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After months of teasing new music, Nashville-via-Chicago artist Huron John returns with Indigo Jack, his first new project since 2021’s cartoon therapy. Embracing a fresh and disruptive take on his own signature style of indie-pop, Indigo Jack sees Huron John experimenting with new sounds and ideas after a long and transformative hiatus. Though just half of a larger two-disc project, Indigo Jack’s seven tracks showcase John's artistic evolution, demonstrating a level of concentration and quality that places it miles ahead of his bedroom-pop origins.

Though thousands of miles apart, Ones To Watch and Huron John connected for a brief interview to talk about his new record, his favorite cheese, and everything in between.

Ones To Watch: Hi John. Where are you and what are you doing right now?

Huron John: I am currently in Nashville, I just did my dishes which was quite exciting!

It’s been two years since the release of cartoon therapy. What’s changed?

A lot has changed. Some major personal changes in my life have occurred in combination with some major artistic and creative changes in relationship to the Huron John project. I think this entire thing chronicles one large journey of change in one individual and then you can take that information and apply it to your own life experience, I suppose. cartoon therapy was still me kind of "figuring it out." I think a lot of artists' music is just a time capsule of what their life was like in a certain period—that has definitely been one of the only constants that weaves my entire catalog together (so far). I've become a lot more of a mellow person. When I made Never Inside, Apocalypse Wow, etc., I had a much different idea of what I wanted my life to be like. Certain things from that vision have stayed the same, but I'd like to think that my "priorities," both creative and personal, have become much more wholesome. I love the phrase "it is what it is."

What were some highs and lows?

I mean, it's always a consistent "high" to have anyone paying attention to your music at all and validating the thoughts that you have, whether you're expressing them through sounds, lyrics, visuals, etc. In the last year, my parents separated after a marriage of 30 years, a 4-year romantic relationship of mine ended, I moved across the country to make album three in LA, I graduated college—much more. I don't reiterate these things like some sort of laundry list to prove that I've been through something terrible, but I think life just has a very funny way of putting me through long periods of complete uneventfulness, and then I get whiplashed by some huge tidal-wave of personal change. This has happened two times now in my life. cartoon therapy is an interesting album because I was really no different making that than I was making the Apocalypse Wow album. I was in the same physical location, the same relationships, same daily activities, same class schedule, etc. No new real-life experiences, maybe some new internal dialogue, but that was about it. That's what makes those two albums a Part 1 / Part 2 kind of thing. It's always interesting to observe "highs" or "lows" in your life because I'd like to think that when you're on your deathbed you won't really think of them as "good" or "bad" experiences, just experiences. I'm really trying my best to not sound like some asshole armchair-philosopher here, haha. 

Where were you living then, and where are you living now?

Apocalypse Wow was made in my college dorms and then worked on a little bit in my childhood home outside Chicago. cartoon therapy was made basically exclusively in my first Nashville house with friends after we moved out of the dorms. Indigo Jack & The New World Border was created in this giant concrete warehouse in East Los Angeles that doubled as a music venue. It literally looked like a prison had a baby with the iCarly house. Definitely a bit bizarre, but like I was referencing earlier, you always need new information and settings to keep things fresh. If I had stayed in that Nashville townhouse and made some other album after cartoon therapy with the same setup and life circumstances, I think you would have had a pretty boring album. I now have my own place in East Nashville where I'm beginning ideas for the fourth album. It's my first time ever living completely alone and I really love it. I love the fact that if I'm out of toilet paper or the garbage needs to be taken out, it's on me... it's my destiny. My own fate. I'm half joking, of course.

Do you feel like it’s been two years? If so, does that feel like a long time?

The passage of time honestly confuses me in a very big way. The time that has passed since cartoon therapy to this new album feels like an eternity but almost like some 30-hour haze of a weekend because you were too stoned the whole time to even know what was going on. It sounds funny but one of the original titles to Indigo Jack & The New World Border was "Miniature Lifetimes" because it has really felt like I've lived 10,000 miniature lifetimes instead of one long one. I just turned 24 a few weeks ago; it feels like I was 13 years old yesterday but it also feels like the memories of being 13 aren't even real. It feels like one of my favorite movies of all time but I haven't seen it in so long that I don't even remember why it is my favorite movie. I just tell people that it is because I don't know what else to say!

What is the best part of life right now? How would you describe it to your past self?

