Because It’s Real: Q & A with Jont

By J Howell

You may know of Jont from his song, “House of Dreaming” from the soundtrack to The Wedding Crashers. I first met Jont through MySpace two years ago, when he was first entertaining the idea of taking Unlit (explanation below) on the road in the States. It seemed like a beautiful thing to have at my home, so I told him I was in. The Unlit we held here in Kansas City was one of the most amazing, fun things I’ve ever been a part of.

Jont
Photo © Geraldine Pezet

Jont and Unlit filmmaker Dave Depares instantly became lasting friends, and my band at the time even ended up going to London to play the Unlit tour wrap-up as part of the BBC’s Electric Proms 2006. Jont has a few new things you should hear and see, so I conducted this interview with him this April.

Popshifter: First, since this is a proper interview, let me ask: how are your parents?

Jont: They’re good! My mum’s garden is starting to look nice.

Popshifter: For those who haven’t experienced an Unlit, could you give us a brief description of one?

Jont: Well, Unlit is the product of me trying to create the most beautiful night I personally could ever imagine having. I had been doing it as a night actually since 1997—as an underground night in the 12 Bar Club in London once a month for five years, then briefly in New York at Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn—but its real evolution has been in the last four years, after I moved in to an apartment in Hollywood when I was living out there and I thought, “What would I really like to do with my apartment now that I finally have an apartment on my own for the first time?” I thought, well, I’d like to make it a venue that’s open and free to anyone and do my night, Unlit, there, once a week, but make it a mixture of a party and a gig. Not too much music, just two or three songs from two or three different people I ask to come and play, for an hour or so around ten or eleven p.m.

So it’s like a gig, but normally totally acoustic, with quite a variety of performers (not just singer-songwriters: poets, rappers, rockers, electro dudes, and soul singers. . . all have had their turn) but you get to meet all the people there and hang out, cos it’s a party. There’s normally a DJ when I organise it, too and basically the hour of music enlivens the space and gives the party some substance so it’s not just going out, dancing, taking whatever, and going back home. There’s a space of silence when everyone is one and often witness to some incredible beauty cos of the intimacy of the environment and the intensity of the performances.

Over the last few years, due to some happy accidents like MySpace friends suggesting I come out and tour the idea in America, and another friend suggesting I start filming it and putting a video blog series online, and then meeting Dave Depares who has just been the most fantastic editor and cameraman for the series. . . . through these things, Unlit has grown in to a little TV series—online on YouTube—and this has now had hundreds of thousands of viewers on YouTube and the audience is growing all the time.

Most recently we went around the UK in January and February and filmed the 15 Unlits that we did in the houses of people I met on MySpace and have just started posting the new online TV series, which we have named The House We’re In. It will run once a week from now til halfway through July. . . best way to see it would be to go to the Jont website. . .

London Unlit, February 2008

Click to read more from Jont on. . .

Evolution of Unlit and Supernatural
An encounter with Allen Ginsberg

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