Today we’d like to introduce you to Danny Jones.
Danny, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I was born in 1971 in Santa Monica, California and raised along with my older sister mostly by our mother in nearby Venice. My parents divorced when I was two years old. I would see my father every other weekend.
None of them were really artistic but they enjoyed listening to music, so I was exposed to that from day one. I was creative from a very early age in life, which is not surprising being that the coastal community I lived in was pretty artsy. I loved drawing and coloring books and still do! There were many wall murals around town for me to gaze at. I remember seeing a man every day on my way to school painting one of a blue whale. I believe it’s still there to this day. Saturday mornings were often spent having breakfast with my mother on Venice Beach’s Boardwalk where I was submerged into the artistic, bohemian and musical environment there. Being a latchkey key kid of a single mother, I also spent a lot of time there with friends during summer vacations in the ‘80s. My uncle Greg Looney (my mother’s brother), was very artistic. He was the only one in our immediate family that was. Later growing up I would learn that Woody Guthrie, a well-known American artist and musician from the early 1900s, is my maternal grandmother’s first cousin. He was most noted for writing the nationally recognized ’This Land is Your Land’, which many of us had to sing in grade school. Including myself!
Growing up I would visit my uncle and watch him paint while listening to and looking through his LP records in the milk crate on the floor. This had a huge impact on me! Not only was I witnessing with my own eyes someone expressing themselves through creativity, but I was also hearing for the first time that expression through the speakers, as well as visually through the record covers from artists such as Cream, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, and Yes.
Art was my first love then I discovered music, first as a listener then later as a player. Elvis Presley, Hank Williams and Ray Charles is what I remember my mother listening to mostly. That and K-EARTH 101.1 back when they were strictly motown ‘oldies but goodies’. I didn’t care much for it then but I love it now! Funny how that works. During junior high and high school is when I was teaching myself to play guitar. Which later led to learning bass, drums and piano, however guitar is my main instrument. My mother bought me an acoustic guitar at about nine years old, which I never really played. So she sold it to a friend for their kid to play. At 13 years old, I would get my first used electric guitar, discovered Randy Rhoads and never look back. I won my sixth-grade talent show by lip-syncing Ozzy Osbourne’s ‘Crazy Train’ with a loaned guitar. Good times!
In grade school, I often struggled with the fundamentals, yet always excelled in art. What can I say, I’m a self-proclaimed daydreamer. I transplanted to Thousand Oaks, California to live with my father during high school. There were two teachers in particular that really had a big impact on me at that time, Jerry Sawitz and Walter Metcalf. They allowed me to be me through my own creative expression. During my senior year of high school (1990), my design was chosen by the company AAA as their advertising and marketing poster for their annual automotive Trouble Shooting Contest held at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl. The same year I also won an award for my painting of Jimi Hendrix at Ventura College’s Educational Olympics. I was also awarded student of the year for the Graphic Arts class of ‘90 in the R.O.P. (Regional Occupational Program) through my high school.
After completing high school, I went on to work various jobs to survive. I spent a number of years in the printing industry. I would also eventually do logos and murals for residential and commercial buildings. This included baby nurseries, patios, animal shelters, businesses, restaurants, sports teams, t-shirts, glass window fronts, brick walls, wood and metal marquees. It was around this point I started my first original rock ‘n roll band ‘Only Sons’ with a longtime schoolmate and two other close friends. I wrote all the songs and lyrics for this group. After a couple of years and a few live performances, that eventually fizzled away. However, the desire and motivation for more of that only increased within myself. By 1992 I found myself being introduced to a bass player of a local well-known Simi Valley band, ‘Contradiction’, that at the time was broken up. He and I would go on to reunite with the original singer and a new drummer to reform under the same name. This time with a new sound and look. As well as a new logo and self-titled CD artwork concept compliments of yours truly, me. Released and distributed under our own independent record company, ‘OUR Records’. This was my dream ever since I could remember! To be in a band and create the logo and album covers. I often flash back to times with my uncle and grade school, in my room walls covered in posters of my favorite bands. Setting up boxes and mom’s sewing tins to make a DIY drum set. Or singing and playing along to my favorite song via air guitar or broomstick trying to get that pose or stance just right. To now, here I am actually making it happen and living the dream! Writing, recording and producing songs and designing logos, concert posters, t-shirts and record covers for my own original band. Even doing small west coast tours from Seattle, Washington to San Diego, California. As well as live on-air radio, college and high school campus performances. I went through the 90’s and early 2000 doing the same thing with two other original groups that I helped to form…’Flush’ in 1997 and ‘Gypsy Browne’ in 2013. The first released three EPs and opened for such artists as ‘The Young Dubliners’ and ‘The Dead Kennedys’. The later opened up for classic rock’s legendary The Tubes at The Canyon in Agoura Hills, California in 2021. I also own and operate my home recording studio where I write, record and produce music.
In 2003 I was married for the first time. My only child and beautiful daughter Marina May Jones, an artist in her own right, was born in 2005. The year before that I started working at a competitive grocery store, Trader Joe’s, where I became the head of the in-store art department. The chain is known for doing its own in-house artwork and pricing signs. I did that for 13 years. In 2012, I went through a divorce from my first wife. Then a year later was reunited with an old acquaintance, Samantha Rosier, from 25 years before. Samantha and I were married in 2017. We are also extreme dog lovers! We have two Great Danes and one Labrador Retriever. Shortly after marrying Samantha discovered she was a medium and psychic, which is a whole other story in itself. She is also an animal communicator. I believe she discussed that in her own ‘Shout Out’ article a while back. She’s just incredible honestly! Needless to say we both went through a spiritual awakening at that time. Our lives have never been the same since! I mean that in the best of ways too. I parted ways with my job and started painting full-time.
