Townewest’s Jonum Wants To Change Your Perception of Boy Bands
Jonum’s group Townewest is pushing their music into new dimensions. “We just want to promote a collaborative art movement,” Jonum said in this interview. “We’re all here to do this together.”
Korean-American musician Jonum always knew he wanted to start a movement.
“I’m really addicted to musicians creating movements beyond music,” the 24-year-old told me this week from Los Angeles. “That’s what I love about music.”
To prove that, Jonum is betting that his group Townewest can challenge your perception of boy bands. These guys don’t dance and they aren’t releasing rock music like many boy bands do. But they are creating music that plays with your ears. The group has released two EPs this year that demonstrate how experimental they can be: “Save Sara”, a pop album that tilts sideways hard with experimental sounds, and “Garden Audience'', a beat-focused mood sampler.
Jonum’s been making music in Los Angeles for only three years, but he is already making a name for himself in the independent music scene. He’s a producer, singer and artist who is working with some of the most exciting artists in the Korean music scene and beyond. Townewest, which is his primary focus as a musician, is his most exciting project.
“Being a musician allows me to have so much creativity,” he said. “I’ve always had an open mind and never boxed myself in as a producer or engineer.”
The collaborators with Townewest are rotational and almost endless. That’s the point, Jonum told me. The group is the brainchild of Jonum and his friend Bouquet. Jonum is responsible for all things in music, while Bouquet is an artist with an eye for the visuals. At its very nature, Townewest is experimental. Take the group’s debut EP “Save Sara” as an illustration for the ridiculously smooth music Townewest makes. The work veers between hip-hop, anti-pop, alternative and even some jazz. Highlights like “Softspoken” and “is it real?” glide across the genres with ease. Listen to how the songs connect throughout the EP and you’ll hear a road map created by an artist who constantly challenges himself.
But the group’s beat tape “Garden Audience" is the album that truly shows how weird the guys can get.
“It’s a commercial break from our regularly scheduled music,” Jonum described. “There’s no vocals, so we wanted to give you a glimpse of what is beyond our typical music.”
“Garden Audience” is really just the beginning of how far Townewest wants to go, though. Their real goal is to work at the intersection of art and music. The group has visions for shows in museums or galleries; installations that feature live music and that encourage audience interaction. They’re natural curators, both of beats and of actual art.
“We just want to promote a collaborative art movement,” Jonum explained. “We’re all here to do this together. We’re not going to have strong egos. We’re going to absorb everything around us and make something that people can feel.”
Jonum in the studio. “I want to produce and make music until I die,” he says.
Jonum’s father always encouraged his son to travel.
When he was a kid, Jonum’s father would bring him and his family on trips to see the world. Jonum’s hometown Houston, Texas is diverse, but the boy’s father wanted him to see that there was so much more beyond the city limits. Jonum learned that even if his neighborhood was full of people who didn’t look like him, there would be even more to see if he got on a plane and went somewhere new.
"I think that traveling has helped me to broaden my creative horizons and become more open-minded," he remarked. "It's like a cheat code for parents to give their kids the experience of traveling because it exposes them to so much more than their hometown ever could."
Most of Jonum’s extended family still lives in Korea, so familial relationships came from the friendships he developed at home. Finding a creative base, though, was challenging. Jonum didn’t know many artists making the music he wanted to collaborate on. For a while Jonum was a student in music production at UT Austin. The work was interesting, but he wasn’t gaining much insight from his classes. “I was learning more from YouTube than from class,” he said with a laugh. Eventually, he started to look West.
When he was 21, Jonum went to Los Angeles with some friends for a networking trip. Through the help of some old friends, he was able to meet the producer Big Banana.
“He’s like this Korean dad who just makes crazy hard beats and records artists,” Jonum described. Big Banana has made a name for himself in the Korean music community, producing music for former idols like Amber Liu and for legendary K-town rappers dumbfounded and Junoflo.
When they met, Jonum decided to shoot his shot.
“You got any internship spots opening up?” He remembered asking the producer.
Big Banana told him he’d find work for him. “Just come through,” he said.
