Jon Peter Lewis
“A little less conversation, a little more action,” the King sagely recommended in 1968. Jon Peter Lewis echoed the sentiment in 2004 via his star-making turn on American Idol, and four years later, he’s more than heeding the advice. Having honed his songcraft both in the studio and on the road with an all-star cast of collaborators, JPL is primed for a big-time breakthrough courtesy of sophomore full-length Break the Silence.
Emotionally charged and overflowing with brainy pop hooks, Silence is a decided change of pace from his 2006 debut, Stories From Hollywood. It finds a more seasoned Lewis balancing his trademark “sitting in my bedroom all alone” melancholia with the inviting, offbeat wit that put him on the short list of not only Idol cult favorites, but alumni with the most potential. And that potential, as Lewis wryly acknowledges, applies to the heartbreaker column as well.
“I played a show recently and there were probably 150 girls in the audience and 10 guys,” he recalls with a chuckle. “I was reflecting on that and I’m thinking, ‘and that is why I’m doing a record on relationships.’ I don’t want to say [the album is] mellow, though, ’cause there’s a lot of fun on it.” Indeed, while there’s no shortage of addictive someday-singles on Silence, Lewis considers writing more involved, personal “album tracks” his forte. Hinging on a delicate, forlorn piano melody, “No Fire” is his favorite, a bittersweet remembrance of an ex-flame that finds the vocalist lamenting, “No spark, no warmth, no fire.” And yet, the record offers almost a polar opposite in “Winning Streak,” an upbeat, “cautiously optimistic” testament to happiness in love. The title track likewise brims with confidence, blending influences from Ben Folds to the Beatles. (“I couldn’t get enough,” Lewis says of his first time with the Fab Four. “I was so moved by what I was hearing. It was a life-changing experience.”)
While JPL was once part of what he dubs an “all-star chorus” on the American Idols Live Tour—his acclaimed, left-field cover of OutKast’s “Hey Ya” was backed by both Jennifer Hudson and Fantasia (“an Oscar winner and a Grammy winner,” he beams)—today, he’s directing the ensemble. Just a few of the talented helping hands on Silence are producer Chris Garcia (Santana, Michelle Branch), executive producer Don Grierson (Heart, Cheap Trick, Duran Duran) drummer Kenny Aronoff (John Mellencamp, Indigo Girls), guitarist Nick Lashley (Alanis Morissette), and even Lewis’ cousin Blake Mills, providing urbane “indie-style” guitar work.
“I love to write music,” Lewis explains, “but if somebody is writing songs that are just as good, if not better, for me as a singer, I’m not gonna refuse. If you surround yourself with good people, it’s important to listen to those people.” It’s an appropriately democratic approach from a young man who grew up in a military family. (“There’s an athleticism I admire that I got from that masculine lifestyle,” he theorizes, “my propensity to be really competitive; kind of this sense of honor and integrity.”) Lewis’s father had his own taste of fame tickling the ivories in ’60s surf heroes the Marketts, who were immortalized on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. And while Jon continues to devote his life to music, his Plan B is pretty damn impressive.” I was getting ready for medical school, getting all my microbiology out of the way, all my physics,” he reveals. “I still have this dream of taking the MCAT and doing really well on it. Lewis might want to hold off on that a few years. Today, and for the foreseeable future, he’s part of the conversation and the action.
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