At first, it is simple and satisfactory — washes of white ivory, amidst an acoustic strumming downstrokes as hyper as a house fly flutters. Three listens later, the prelude to track one is slowly snacking on your heart and soul. A mono-dynamic tempo spinning circles around your subconscious, flowers from ordinary to extraordinary, affirming an aural ambiance luring listeners in at a slow, yet steady pace.
Launching a listen both catchy and creative, Jon McLaughlin’s “Forever If Ever” stands a measure of his artistic altitude, and according to McLaughlin, his “truest music yet.”
“It snowballed into a lot of creative energy between myself and my band and a lot of fun and enjoyment of the craft,” McLaughlin said. “It was the first time that I was able to really just enjoy myself in the studio [whereas] beforehand I had my label saying, ‘You know, you can’t record that song that particular way.’”
A self-released, self-produced success, this spirit-nibbling novice premieres the pop/rock pianist and his 86 keys, selling an earnest sound to ears of all ages.
“’Forever if Ever’ is an absolute delight,” fan Jenny Albright said. “The lyrics are honest and real. The melodies are intricate and light and Jon’s emotion can be felt through every word he sings.”
Of rustic tint, a front cover photo marries eyes to the man behind the music, unmasking McLaughlin’s laid-back looks and soft, shaggy spirals. Peel away the packaging and the songster slays 12 topnotch tunes.
Aside McLaughlin’s ever-popular, piano prowess, an air of artistic freedom falls in line with his latest.
“When you’re working with the label and a producer you’re working with multiple people’s schedules and it’s not completely on your time,” McLaughlin said. “[With] this record, if I didn’t feel like working vocals [on a given] day then we just didn’t do vocals that day … I could spend all day working on a certain guitar tone and I didn’t have to worry about if someone else thought that that was unnecessary.”
Despite freedom afforded by finishing an album on his own, McLaughlin admits the writing process proved challenging.
“When it came to the writing process, that was definitely a challenge because most of the time I was working with the label and you’re dealing with other people’s opinions of your music,” McLaughlin said. “The songs on this record are very personal — you write a song about your family and it’s weird to have other people critique it based upon its commercial validity.”
Calming orchestral arrangements, smooth, legato fills and a fountain of evenly flowing phrases are enough to sell even the savviest of skeptics.
Joel Clifft, director of keyboard studies at APU renowned for its degree programs in piano performance, music theory/composition and vocal performance, found solace in McLaughlin’s colorful chord progressions and heartening vocal agility.
“Like Jeff Buckley there is a good deal of heart in his music that seems to come through in the vocals,” Clifft said. “He’s not thinking about singing — he’s thinking about the story of the song.”
Jonathan Lord, a recent APU School of Music graduate agreed, adding that McLaughlin’s largely piano-driven ditties are a vacation away from today’s guitar-centered pop music.
“The common synths, vocoders and auto-tuned vocal runs that usually flood pop music are absent,” Lord said. “Even his heavier tracks like ‘What I Want’ all have a very live, performable feel that stays transparent enough [for one] to listen to his witty and insightful lyrics.”
Atop tinkling crescendos weaseling in where allowance resides, McLaughlin’s energy-infused art continues to sell itself.
“‘What I Want’ surprised me with how much energy he could create using little to no guitars,” Lord said.
In quaint resemblance of a crooner’s falsetto, McLaughlin’s dreamy vocals and ripened yet raw inflections hang like a tiny heap of heaven on a hammering heartbeat. Sewing a slit between radio-ready riffs and the poise of a classically-trained pianist, McLaughlin severs genre in two, revealing 12 introspective tracks, each with a body, mind and soul of their own.
“There was some pressure because it was just the band and I making [this record] on our own but it was the most exhilarating and definitely very, very exciting,” McLaughlin said.
A graduate of Anderson University’s School of Music in Anderson, Ind., McLaughlin invites artistic integrity to the forefront of his classical-pop career.
“Right now I’m really getting back into some of the classical pieces that I learned in college, analyzing them and studying their chord progression like Rachmaninoff was using in one of his preludes,” McLaughlin said. “If you go up to the piano and play a diminished seventh chord, it sounds how it sounds and it is what it is but when you put it in the middle of a series or combination of chords, you can make it sound completely different.”
McLaughlin sees beauty in each chord hailing from the musical alphabet.
“Every chord has its own role and its role is determined by the chords around it,” McLaughlin said.
A devout Christian, McLaughlin credits the church with rekindling his passion for playing.
“By the time I got to high school, I’d been playing piano forever,” McLaughlin said. “I got really burnt out on it so I took a couple years off finally and I just focused on being a high school kid and being in sports and all that stuff … the church was the last step in really getting me [back] into music and getting serious about music.”
McLaughlin recalls the youth band he began performing in at his family’s church.
“It opened up my whole world into this new side of music where you don’t read notes on a page; you can just make up whatever you want,” McLaughlin said.
Thereafter, McLaughlin began writing and performing music as he does today.
“I think once I heard Ben Folds, I really wanted to do that kind of music but at that point it was like, ‘Oh, I should just get this sheet music and learn these songs,’” McLaughlin said. “No one was telling me, ‘Hey, you can just make up your own songs; you don’t have to read that music’ — so the church really did that for me.”
Indeed faith, plays a pivotal role in the life McLaughlin leads.
“I am a Christian as well so that obviously influences every decision that I make — not only music, but all aspects of my life,” McLaughlin said.
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