“That’s how I made the jump,” he told me. Jonum dropped out of college after he came back to Texas. He knew what he was doing was risky. He knew barely anyone in Los Angeles and didn’t have much lined up beyond the internship, but he had to go. So, he packed up his car and made the 20 hour drive.
The move was difficult. Jonum doesn’t like revisiting those memories or talking about the time because of how challenging it was for him. “But I do give myself credit for moving out here,” he added. “Looking back at it, I wasn’t thinking too much, which was kinda reckless but that’s also what kept me focused.”
Once he arrived in LA, Big Banana connected him with several producers who helped the musician out. “I am not from the industry, so it was a little difficult,” he said. “But I was able to find people who are very genuine and who were struggling just like me.”
However as Jonum was just starting to get settled into his new apartment, the COVID-19 pandemic had hit and time had slowed down just as he started to get into the face-paced LA lifestyle.
His roommate at the time, Kaze, was also working to become a musician and Jonum often recorded his music over countless nights. “When I got here, I was able to sharpen a lot of the skills I needed to do this music thing right. I made and sold beats and recorded my roommate the entire pandemic time” he said. “So we just got our chops up and got ready.”
Jonum quickly locked himself into a system that he continues to work on. By day, he works a barista job that’s a five minute walk from his apartment, and at night he’s recording artists and making music. It’s a balancing act that has required an insane amount of passion. “I’m basically working two jobs,” he said, “and I know I’m really good at one of them.”
“I see myself as an artist and curator,” Jonum says. Photo: Daniel Park
One night in late 2022, Jonum attended an NFT art event that could only happen in a city like Los Angeles.
Jonum’s friend threw the party, and he knew several people there. The event was frequented by several Asian artists from Toronto, and one of them was Justin Trash.
Jonum was intimidated when he first met Justin. “I wasn’t feeling his vibe too much at first,” he said. “Because high-key that man is scary.” Justin, who cuts an intimidatingly fierce look with a face tattoo, is often told these things. (“I was a menace as a teen, but now I just look like a menace,” Justin told me when we first met. Then he smiled. “But I’m not.”)
But after the event, Justin and Jonum, who have mutual friends, ended up at the same bar. “We looked at each other,” Jonum said, “and something clicked.” They became friends quickly with Jonum eager to show that he’s one of the best producers for Justin, a Toronto native who’s group Club Boybnd is blowing up on streaming. “ I think he’s starting to realize I got the sauce,” he said with a smile. “So we’ve been locking in a lot recently.”
Justin and several other artists have been working with Townewest on a short film that will accompany “Garden Audience”. The idea, Jonum explained, is that the group will release visuals like a short film to accompany every instrumental album they produce. The short film will pivot Townewest into the artistic realm that Jonum and Bouquet have dreamed of: where music and visual art can co-exist.
But Townewest is just one of many projects that Jonum is cooking. He’s now producing music for some of the most promising artists on the West Coast: Backyard Ghost, Billyracxx, and Jason Chu all have projects on the burner with Jonum, and he’s continuing to work at a frantic pace on his own music.
“I see myself as my own artist and curator,” he told me, mentioning that he wants to stand alone as a musician. But collaboration is an essential part of Jonum’s artistry. “I want to produce and make music for other people till I die.”
Townewest
Being a working artist in Los Angeles, where you’re one of millions, can be taxing on your mental health. Jonum is well-aware of this. “You’re broke and hungry,” he reflected. “I had to put myself in the trenches here so that I could understand how bad I wanted it.” Sometimes, he said, he even feels like he left Texas and woke up a different Jonum.
I wondered how much of his reliance on the community in Texas played into his success in California. It was bold, I told him, to move to Los Angeles, sacrificing comfort and an easy life, to be in a situation where nothing is certain. But Jonum’s community has pulled him through again. The friends he’s made in LA are a new kind of family: An artistic, innovative group of guys who push each other to break boundaries; to be transgressive; to never accept an ordinary life.
“We’re so grateful that we have people listening. We want to provide a different perspective, and it might be pretty experimental right now. But we’re gonna figure it out,” he said before making a prediction. “We’re gonna make hits with that approach to our art.”
