J.W. Johnson

A question I get a lot from those that know me: What is 12VA?

It’s short for 12VoltArts, which is the company name for my marketing business. What is 12VoltArts? It’s a marketing firm, that at one time specialized in automotive marketing, currently based in Northern California. We still do specialize in automotive video, actually, but we currently don’t have any automotive clients. If you’d like to know more about 12VoltArts, I invite you to check out the site specifically for that business, and contact me through there if you have any marketing-related questions.

I made this site, 12VA.com, to house all the fun personal stuff about what I do, in particular music composing and recording. A lot of my friends ask: “Where do I go to hear some of your stuff?” Here you go!

It’s long overdue. I’ve been promising this site for a few years, but other sites have taken precedence. Now that we are coming into the Fall of COVID, I thought it would be a great time to put it together.

What’s all this composing business about? I thought you were a designer?

Yep, I am a creative director and designer, and have spent most of my career either designing software for Microsoft, or developing marketing strategy for my company. On the side, however, I’ve done a lot of music: Films, advertising, video marketing, theater, and a ton of other stuff. Advertising mostly, though.

I like to describe my musical sound as a cultural mashup. I love jazz, hip-hop, country, and many other forms of American music, but I really love digging into international sounds to create new styles, sounds and textures.

Let’s get to the lightning round. Here’s some quick details in a list. We all love lists.

• I grew up on a diet of jazz from a trumpet playing father. My upbringing afforded a fairly voluminous lexicon of American and international music.
• I played bass for a living in college. I mostly play and compose via piano now – and only because I get asked occassionally – I have a Steinway, Model A from 1899. She’s currently house in my art gallery in Sacramento, and is the one in most of my promotional photographs.
• I live in Sacramento, CA. I lived in Seattle, WA for the majority of my adulthood.
• I co-own an art gallery in Sacramento.
• My music production company is Sound Ranch Studios. It tends to be wherever I do my personal recording. It’s been in Seattle, Bellevue, and Sacramento.
• My record label is called 5ohm. Why 5ohm? No idea. Just sort of stuck. For being a marketing dude, I have a hard time coming up with really cool names.
• My wonderfully smart and gorgeous Australian wife owns a paddle board shop in Folsom, CA. It’s really rad. Send her a note for all paddle-related questions. She’d get a kick knowing I sent you.
• Listing influences is pretty boring. But, actual influences and not just records I like: this record, this record…this record, this music group, this artist, this composer, on, and on, and on, and on.
• I got sued for paternity in New York. How? Why? I don’t know. I’ll never know. After three months, a  $5,000 invoice from two attorneys, and a DNA sample they realized there is no way in hell it could have been me.
• I’ve spent a lot of years in the halls of Microsoft. I worked on some of the software you probably have used or even use now: Early versions of Windows, Office 365, MSN, and a bunch of others. I also had some good gigs at MSNBC and Disney.

Got specific questions or want to know something? Got a project on which you’d like to collaborate? Hit me up!