--What artists have influenced your music the most and why?
I would say at the front and center is Bob Dylan. I mean, I learned guitar from the guy whether he knows it or not. Nick Drake was also pretty big. The Beatles of course were an influence on my earlier songwriting but I think as I developed I may have moved towards different styles. Radiohead, the sound that Radiohead has, has always caught my ear. Who else? Probably Joan Baez. The way she sings I've always found very lovely, something to strive for you know. She has a very angelic voice. So, yeah, those are probably the biggest.

--When and how did you first begin to write music?
Let's see. The first song that I ever wrote was...I had this classical guitar, and I was in this New York apartment when I was probably 17. And, my parents went out for the night and I think I was feeling pretty sick, and I had this classical guitar in my hands and I came up with this chord progression, and, these words just came out, and ever since then it's had this same feeling as that. I think, you know, maybe the quality has gotten a little bit better but, it's always been this same feeling as that. It's just a feeling of really just sitting back and this thing happening.

--What inspires/drives you to write music?
I think that the song writing inspiration is a funny way to look at it because I think the inspiration for songs is really just a way of perceiving the world. And I feel like in songs I'm only able to capture that truthfully, where in other ways I feel like I'm just kind of grasping at it. So songwriting for me is, the way that I see things, and hopefully I can be true to the way I see things. So it's always just been a freedom of expression for me has taken the form of songs. They aren't inspired by anything in particular, they just come from the lens through which I view myself and the way myself views everything around me.

--Are you willing to reveal the backstory behind "Riders On the Wing"?
Man, that one doesn't have a fucking backstory (laughs)...I think I sat down with my guitar and I was at the window and I had some candles lit and I started playing this chord progression, and it was one of those haunting types of things and that's what's at the start of the song. And I just...these flickering lights and I grab my journal and just pour it all out, exactly how I sing it. It's very similar.