“As an only child from a divorced family, music was everything. It was a friend giving unconditional love when I felt alone. Music saved me from the darkness and gave me what I needed most, hope. Like Stevie Wonder wrote in his song Visions,‘Where hate’s a dream and love forever stands,’ a musical utopia where I could be myself and freely express what mattered most.”
Jon Dacks is a self taught multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter from NYC who mixes 70’s rock and soul with modern pop. Soul influences like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson and Sly & the Family Stone were the foundation that built JD’s love of music. Then it was bands like Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Def Leppard and Soundgarden that opened his mind to new possibilities. “Later I was entranced with artists like D’Angelo, Van Hunt, Alicia Keys, Gary Clark Jr and Paolo Nutini who had one foot in the past but an eye to the future. When I heard Lenny Kravitz mixing Sly Stone and Led Zeppelin, man, that was it for me! I loved that he was multicultural too and on a mission to spread the healing power of love. In this pop, hip-hop and rap dominated climate I wondered if my soul & rock mix could find a home. Lenny Kravitz reminded me that anything was possible. I thought, ok, if I put my whole heart into these songs, maybe my music could do for someone else what music has always done for me.”
Jon Dacks was born in Philadelphia from a mother who grew up in Washington Heights Manhattan and a father who was from Brooklyn, NY. They lived in the Philadelphia suburbs for a time until his parents divorced. Today Jon and his family split their time between NJ and NYC. “Yeah, I went to school in the NJ suburbs outside Philly & NYC but we spent just as much time in the city where my creativity came alive. When we drove through Brooklyn to visit my grandparents I could hear Marvin Gaye’s Inner City Blues in my head or visiting my Aunt in downtown Manhattan I’d be humming Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City.” Music became the soundtrack of my life and the energy of the city was the key that unlocked the door.”
Jon Dacks considers himself to be more of a songwriter then he does a singer, guitar player or keyboard player. Instruments were simply the tools he needed to get these songs out of his head and into someone’s headphones. For JD music has always been like a sixth sense, a way to give his imagination a beating heart for others to experience. “Carl Sagan (astronomer) once said that books are like time machines, where we can enter an authors’ mind to experience their life at a specific moment in history. Music is simply another extension of that experience.”
Jon Dacks has played shows from Philadelphia to Boston. His favorite show was in Boston when he shared a bill with blues legend Bo Diddley. “You could say my voice has a split personality. My baritone came naturally at a young age but it was my falsetto that came much later and I was never the same again. Barry Gibb of The Bee Gees famously talked about what happened when he found his falsetto. I could completely relate. It was like I found an entirely new instrument that was inside me all along just waiting for the right moment to be discovered.” Eventually he took a hiatus from music to raise a family and then the pandemic hit. While the world was drowning in uncertainty Jon Dacks realized he had songs just bursting to come out. “ ‘Get busy living or get busy dying,’ that quote from the movie Shawshank Redemption rang loudly in my mind. In a world spiraling out of control, it was my music that again would save me from the darkness.”
Jon remembered that multi instrumentalists like Prince and Stevie Wonder never needed a band to record great music. He also learned that producer Robert John“Mutt”Lange (AC/DC, Def Leppard, Foreigner) used drum samples instead of live drums on Def Leppard’s Pyromania. For Hysteria he recorded all guitars direct into Tom Scholz’s Rockman units instead of Marshall amps. That’s right, no guitar amps on one of the most successful rock albums of all time. JD bought a MacBook pro, an Electro-Voice Re20 microphone which Stevie Wonder famously used in the 70’s and is still used today by YouTube influencers and even Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. This dynamic cardiod mic was perfect for a loud, untreated home setup only picking up sounds right in front of it. Jon could record everything direct into his laptop and program the drums. JD always says, “If you love music, you’ll find a way.”
Teaching himself how to use Apple’s Logic Pro and to play keyboards, he recorded two albums Feel Like We Do in 2021 and the recent follow up Soul Bruiser in August of 2024. “The only thing I didn’t play on the first album was bass. Bass players perceive rhythm differently as if it’s an entirely different frequency, like how birds can see in the ultraviolet spectrum and we can’t.” Jon hired Rob Calder (Ed Sheeran, Passenger, Declan O’Rourke) to play bass on both albums and had Hanan Rubinstein (Alicia Keys, Ed Sheeran, Pharrell Williams) mix the albums at Daxxit Sound Studios. “Hanan is a dream to work with and is one of the most talented multi-instrumentalists I’ve ever seen. Rob was a machine. Working fast and coming up with beautiful melodies. Incredibly lucky to work with these guys.”
Jon Dacks is currently promoting his hit song Can’t Go Back off his latest album Soul Bruiser. You can find his music streaming on Spotify and everywhere you love music as well as on Instagram, TikTok, Threads and BlueSky under username @jondacksmusic. Visit www.jondacks.com for more!