I now have a website djonesartcollection.com with my entire collection available for print orders. I’ve participated in a couple of art exhibits thus far. One at the at Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza with world-renowned photographer Guy Webster. The most recent being a Ukrainian Relief Fundraiser at Studio Channel Islands in Camarillo, California. I also dabble it photography. I think that’s just part of being an artist. I need to be creative in multiple ways so I tend to see things or be inspired by them. I see a snapshot, a moment, an angle when the light and time is right…and just shoot. Just how I see in my head the general idea first before I paint. Music is a little different for me in that manner. That just sort of comes to me as I’m playing along. Almost like I’m channeling something that’s giving me spontaneous ideas. There are always happy accidents too! I guess you could say I’m a jack of all trades, a master of none. I want to always remain teachable in my life. If I master it I then in turn, stop learning from it. I’ve learned with age to strive for satisfaction rather than perfection.
About three and half years ago Samantha and I started a podcast called ‘Spiritual Philos-O-Chatter with the Joneses’, which we record and produce from my recording studio and release on a weekly basis. We have almost two hundred episodes to date and listeners throughout the globe. With subject matter ranging from life after death, to bad habits, to aliens and on and on. There is not much we won’t chatter about. It is available on all major platforms like iTunes, Buzzsprout, Spotify, Amazon, etc. We also have a Facebook page and an awesome discussion group @spiritualjoneses for it! This in turn led to Samantha’s new one-hour live internet radio broadcast ‘Beyond the Bridge’ with Samantha Jones on VoiceAmerica.com internet radio network. That launched on November 16, 2022. I had the honor and pleasure of being able to write and record the introduction theme music of the same title for her show. This was mixed and produced by my long-time friend Jason Orme. The very talented guitarist for Alanis Morissette and Sarah McLachlan. So a big shout out to him for that and all the other music production he’s helped me with! As well as all of our podcast listeners and supporters! Or anyone that I have had the pleasure of playing with, come to see me play live or has any of the music I’ve played on, and Voyage LA you all ROCK!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
LOL! No, it has definitely NOT been a smooth road by any means. Though I wouldn’t have it any other way. That’s what this thing we call ‘life’ is all about in my opinion. A series of events and experiences to draw and learn from during a journey. Unfortunately, it’s bumpy sometimes, which makes me appreciate the smooth patches even more. The challenges are set before me to not only teach me but to gain from as well. I think many artists would agree that one of those challenges is to never give up even when you feel like doing so. I’m here for a reason and that is to create. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea but I have something to offer and share with someone somewhere.
As a painter, I can pretty much do what I’m inspired to do and only have myself to contend with. There is the challenge of getting your work seen. However, in the age of digital art and social media, that is much easier for artists nowadays. If anything, that created an over-saturation in the market with pretty stiff competition. Art exhibits can be hard to come by depending on where you’re at. I’ve been fortunate enough to participate in some of those. Regardless of what I may or may not sell, it’s just personally gratifying and rewarding knowing people are seeing my work in person.
As a musician, it’s different because it’s more of a group effort often. So there are different energies, personalities, schedules, lives to work with. People sometimes come and go. That in itself can be challenging. Yet only as much as I allow it to be. In my experiences so far, I’ve found there is always a way if you really want it. You just have to look for it. Discouragement nor success or the lack of, for that matter, can not be the source by which I measure my own satisfaction. Always doing it purely because I love to do it! Anything else is just icing on the cake so to speak.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I have a website, djonesartcollection.com where my entire collection is available for print orders. I am also adding to the collection regularly. This multimedia collection is of iconic personalities throughout the history of popular music. They are monolithic images against colorful backgrounds, which may speak to the times, that message or the subject matter itself. Some of my biggest influences in the art and photography world are Andy Worhal, Salvidor Dalí and Ansel Adams. The bold stark contrast between colors of Warhol’s, bizarre realism of Dalí’s and wonderful use of shadows in Adam’s works just captivates me. With my collection, I set out using those inspirations to create something unique to me.
I use multiple mediums for my work, such as airbrush, acrylic paint, watercolor, brush, pencil, pen, chalk, etc. Some pieces take only days as where others may take weeks or months. It all depends on the amount of detail called for in that particular piece. The piece I did of Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead) ‘Silver Lining’ in 2021 boasts quite a bit of detail and took me the longest so far to create. Most of my original works are done on 20”x 30” illustration board. Some on 16”x 24” framed board. Prints of all of them are available on my website from as small as 5”x 7” to as large as
30”x 40”.
You can also find me on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok
@djonesartcollection. There you can see some photography and short still-shot movies with music showing the process of some of my pieces. You can also contact me via email at [email protected]. Outside of my collection, I am also available for commissioned pieces. I still do logos, memorial pieces, and original tattoo artwork as well.
Contact Info:
- Website: djonesartcollection.com
- Instagram: @djonesartcollection
- Facebook: @djonesartcollection
- Other: TikTok URL @djonesartcollection
Image Credits
Live color image with guitar photo credit: Marcos Manrique Black and white image of an abandoned building photo credit: Danny Jones All other images photo credits: Danny Jones
