Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to John Thomas. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

John, appreciate you joining us today. Can you tell us about a time that your work has been misunderstood? Why do you think it happened and did any interesting insights emerge from the experience?

People think they get my creative life. They catch a snippet—a poem shared, a track I played on, an open mic night where the mic almost worked—and figure, “Ah, yes, the artist’s life! Just floating around, waiting for inspiration to strike like lightning or possibly Uber Eats.”
I get it—people catch the highlights. A song shared, a poem read aloud, a performance that lands just right. And honestly? I’m glad they see that part. That’s the joy, the shine, the part where the work lifts off the page and becomes something shared. Those glimpses matter. They’re real. They’re the visible spark—but like any fire, there’s a whole engine burning underneath.
But here’s the thing: what they see is the tip of the tip of the iceberg. Beneath it? Spreadsheets. Contracts. A crash course in copyright law I never asked for. Metadata rabbit holes. The kind of quiet hustle that doesn’t make good Instagram content.
I’ve spent years learning how to navigate the world of publishing and pitching, writing for people who may never learn my name—adding my voice or guitar to songs for others. I’ve done work that disappears into someone else’s spotlight, and that’s okay. That’s part of the gig.
Writing isn’t just this romantic lightning bolt moment. It’s tailoring. Precision. Getting the tone just right, like hemming a sentence so it doesn’t drag. People see the calm and assume I’m waiting. But no—stillness isn’t idleness. Stillness is strategy.
Behind that quiet? A bonfire. Every line I write has probably lived three lives and died twice. I don’t wait for the muse—I file paperwork with her manager, rehearse the call, and draft an outline while I wait to be ghosted. I’ve learned how to make silence earn its keep. And sometimes—miraculously—the muse does show up. Uninvited, unpredictable, like a cat at the window or a line that writes itself. Those moments feel like grace: effortless, electric, alive. The pen moves faster, the song sings itself, and for a little while, the work sprouts wings and soars. But even then—I’m only able to catch it because I was already at the desk, already listening
This life isn’t something I only drifted into—it’s something I’ve built. Scraped together from hours alone, revising, reshaping, researching. It’s not always glamorous. Most of the time it’s snacks, spreadsheets, and stubborn paragraphs. But it’s mine. And on the good days? It’s magic
It is not glamorous, but it is glorious—a discipline as exacting as any other craft, demanding both devotion and invention.”
When I was a kid, we were so broke my mom and I used to go treasure hunting on neighborhood walks—not in antique shops or thrift stores, but on the actual street. Rusty screws, lost buttons, scraps of metal—trash to most, but to us, it was possibility. I once made a Halloween costume—a robot—out of that junk, patching together a future from whatever the world had discarded. Creativity wasn’t a luxury. It was survival. Every idea I’ve chased since then started the same way: with nothing but need, and a curious eye for what could be made from it.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

’ve always lived at the crossroads where rhythm meets reverence—where sound isn’t just heard, it’s felt, and sometimes even understood. It started in Chicago, where I DJ’d my way through grad school—turntables by night, theories by day. It was a wild rhythm, but it paid the bills and taught me how to read a room and a textbook, sometimes in the same 24 hours. My residency was at Smartbar, the legendary little basement tucked under the Metro—dark, loud, and holy in its own way. That place was a temple, and I was lucky enough to play alongside the high priests of house: DJ Colette, DJ Rap, Derrick Carter, Mark Farina—genre-makers, floor-shakers, sonic architects. While the crowd was sweating out their week to deep bass and late-night joy, I was upstairs in the daylight hours finishing a graduate degree in Religion, focusing on Sacred Texts and textual criticism. The two bled into each other. My thesis? A deep dive into the urban underground dance scene as a new religious movement—because I wasn’t just playing the music, I was studying the spirit behind it. I had one foot in the booth, the other in a library carrel, and somehow it all made sense. The dancefloor was a kind of scripture, the DJ a kind of preacher, and I was caught somewhere in between—trying to understand why it all mattered so much.
I came to Austin in 2005, ready to dive into a city that was alive with music and energy. It wasn’t long before I formed a band, originally called Panacea, and later The Echoes. We played indie electronic rock that blended both the gritty and the ethereal, and we performed all over the city—from iconic spots like The Parish, Mohawk, and Hole in the Wall, to places that have since disappeared, like Club DeVille and Lucky Lounge. Those years were spent reimagining sound, building a community of listeners, and opening for and sharing stages with incredible musicians. Every show was a new chance to experiment, and we grew alongside a city that was shifting and evolving, giving us a place to carve out our own voice in a scene that felt both familiar and limitless.
Here’s the thing—I’m not just about the music. For over 20 years, I’ve been teaching—everywhere from special ed classrooms to university lecture halls. And it’s never been just about delivering content. It’s about helping students learn to think critically, to feel their way through complex ideas, and to build meaning when words alone are insufficient. I take a student-centered approach, aiming to inspire and guide, not just instruct. I’ve gone back to graduate school as a student four times, not because I have a passion for homework (let’s be real, I don’t), but because I believe in education that transforms. It’s not about stacking credentials like bricks; it’s about sparking a process of intellectual alchemy—turning abstract concepts into tangible insights that can be applied, that can resonate. It’s about offering tools that help people engage with the world more deeply. Because true learning doesn’t just accumulate knowledge—it shifts perspective and opens new ways of seeing. And that, to me, is the real work.
As a producer, I’ve had my hand in a variety of projects— I’ve composed for commercials (including Austin FC, DSW, Old Navy, and more), TV shows (Black Mirror, The Gentlemen, and more), video games (League of Legends, Warhammer, and more), and several feature films. One of my proudest accomplishments came when my full score for Luke and Jo, was nominated for Best Score for an Independent Full Length Movie. I’ve DJ’d in everything from smoky clubs and large festivals to academic conferences and friends’ tiny weddings.
I’ve spent much of my life making things—music, essays, poems, stories. Not just academic papers (though there are plenty of those), but published fiction and poetry that have found homes in various journals, magazines, and reviews. Writing, for me, has always been a way to translate the unspoken, to create meaning where language often falters. That same impulse—the urge to listen deeply, to hold space for complexity—is what led me to become a therapist. It isn’t a detour from my creative path, but an extension of it: a new way to help people tune their inner noise, shape their own stories, and find something true in the telling. Doing this work has been profoundly life-changing; it continually reminds me of the courage it takes to face ourselves and the beauty that can emerge from that kind of honesty. I’m especially drawn to the study of interpersonal neurobiology—how we live, think, feel, and ultimately, how we heal in connection with others.
Because if there’s a theme here, it’s transformation. Taking the raw and making it resonate. Finding the melody in the mess. And handing it off, in whatever form it takes—a song, a sentence, a still moment—to someone who needs it.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