It sounds kind of funny, but I really do think the best part of life right now is the complete uncertainty. I love knowing the fact that I am going to be 50 years old one day and look back at this whole Huron John thing like it was some distant dream. I really want to be a father and a husband, and I know that when those opportunities present themselves, I won't be able to pack up and go randomly live in California on a whim for a year to make an album or spend seven hours packing vinyl orders in my bedroom with friends over a couple bottles of wine. I would describe this period of my life to my past self as the "video game" era. Life in this kind of "profession," if you'd call it that, feels like Grand Theft Auto or Zelda. It literally feels fake. It feels like if I walked outside, some other player in the multiplayer match could crash a helicopter on my front lawn, kill me, and my character would respawn again in some other apartment that I happen to be renting with my music studio set up in the living room. It feels like every year a new game update drops, I can change my character to have a pink mohawk, whatever. Nothing is for certain and it is really terrible but also so awesome. I say this though reiterating the fact that I really do dream of a wholesome and stable life of building my own family. I know that I have to enjoy the chaos of life as a 20-something "artist," because someday I will look back on this time in life knowing that this was the simplest it ever was, even though anyone's current predicament can feel crippling in its complexity.

What is the relationship between Indigo Jack and AW/CT? 

Indigo Jack and AW / CT are not connected at all narrative-wise. When I was working on Indigo Jack & The New World Border, I had an idea to connect the narratives—those AW / CT songs "PRE-SHOW", "INTERMISSION" "BROADCAST END", etc., create that whole concept about how the AW / CT double-album was some shitty late-night public access cable movie that would play on Adult Swim or something in the 2000s. The story of Andy and his whole adventure through the Apocalypse and cartoon albums becomes this totally absurdist thing on the surface that is almost meta in the way that it's reflective real-life stories and emotions from my life but put through this comic book-esque story. I had the idea of making Indigo Jack & The New World Border be a children's storybook that was on the shelf in Andy's room. I ultimately decided against this because I want my albums and their respective eras to each be their own universe and self-contained world. Apocalypse Wow / cartoon therapy has a group of characters, "The Honor Tribe," that helps Andy through his adventure, Indigo Jack has the whole "Salvation Mountain" thing and the fictional map of "The World Border" that Jack travels through in his old RV.

Beyond the stupid stories and stuff though, I wanted the music to be its own self-contained thing. It would be an insult to AW / CT to have Indigo Jack try and piggyback off of its narrative world, and it would be an even greater insult to Indigo Jack to not let it create its own universe because I know it is my best album in every category. The real relationship between the three albums, whether intentional or not, is the listener being able to observe that the same person made these three albums no matter how different the music, visuals, or concepts may be. The same person who made a quirky and playfully youthful song like "Friendzone" also made "Use The Birth For All It's Worth." That same progression goes on to Indigo Jack. It sounds dumb and self-important—at the end of the day, who gives a fuck about me or what I do. My point is that I want listeners who join me through this artist project to take that change and apply it to their own life. Even if you were 11 years old dressed in a Ninja Turtles costume for Halloween, you are also the same person as a 60-year-old who will be mourning the death of a parent. You're the same person who will walk down the aisle to get married to the love of your life, you're the same person who will have grandchildren one day. That inner-child is always there, there is always an unchanging soul inside of a human being that may look drastically different from the infinity of things that change on the outside, but the deepest depths of your soul are always going to remain unchanged. I'm really babbling about some nonsense, it seems.

What was it like working with Matt Neighbor on the project?

Absolutely amazing! He's the best and a total inspiration to me. I really look up to him as a producer, engineer, and also a friend. He really opened up the floodgates for me in the sense of being not afraid anymore to make the album that I always wanted. I think it makes a ton of sense that I made Apocalypse Wow / cartoon therapy almost completely alone and then I felt super stuck and creatively confused when trying to figure out what to do for the third album. I keep going back to this, but I needed new information in my life. I needed new characters and new ways of looking at things. I think that's the biggest lesson, really. He is a really warm and calming person; he is also always able to figure out any sort of "problem" you may have in the studio. For example, I knew exactly what I wanted a synthesizer part or vocal to sound like production-wise, but my technical knowledge may have been lacking to actually know how to get to that end goal. He was the ultimate problem-solver in knowing how to actually get from Point A to Point B, which is really what I needed. I think that's why I was kind of dissatisfied with the cartoon therapy album in 2021 right after it came out. There were so many things I wanted to do on that album, but I simply didn't know how to do them. But, on the other side of that coin, I didn't try to figure those things out because I had this obsession with doing everything myself, which almost never makes the best end product. Sometimes I ask him questions that I already know the answer to because I just want to hear his sweet little Aussie accent. Hello, Matt!

What was it like bringing in artists to work on Indigo Jack? How does your creative process compare to Frost Children, Cosette, etc.?

