We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Oliver John-Rodgers (OJR) a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Oliver, appreciate you joining us today. What were some of the most unexpected problems you’ve faced in your career and how did you resolve those issues?

When I was growing up — before Instagram, TikTok, and Spotify — and still in the early stages of learning my craft as a musician, I had always heard that if you devote ‘10,000 hours’ to practice and development, you can achieve anything for yourself. Having studied music since I was still in elementary school, and now 31 years old, I’ve spent a lot more than 10,000 hours working at my craft (to give an idea: I spend, on average, around 10 hours every day working on my music in some capacity — either as a producer, songwriter, or mixing engineer. I’ve now been doing this for over a decade. You do the math!)

What they never told me, though, was that more crucial than all of that — the creative development, the technical practice, the personal growth, talent, and maturation — was TIMING and, of course, connections. It’s no secret that the entertainment industry is built upon relationships, and all it takes is one big connection to open the right doors for you in your career. But it still has to be the right timing, as the connection isn’t always enough. I’ve made countless connections with bonafide “movers and shakers,” celebrities, and personal heroes throughout my career. But everyone has their own careers to deal with and focus on, so it’s not enough to just “know” someone — even if that’s on a legitimately friendly and personal level. There has to be MOMENTUM around it, and there has to be — as cynical as it might sound to say — a feeling that it will, in some way, also benefit the person who’s choosing to associate with you. There’s an awful lot of back-scratching that drives music business. Talent is merely a bonus.

I’ve had so many “fake-outs” and ‘false starts’ in my 11 years of being a professional artist: times when I thought, “OK, for sure, THIS connection– THIS chance encounter or opportunity WILL be the one that leads to my big break.” Meetings with record labels, backstage conversations with some of my favorite artists and musical heroes, sold-out shows with ‘important’ industry figures in the crowd. There have been milestone moments in my career beyond music, like co-starring in a movie with Jena Malone when I was 20 — one that went on to win awards in film festivals around the world (my parents saw it in theaters hundreds of miles from where I lived — cool feeling!) Or the time when, at 22, I modeled for Steven Meisel, a legendary photographer whose work I’ve always admired, for Vogue Italia.

I know what it is to be ‘in the weeds’ with one’s career, so busy that it hurts. I’ve done the nonstop touring, at 23 and 24, supporting major-label artists — all those times when my manager would communicate to me that *this* show– *this* tour would be the BIG TURNING POINT, after which everything changes for the better, and the land of milk and honey finally stretches out before me. I’ve been fortunate enough to experience standing ovations; encores for thousands of enthusiastic fans; buzzed-about industry conferences; co-writes with ‘so-and-so who wrote Taylor Swift’s first record’; collaborations with huge, global brands; being asked to play festivals, and headline hometown concerts; signing with an agent; you name it. I’ve done it. There was *always* this feeling, throughout all of these undeniably promising and exciting opportunities, that everything could immediately change for me as a professional artist, if I just delivered on the goods.

So I did.

And continue to.

But nothing makes the difference, more than metrics online… and timing. Social media is what matters most now. Virality is the only real pre-requisite these days. But I’m more concerned with *other* markers of merit, a different definition of ‘success.’ Being patient, interesting, well-rounded, and mature. I’ve lived an incredibly rich, dense career and journey, full of magical moments and sublime synchronicity. It hasn’t been a waste — not, at least, on a deeper, spiritual level. But I’ve also come to realize that the old way is out, even if certain relics of the past — like radio and magazines — still exist. Now it’s about digital marketing, and online presence. The traditional rites of passage, which musicians like myself were brought up — before the age of social media and streaming — to believe would eventually lead to that big break, are now secondary to the new source of ‘success’ in the music business: virality and online presence. If you take off online, you can get yourself a record deal overnight. If you take off online, you can sell out a tour by the end of your very first year doing the damn thing! That should give me confidence, to know the bar has been lowered and anyone with a big following can ‘live the dream’ stat.

But call me old-fashioned: I’ve always taken the long way. The scenic route. The road less traveled. I’ve spent years and years learning my trade, growing as both an artist and person, and not for metrics of validation like Likes or a follower count.

I’d like to think it hasn’t all been a waste just because I’ve never gone viral. One of these days, timing will be on my side. And I’ll be ready for it. I’ve done the growing up.