For me, the creative path has always carried a quiet but sacred purpose: the slow, deliberate labor of healing. Not the kind with dramatic revelations or overnight transformations, but the subtler kind—the inner work that begins in the tender corners of one’s own spirit, and, over time, extends outward like a gentle offering. Art, for me, is not a performance of self—it’s a practice of becoming. It begins in the personal, but it doesn’t end there. My deepest hope is that through my work—through music, words, or simply presence—I might help stir something half-asleep in others, to warm the embers of their own creativity, and maybe help them remember what they already carry: that they, too, are capable of renewal.
I don’t see this as original or unique; in fact, I feel lucky to be part of a lineage that has always known this. We come from enduring voices—Rilke, with his piercing tenderness; Whitman, who made room for the whole wild choir of humanity; Audre Lorde, whose truths still burn with necessary fire; and Jung, whose writings remind us that healing is not a return, but a transformation. They each, in their own way, understood that the work of the soul is not about fixing what’s broken, but about remaking the self from the inside out. To heal is not just restoration but reformation.
That’s the kind of impact I hope to have—not just on individuals, but in the broader collective. Especially for those on the margins: the overlooked, the unheard, the ones whose pain has been rendered invisible. I’m particularly drawn to how disciplines like ecopsychology might offer a sense of belonging even in the most desolate spaces—like the isolating architecture of the prison system. Or how the arts, which have always been rituals of transformation, might become lifelines for those weighed down by depression, by disability, or by the numbing silence that descends when creative energy dries up.
Healing, I’ve come to believe, is rarely a solitary act. It unfolds in relationship, in community, in the subtle spaces between people and the world they’re trying to find their place in. As each individual begins the slow process of becoming more whole, more alive, the world shifts with them—thread by thread—reimagined through imagination, through compassion, and through the stubborn belief that even after everything, something new can still be made.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

The resources for my creative journey are a mix of old-school study and happy accidents. First and always, I rely on reading — constantly, obsessively — pulling from books, essays, poetry, philosophy, and anything else that stretches my thinking. I believe there’s no substitute for learning from the great minds who came before us. Their ideas, struggles, and ways of seeing the world create a foundation that I keep building on.

But just as important as reading is curiosity — that quiet superpower that keeps judgment at bay. Curiosity lets me experiment without immediately tearing myself down, which is crucial because, frankly, I’m a perfectionist who is anything but perfect. Learning to create without constantly critiquing myself has been one of the hardest and most necessary lessons. Curiosity asks, “What happens if I try this?” instead of, “Is this good enough?” — and that shift makes all the difference.

And then, there are accidents — which, honestly, might deserve more credit than anything else. Some of the best things I’ve made happened by stumbling into them: a mistake here, a wrong turn there, and suddenly something new and better appears. Accidents remind me that creativity isn’t about control; it’s about staying open to whatever shows up, even if it wasn’t part of the plan.

So in short, my main resources are books, curiosity, and accidents — in that order, though most days they all show up at once, usually carrying a fair amount of chaos with them.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: WriterJTBlue, here_and_now_haikus
• Youtube: DJ JOHN THOMAS
• Soundcloud: https://www.soundcloud.com/djjohnthomas

Image Credits

Whitley Stratton for one picture