Meet Jeremy Johnson | Co-Founder Johnson Talent Management

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jeremy Johnson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jeremy, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
My childhood was spent on our family farm, eight miles down a gravel road from a town of 500 people, called Elkhorn, in Canada. We lived on the prairies in a tight knit community, where everyone still knows everyone, and their cousins, and their grandparents, and their pets… you get the picture. Being raised in the country, raised cattle, drove tractors and went to church. By the time I was 12 years old, I was driving a half tonne, stick shift grain truck down the dirt road after school and on weekends. Long hours in the tractor were spent alone, watching the sky, looking for stones in the ground, checking equipment. Winter meant getting up early to feed the cows, with frozen fingers and the constant threat of an angry animal, opening and closing gates, carrying buckets and cutting frozen bale strings. This was followed by weekends of hockey, ski doo’s and downhill sledding down the nearest neighbours creek. Through all of this, my one constant companion was the FM Country Radio. In my world, it played morning, noon and night. Changing stations and hearing all of the latest music, along with the classics. I couldn’t help sing along to the songs and lyrics that were so familiar to me, and songs became my friends, always there for me. This gave me a driving interest in everything music related, who sang it, who wrote it, how it was made, and I tried to be a part of every music related activity my small world had to offer. This planted a seed in my mind that made me want to be a part of making music, of sharing music and of living in the world of music.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Becoming an artist manager was really more of a by-product of other work that I was doing. Throughout my time at University, I was always promoting shows, booking venues, throwing parties and creating shows. Eventually, I finished a B.A. (Hons.) in Conflict Resolution Studies, and was working for an adult learning non-profit organization. During that time, I created a program called ‘Reader-in-Residence’, the program was developed to collaborate wtih well known local artists, and schedule them into adult learning classrooms for an acoustic performance and encouraging talk about their own learning journey. The program went over really well, and I ended up working with a number of local artists because of it. Becoming friends with so many great artists, who I knew were helping the community, made me want to go the extra mile to help them. In an effort to support them in return, I found myself at shows, video shoots, poetry readings, comedy shows, clubs, showcases and eventually, meetings. This became my first real step into the industry, when one the artists we were collaborating with asked me to help out in an official capacity, and to become her manager. A year later, she won a Western Canadian Canadian Music Award, it might as well have been a Grammy Award in my mind, I couldn’t believe it. . As much as I loved working for community based organizations, I became driven to succeed in the music industry and moved to Los Angeles and enrolled at University of California, Los Angeles. My first job out of UCLA was back in Canada with the Juno Awards where I got to work with all the artists and talent behind the scenes, it was a dream come true and I never looked back.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
My two favourite menu items in Nashville are fried chicken and nachos. Just typing the words make me want to dig in, and there are so many places that absolutely nail these essentials. Miranda Lambert’s Casa Rosa had incredible nacho’s, and Hattie B’s is a must. One of the most charming places I’ve visited is The Loveless Cafe, and my one of the most laid back and warm coffee shops is The Loading Dock on Lindell Avenue.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
The path into music and artist management as a profession, wouldn’t have been possible without my sister and co-founder, Janelle Johnson. Growing up together, many of my musical memories feature her front and centre, and that hasn’t changed to this day. As I slowly built my industry network and skills as an emerging manager, she became a successful music publicist promoting tours across Canada, USA and Australia, primarily large scale tribute acts, but it was often 2,000 capacity theatre venues, so it provided great insight and important connections. We grew in the business together, and it helped the country music industry feel like a little piece of home, because everyone felt like an extension of our home community and family, because we were experiencing everything together. Having family along to enjoy the best parts of the music industry, is a true joy and motivator. It made us want to create that experience together with everyone we meet.

Website: https://www.johnsontalentmanagement.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnsontalentmanagement/

Image Credits
Danny Shumov – Personal cover photo