Oliver, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am OJR, an independent, multidisciplinary artist, known primarily for my accomplishments in the field of music. As a songwriter and self-recording artist, diarist, poet, linguist, and stage performer, my creative output spans hundreds of musical compositions across many different genres and styles, and countless works of creative writing — especially poems and memoirs — in multiple languages, as well as professional credits in both film acting and editorial modeling. While enrolled as an undergraduate student at New York University, I studied creative writing and Romance languages, and have recorded music in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Tamashek, and Mandarin. A lifelong multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, and producer, by age 23 I’d shared stages with artists like The Zombies, The Black Angels, Father John Misty, Maggie Rogers, and Grace Potter. And in recent years, I’ve worked directly with brands such as Dior, Instagram, Chobani, Swarovski, and Timberland, as both a score composer and model for high-level ad campaigns and short films. First studying both piano and drums while still in elementary school, I began writing songs at the age of 12, shortly after receiving my first guitar as a birthday gift. By the time I was finishing high school, I had written more than 50 original ballads; produced EPs in genres as diverse as metal, hip hop, and dance music; co-founded a local youth-soccer league; and invented my own language and writing system — all signs of a relentlessly forward-thinking, diverse, ambitious, and productive career to come.

Have you ever had to pivot?

In 2017, I was 24 years old, and at the height of my music career. I had a manager, an agent, a lawyer, a producer, and other valuable team members, all of whom were validation of the fact that my music (and momentum) was lucrative, and that there was a very real, promising business in place. I had not broken through to national or international fame just yet, but I was well on my way, and that was apparent by the caliber and size of concerts I was regularly playing at that time: sold-out shows in front of crowds numbering in the thousands, in some of America’s finest venues, as well as festival appearances throughout the year. My single was playing on indie radio stations all over the country, and the momentum felt electric! The only thing that seemed to stand in the way between wider exposure and me was a record deal. Once I was signed, and finally getting marketing help from a record label with considerable resources, the greater exposure would surely come.

Instead, just a few days shy of my 25th birthday, I was laid out in the hospital, with excruciating pain from acute pancreatitis. This sickness, which arrived at the apex of my momentum in the business, sidelined me for over a year, as I was forced to recover my physical (and mental) health at home. Having to step away from performing live for an extended period of time cost me my professional team, as my manager, my agent, my backing band, my lawyer, and my producer all moved on to other gigs and opportunities. As I said, I wasn’t a household name yet — so there wasn’t enough money on the line to keep everyone around while I took time to recover. Such is the nature of the biz: people tend to go to where the excitement is.

It was as if I had been sent back to square one, after having already achieved so much ground and a respectable presence in the business. Before the pancreatitis and losing my team, I was on a fast track, and all of that came crashing to a dead stop.

Rather than giving up, however, I resolved to coalesce at home, and, while doing it, make another album that could attract a new roster of professional teammates. I sent hundreds of emails, said “yes” to any meeting I could get, and forgave those who betrayed me in my darkest hour. I turned a new page spiritually, and the universe seemed to conspire in my favor. In 2019, my song “Numb” was featured in the popular Amazon Prime show “Sneaky Pete,” and, shortly after, new managers approached me wanting to work together. That same month, my longtime casting agent in New York reached out, to say that the yogurt brand Chobani wanted to feature me as a model in their new ad campaign. I agreed to do it, went up to New York to shoot, and met my new management team while there. In our first meeting, I declared, like a giddy child, to my new managers all the big dreams and wide-eyed aspirations I still had for myself and with our business together, in the coming year of 2020. They seemed every bit as excited and optimistic as me, and I knew I had so much to look forward to then. The first thing they did for me as my new managers was to book a big “comeback” show in Nashville, in February 2020. I had just released a new single that was now playing on radio stations around the country. The day of this big comeback show, that February, I received an email from an A&R person at Elektra, the famous record label. He said he had just heard my new song on the radio, while driving home from work, and asked if I could put him on my guest list for the show that night. I was beaming: this was exactly the kind of auspicious, providential-feeling turn of events every passionate musician dreams of having happen to them. The universe was smiling upon me again, and this time it would be even bigger and better. Sure, I had lost a couple of years with the unexpected derailment — the pancreatitis coming at the height of my momentum — but I was still young, and could very well see my big break before turning 30. I was 27 at the time.

The comeback show went well — we packed the house — and I felt truly ecstatic. I was just a few weeks out from departing for the biggest tour of my career, and the following month I’d be releasing a new record. Everything was moving according to plan, and all that personal growth I had committed to, after the pancreatitis, was now paying off.

Until, one day in early March, the agent who had booked my upcoming tour called to ask if I’d heard that SXSW had been cancelled.

“Are you kidding me?” I asked, in disbelief. That festival is a massive money maker for the city of Austin, and I knew that the only way they’d ever cancel it was if the situation — this new “coronavirus” we’d all been hearing so much about — was actually very serious. The boxes upon boxes of new merch I’d ordered for the long tour had just arrived at my house, and I shuddered to think it had all been a waste.