It was really awesome! I've always involved other artists a little bit on past projects, specifically people like my genius of a girlfriend, Claire Ernst. But, I still was pretty inexperienced in the category of collaboration. On Indigo Jack, working with people like Matt, or having songs with contributions from amazing artists like Frost Children, Cosette, Morgen, etc., and trying to be much more open about my goals with the project really did create the best work possible in my opinion. The album would absolutely not be what it is at all without the amazing contributions from those who were involved.

What were some lessons you learned during the creation of the Indigo Jack album that you wish you knew sooner?

I think the main lesson really was that I do my best work when I just let go of the original vision of the project and any preconceived notions of what I "need to make." Indigo Jack & The New World Border in its earliest form was a pretty experimental album that was almost shooting itself in the foot for how left field it was going. I think I was kind of feeling so uninspired after cartoon therapy that I began to create an album that was a pretty lazy mirror of the exact music that I listen to as a music fan every day. Obviously, there are a ton of my influences present within Indigo Jack that have never shown themselves in my previous projects such as The Avalanches and George Clanton. But, Indigo Jack really came together as it did because I eventually just let go of all of the things that I felt I "needed to do" if that makes sense. I literally let random music or ideas come out and then I just ran with the ones that felt best. That process ultimately just blossomed into a very large and ambitious project for me. If I had "let go" quicker, maybe the album would have been finished faster instead of taking over two years. But, you have to just let things pan out as they do, right?

What is Indigo Jack about? How should fans listen to it?

Indigo Jack is about "becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable". It's about entering such a dark place that literally breaks you so intensely that you come out of it feeling strangely peaceful. That probably sounds crazy. Indigo Jack is about jumping off the high-dive at the local water park that you've been staring down for five years every time you go, but you never climb the ladder. It's about persistence and embracing that concept of "miniature lifetimes" that I talked about earlier. The things that made you cry tears yesterday will only blur themselves into colors of rainbow emotions as you become older and older. You will die one day and almost be happy that you experienced pain and sorrow because it means that you felt the deepest depths of what a human being could feel, just like you felt love, humor, excitement, wonder, all of these things. Indigo Jack is giving up complete control because when you do, it almost puts you in the most control that you've ever had. The whole "the best plan is having no plan at all" kind of thing. It's also very simply about nature and the natural world. It's about a lot of things really, and that's why I think it can really be played in any setting. There are songs on there that could be played in a nightclub or songs on there that could be played at a funeral. I really do believe that. I think it would hit the hardest though in a national park sort of setting. That would be a really nice experience.

What can fans look forward to in Part 2 of this record?

Part 2 of the album that ultimately culminates in the full record's release is definitely more of the "deeper cuts". Part 1 had the super dopamine-overloaded rainbow-colored sounds, like "JUST ME & FRIENDS" or "NEW WORLD BORDER." Part 2 definitely rounds out Part 1 in a huge way; Part 2 is kind of the answer to the question that Part 1 posed. The two halves of the album make up a very large statement that I think anybody will be able to appreciate. In more casual terms though, Part 2 really does just have some fucking jams on it, though. I wanted an equal distribution of great material across both parts, but the different material sort of serves its own purpose in certain moments. Is that cryptic enough?

What is your favorite color?

At this time, blue and brown.

What is your favorite cheese?

I actually love cheese. If I'm going for a cheese of the common folk, pepper jack will never steer you wrong. Get a spicy sandwich at Chick-fil-A and just savor that pepper jack like you never have savored anything before. If I'm trying to get a little fancy, though, I love Merlot. That's like a nice Christmas cheese that's sitting there beautifully on the charcuterie board that your Aunt made, or something.

What is your most cherished piece of clothing?

I've been wearing these nine-inch tall Red Wing boots every day for over a year. They're made for loggers and people who repair electrical lines, so they're completely waterproof and steel-toed. I feel like I could survive the end of the world in them. I totally cherish those. I am also loving this vintage Bathing Ape tee that I picked up in Japan recently. It's all pre-loved and faded with the perfect box fit on it. I feel like this question is the type of thing that I'll have way better answers after the interview is over.

Tell me about the creation of “CALDERA.” Was it difficult making a track that stylistically deviates so heavily from your past work?

"CALDERA" is an interesting track, for sure. I have certain songs throughout my catalog that have been the same way. they completely deviate from everything else I had out at the time. I've noticed that those tracks usually always become the deep-cut "fan favorites"—songs like "Children Of The Sun" and "Death By Flying Saucer." "CALDERA" is one of the oldest ideas from the IJ&TNWB album, but it definitely wasn't difficult to make. It was a lot of fun for me to go into that more drum 'n' bass and 90s-electronic kind of space. I really just wanted the track to embody the word "nocturnal". I really want people to listen to that song in the darkest night-time or moonlit settings. That song makes me think of Tokyo.

