About this artist
Johnny Jewel is the visionary composer and producer behind the staunchly independent, trendsetting record label Italians Do It Better, as well as electronic groups Chromatics, Glass Candy, Desire, Mirage, and Symmetry. He is known for a strictly analogue, classic approach to electronic composition. The Texas-born Jewel’s group and solo releases have been featured prominently in many iconic cult films and television shows, including Nicolas Winding Refn’s landmark Drive and David Lynch’s legendary Twin Peaks: The Return. Jewel's aesthetics as a musician, producer, composer, visual artist, and label owner are universally recognized as stylistically groundbreaking and widely influential.
While Jewel was known as an innovator for years in the underground, his signature electronic touch entranced worldwide film audiences in 2008 when Refn used Glass Candy’s “Digital Versicolor” in his feature film Bronson. The success of Jewel's production in the film would lead to Refn and Ryan Gosling hiring Jewel to score 2011’s Drive. While the studio would ultimately end up using other material, Drive would prominently feature songs from Italians Do It Better bands Chromatics and Desire, which greatly helped solidify both the film and it's soundtrack as stylistic trendsetters. After the success of Drive, Jewel would be in high demand, scoring Gosling’s 2015 directorial debut film Lost River, along with several other features, including the Belgian film Home, which won the Georges Delerue Prize for Best Music at 2016's Ghent International Film Festival.
In May of 2017, Jewel released the album Windswept, several tracks of which have been featured onscreen in Twin Peaks: The Return (along with contributions from Chromatics). Jewel also appears and performs on stage with Chromatics in three different episodes.
Jewel's influence on electronic, pop, and film music is pervasive, and he continues to be an in-demand creator of memorable and evocative compositions for all genres.