Of course, the coronavirus didn’t quickly go away, and thus began a global pandemic, which affected the lives of every single one of us, in truly immeasurable and ongoing ways. Like everyone else’s, my big tour was cancelled, and all my plans just went up in smoke.

Once more I had been sidelined, and this time — it might turn out — for even longer.

I didn’t take too much time to mourn the sudden turn of events, however, because I was able to quickly pivot to making money as a musician at home: through a longtime friend and ‘important’ connection of mine, I began scoring music for short films and ad campaigns with high-profile clients in the fashion industry, such as Dior, Jimmy Choo, Timberland, Swarovski, and Cara Delevingne. These jobs paid well, for how quickly I was able to turn around the work, so I was suddenly earning more income as a musician and producer than I had in past years. Yes, 2020 ended up being, in an unusual and roundabout way, somehow good — at least temporarily — for me and my business. I think it was only because I didn’t allow myself any time or room to feel lousy about the missed opportunities that the new pandemic had caused. I never sat around and became embittered — I just did the work. At the end of that year, my casting agent in New York called to say Instagram (the company) wanted to work with me, after seeing a screen-test I had done. As has always been my MO, I asked not “why,” but “why not?” I agreed to do it, and added that to the portfolio. So, all in one year, I had collaborated with Chobani, Instagram, Jean Paul Gaultier, and many others. I had added film scoring/commercial-music production to my résumé, and was now a stronger, more experienced and well-rounded musician because of it.

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

Bob Dylan said that “destiny is a feeling you have that you know something about yourself nobody else does.” I think about this quote often, because I relate to it on a constant and profound level: there are these intensely personal understandings/recognitions I have about myself, which I could never begin to expect anyone else to *truly* know, see, or even be aware of. In an age of commonly sharing every little detail about oneself and one’s life — trivial or otherwise — to social media, I tend to do things my own way and keep a lot of things to myself. I was raised to value humility, and rarely feel the need — outside of responding to personal questions like these — to broadcast my own ego or sense of self-confidence to the world. I can be loud and charismatic on stage, but off of it, I tend to live in my own little shell. Some say I’m a ‘textbook cancer,’ but that’s just what feels most natural to me.

The downside of this, of course, is that, in 2023, online marketing and social-media presence is the name of the game, and, without it, it’s easy to get left behind. I’m old enough to remember MySpace, which was my first experience with using social media to try to get my music out there, in the mid-2000’s, as a pre-teen emo musician in the ‘burbs. In the time since, I’ve watched MySpace give way to Facebook, Facebook give way to Instagram, and Instagram give way to TikTok. None of it ever sticks for me, though, and I prefer to make art without the phone’s camera perpetually rolling. As the years go by, I’ve seen so many of my peers “figure it out,” land record deals and big tours, by playing the algorithm game and embracing modern digital marketing in a way I’ve hardly been able to force myself to do. I don’t resent this, as I know that my overall rejection of self-promotion online is what limits my ability to reach a larger audience — especially without the help of a marketing team or record label to do it for me. I’m not insecure about this: I simply do things my own way. Always have, and always will.

I’m driven by something else entirely — what I refer to as “un dios ajeno” — and I think it has nothing at all to do with brands or collaborations or follower counts or consumerism. I write and record music because I feel a never-ending flame that burns blue-hot inside of me, propelling me to make statements about life as I experience it through art. Whether or not that coincides with business is almost irrelevant to me. I write because I HAVE to say something, lest it blow up inside of me. Commenting on the experience of life and humanity is my own way of coping with the reality that life is suffering. It can be beautiful, transcendent, triumphant, blissful, and holy — yes, I’ve lived it that way — but it’s also suffering. And the only thing that seems to soften the suffering inside of me is to write another song, pen another poem, make another statement. I’ve got to say something — something that might find its way out into the world, and into the eyes, ears, heart, and soul of somebody else. I make art to inspire others, just as my favorite artists have done for me, since I was a little kid. The Backstreet Boys were my first idols, and there have been hundreds of others throughout my life since. I am indebted to my artistic heroes, and, by turning the inspiration they’ve provided me into something new, I’m just paying it forward. That’s all it’s ever been: putting it back out into the world, for others to do the same. We all lay our bricks.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve long desired to be famous. But not for the riches, or even the adoration. Rather, I thirst for the limitless opportunities, creative resources, and — above all else — the podium that comes with fame. I’ve always had something to say, and art just seems like the most natural and enjoyable way for me to say it. The business is merely a tool to get that message out there, but make no mistake: for me, it’s about the message, not the business. My only goal is to feel like, when looking back on my total output, I came as close as I could have to having said all that I felt I needed to say in my short time on earth. I’m a messenger, not a businessman.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ojrmusic.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/delta8infusedcommunionwafers

Image Credits
Ashley Treece; Nathan Zucker