Tell me about your neighbors.

I really don't talk to them at all, I've met them literally once or twice each. They probably think I'm kind of a freak. I like to have a "live and let live" mentality with neighbors. If you come home with an ostrich or something on a giant leash and you walk it into your house, I'm not going to question you or get in your way, only if you let me do the same. Haha.

Do you put a lot of significance into the names of your songs? Which song on Indigo Jack has the most important title?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Some of my titles are super goofy and mean really nothing at all, they're just random phrases that I thought sounded cool. Other songs really do have significance in their titles. On the full IJ&TNWB album, there are two songs called "OF A DREAM" and "MODERN FAMILY." I think both of these titles are very important for what the songs signify and their role in the greater messaging of the album.

What were some of your inspirations sonically and visually for Indigo Jack?

Sonically, I wanted to have the most diverse and rainbow palette possible. The Avalanches were the biggest inspiration in that sense. You listen to their album Wildflower and it's just a total feast of different moods, effects, textures, etc. I wanted a bit of that vibe for this new album. A lot of other artists and genre movements. Everything from the most forgotten crate-dug soul and funk albums in my vinyl collection to that 2019 dance album Outer Peace by Toro Y Moi. Lots of things. Yung Lean and the vaporwave movement mixed with live orchestral recordings and trying to replicate golden-age studio sounds from albums like Pet Sounds or Sgt. Pepper. The Infinite Sadness album by Smashing Pumpkins, as always. I really would have more to say on this if I reflected on it further. The ambient-music legend Laraaji was one of the biggest inspirations on the messaging and themes of this album; you can hear his voice in a recording that I took of us having a conversation on the song "WORLD BORDER PEAK."

Visually, I was greatly inspired by epic children's worlds like Where The Wild Things Are and James and The Giant Peach. I wanted to take that innocence and psychedelia but then put it in a blender with darker and more adult visual themes present in a movie like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, hence a lot of the desert and car-trip stuff. Hunter S. Thompson and his books were a massive inspiration on really everything the album embodies, as well as the "Salvation Mountain" sculpture by Leonard Knight. That sculpture is where a lot of the album's visuals were shot. I think if you really had to choose one real-life piece of inspiration that represents IJ&TNWB, it would be that "Salvation Mountain" sculpture in Niland, California.

Do you consider yourself to be a sensitive person? And if so, do you think it’s a quality that has helped or hindered your work as an artist?

I would say yes, but kind of circumstantially. There are some things that would really bother others or trigger a big emotional response in others that don't bother me at all, and then the opposite is also true in that I think I can be really bothered or distressed by things that some people wouldn't think twice about. I think overall it is a quality that has helped my work so far. Sometimes it may seem like it has hindered my process but I think those emotions are just a temporary roadblock that ultimately comes down to the challenges of that particular day.

What music, film, media, etc. have you been enjoying recently?

My favorite album of 2023 is Sugar World by Jonatan Leandoer96. I've been listening to a ton of dream-pop, specifically Beach House and Cocteau Twins. I think I really want to go in a total dream-pop and shoegaze direction for my next album. A guilty pleasure of mine as of late has also been reality television, embarrassing enough. I really love the series The Golden Bachelor. I also watch that documentary series Planet Earth a lot, hahaha. I feel like I'm really in a rabbit hole with The Beatles right now, too. I was definitely very, very, very late on discovering The Beatles and I've been having such a blast building my own relationship with all their albums and solo projects. I really don't know why I took them for granted for so long.

What are you most looking forward to next year?

Finally having my own headline shows and unveiling these last couple of tricks up our sleeve as far as the full album's release goes. I've been working on a lot of clothing, too. Based on the progress we've been making with it in the planning stage, I think next year is finally the year that I dive head-on into clothing design and stuff like that. I am really working hard for my fourth album to release (or at least start to release) in 2024, as well.

What can fans expect from your upcoming tour?

It's going to be a really fun time, for sure. The setlist works as almost a guided tour through my entire catalog thus far from 2018 to the Indigo Jack album. I am particularly excited because I bought my own lighting system and am working with someone who is helping me design a full sync-ed up light show to the entire set. Each album has its own specific color palette and visual effects that happen during each song, stuff like that. I'm really just excited to have a live show that I'm finally proud of.

Who are your Ones To Watch?

Lonely Pirate Committee, Cosette, Rick West, Joyfriend, Joe Bulldozer, and Morgen.

When do you think you’ll be an old man?

I already feel like one, so I guess whenever I start to look like one. Hopefully, that does not come soon.