Johnny Bolzan - Skateboard injury to festival stages

Origins

Today, I have the pleasure of presenting the story of music producer, instrumentalist, DJ, and content creator Johnny Bolzan. Resident of the vibrant São Paulo, a city which in many ways mirrors Johnny's unique style. Considering the energy his songs exude, it is blindingly obvious that making music is his passion as well as a full-time career.
His journey began after a skateboarding accident, which left him housebound for an extended period. During that time, Johnny began experimenting with music using a simple setup. Over the years, his ideas evolved while his equipment improved, shaping his music and artistic vision.

Shaping the Artist - Setting sail from plastic shores

Growing up surrounded by 70s and 80s disco and funk/soul groove music thanks to his father, as a teen Johnny found inspiration in an exceptionally wide range of artists, from Pink Floyd being a major influence to The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and even some modern indie rock icons such as Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, Blur and Oasis.
His passion for electronic music got its start with "Plastic Beach" by Gorillaz, leading him to explore artists like Pretty Lights, Gramatik, Greyboy, and Bonobo.
After a couple years he developed his signature flavour of house music which is based on electronic beats, groovy baselines and retro samples which carry an essence of nostalgia with them. These are especially important to the Artist due to his love of his early influences in disco and funk, as well as rock and hip hop.
You could say this is the perfect mixture to achieve his goal, which is to make the retro vibe cooler than any modern atmosphere.

Improvise, adapt, overcome

Creative blocks are common in the production process, in finding a solution an Artist needs a blend of technical skills and artistic sensibility. Johnny also has his ways of "skipping" these hurdles, occasionally spending time in a relevant but non-creative may be the key, for example analysing other song's structures as a reference or organising samples, templates, and presets. As a last resort, he recharges by taking trips to sunny destinations and discovering new music.
While big achievements are important, success is an everyday habit and it comes in increments. A major growth point for him was expanding his content creation to platforms like TikTok and Instagram, allowing him to connect with a wider audience.
Johnny sees visuals as essential to his music. With skills in design and video editing, he handles much of his day-to-day visual work independently but collaborates with visual artists for larger projects. He believes in the power of combining creative vision with technical skills to produce exceptional results.

Track record of great music

Considered by Mixmag to be one of the best artists and producers of his generation, he’s worked alongside renowned Brazilian film directors on music videos as well as large brands like Motorola or Carl's Jr.
Johnny has collaborated with top electronic music artists in Brazil, including Dre Guazzelli, and Fel C. He’s also produced for major hip-hop names like Emicida, Rincon Sapiencia, and BNegão.
His most streamed track is a creative mashup using Industry Baby (Lil Nas X) and Beat it (Michael Jackson) reaching a respectable 6.8M views on YouTube. We must also mention the hit song Thrift Shop created by HAWK., J.None and Johnny himself, which achieved 840 000 streams.
While his most personal song, “Se o Amor Fosse Fácil” with Fernaun was created during a bicycle trip around Eastern Europe, inspired by a friend’s poetry.

Crowd favourite

Johnny’s career has had some standout moments at live performances, including sharing a festival stage with the electric duo of GoldFish at the Macário Festival. One of his biggest upcoming highlights is his event at Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) today. His never-ending desire to improve is sure to take him to greater and greater events all the while inspiring fans all over the world.

Message to Fans

Quoting Bill Hicks, Johnny would like to remind his fans that "life is just a ride." Life will throw all manner of emotions and challenges your way. The key is to enjoy the journey, however long it may be — in life or music — without worrying too much about the destination since there is no finish line in music.
"A good working mind with a good working body can achieve wonderful things."
Now that is a message we can very much identify with.

We wish Johnny the very best of luck for his upcoming performance and a huge thank you for giving us the opportunity for this Spotlight!

Check out his socials

Author

Marcel

Marcel is the Founder of Pandia Management, a London-based independent label with the objective of introducing Readers to incredible talent they may not have discovered otherwise.