Johnny Jewel

Johnny Jewel, real name John David Padgett (born 31 May 1974), is an American musician, producer, composer and visual artist. A multi-instrumentalist known for his use of entirely analogue equipment, he has been recording and releasing music since the mid-1990s.

Born in Houston, he began recording in earnest in Portland, Oregon, in 1996, after forming the group Glass Candy with vocalist Ida No. Initially marked by a no wave influence, the group evolved into an electronic duo incorporating elements of Italo disco. In 2006, Jewel founded Italians Do It Better, an independent label based in Portland, which brought together artists and groups producing similar disco-, electronic- and synth-driven music. Among them were Glass Candy, Chromatics and Desire, with whom Jewel wrote, recorded and performed.

Thanks to his involvement, Chromatics enjoyed considerable commercial success with the album Night Drive (2007), and their music was later used in Nicolas Winding Refn's film Drive (2011). Jewel also composed the score for Refn's Bronson (2008), as well as for Lost River (2015), the first film directed by Ryan Gosling. Between 2014 and 2018, he also released three solo albums, composed largely of instrumental material.