“Music is a little like physics. Physics tries to find patterns in life…and describe them…that is what I strive to do with music.” -Jon Swift

The Music

Listening to Jon Swift's music is like sitting with a close friend who has just come home from a long journey. Melding carefully crafted words with delicately orchestrated compositions, Jon writes lyrically-driven spirituals disguised as modern day folk songs. It is music that comes from a space of solitude and reflection and is best appreciated with a pair of headphones or as company on a lonely road trip.

Bio and Work

Born in New York, Jon grew up in a surf town in North County San Diego. He began making music as a boy, sneaking into his neighbors’ house while they were away to play their piano. Over the years, Jon taught himself several other instruments including guitar, harmonica, and ukulele. His clandestine love for music eventually led him to make four-track recordings to share with his closest friends. Jon's homemade tapes were passed on by those friends, then by friends of friends in a typical nineties fashion. Traveling mostly through the surf community, Jon’s recordings circulated as far as South Africa and Australia. “I must have made about a thousand of the first tape,” he estimates.

In 1994 Jon left home to attend the University of California, Los Angeles, graduating summa cum laude with a degree in Physics two years later. Eschewing a high-paying job offer from a defense contractor, Jon retreated from society and posted up in a shack in remote Baja California for the next four months. He spent his days surfing, playing guitar and walking the desert, speaking only broken Spanish with the local people. Gazing at the nighttime desert sky inspired Jon to apply his scientific intellect to understanding the cosmos. He packed his bags and returned to California to apply for graduate school.

Jon was accepted to the Astrophysics program at the University of California, Berkeley, a decision that would dominate the next eight years of his life. Despite the rigorous demands of his academic studies Jon never stopped making music, adding the study of West African percussion to his musical repertoire and converting his closet into a recording studio of sorts. Jon’s music might have remained forever a clandestine art, but in 2001 Jon’s friends compiled their favorite songs from over eight years of four-track recordings, put them in digital format, and 15 Songs by Jon Swift was born.

Around the same time as the release of 15 Songs, Jon was invited to be a part of the Shelter project, Chris Malloy's movie about a group of people surfing and playing music while sharing space in an old farmhouse in Australia. Jon appears briefly in the film and also contributed two songs to the soundtrack, Heartland Feeling, a cover of an obscure Beck tune, and Run River, which has since become somewhat of a cult classic.

Ever traversing parallel worlds, 2003 saw Jon take an unconventional hiatus from the world of academia in order to write and produce his second album, Coming & Going. After its completion, Jon played a handful of shows showcasing his new material and then disappeared from the music scene. He had returned to Berkeley to complete his Ph.D. in Astrophysics.

In 2006 a prize postdoctoral fellowship brought Jon to the Institute for Astronomy in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he researched the formation of stars and planets for three years. Always true to his artistic compulsions, Jon converted the attic of his Manoa Valley cottage into a music room/recording studio and finished his third full length album, a project that was four years in the making. Aptly entitled Pathway, the album reveals a matured artist advancing the diverse themes and imagery of his songwriting.

As Jon derives much of his inspiration from nature, it is not surprising that his music has been featured in snowboard and ski videos, yoga DVD's, fly fishing movies, and surf films, such as Shelter, Sliding Liberia and The Drifter. Jon's song Run River also fueled Corona Australia's highly successful From Where You'd Rather Be television ad campaign which was expanded to South America this year.

Recent and Upcoming

In 2009 Jon expanded upon his contribution to The Drifter soundtrack by accompanying director Taylor Steele and surfer Rob Machado to Japan, the U.S. mainland, and Hawaii for The Drifter premiere tour. On the West Coast and Hawaii leg of the tour, Jon and Rob were joined by old friends Fernie Apodaca and Todd Hannigan as they treated the audience to live scoring of the bonus surf footage.

Jon spent the winter of 2010 living in a barn/recording studio while working on the score for Rob Machado's new surf film, Melali. Upon completion of the Melali soundtrack, Jon embarked upon a solo acoustic tour of the Southwest, stopping to camp and hike in national parks along the way. He is currently touring with the Melali Sessions Band.