Jon is a skater and musician based in London

I’ve played with Notorious Hi-fi Killers, Joeyfat, Unhome and produced music with Duke Garwood, Alexander Tucker and Part Chimp. My music’s been used by the BBC and I’ve composed music for fringe theatre productions.

 

It’s a real stoker to join The No Comply Network.

 

I think that as skateboarders we train ourselves at a young age to perceive our surroundings and the possibilities within it in a different light to a lot of our pedestrian cousins. They may only see A to B but we see lines

 

I was skating as a schoolboy in the late 1980s and was inspired by skaters like Ray Barbee and Tommy Guerrero to learn to play the guitar.

 

The transition was pretty smooth because I found I could transfer the discipline and mindset skateboarding gave me to music. Practice, sensitivity and awareness are required in both art forms.

 

I approached learning to play Jimmy Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze’ with the same determination I had when I was learning how to Ollie.

 

I’ve been using skateboarding as a source of musical ideas in the last few years, after almost a decade away from skateboarding.

 

I listen for the rhythms from wheels rolling on different surfaces and coping bonks, Powerslide screeches, Firecrackers and the spaces between the tail pops and the roll aways to turn into guitar lines.

 

I look to the sensations of cruising or carving and try to emulate them in sonics. I see sound in terms of blocks, banks, transition and air. I’m grateful for that. There’s strength in that and there’s strength in numbers too.