JAWNY has built his career by intuition, letting his music evolve naturally as he grows personally. Instead of chasing the high of past successes—including his 2019 Gold-certified hit, “Honeypie”—he’s following his gut and tapping into a childlike wonder that’s wide-eyed and widescreen in vision. Born Jacob Sullenger in the Bay Area, and raised in Philadelphia, JAWNY first picked up a guitar at age 6 after watching his dad jam to the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin. At 13, he began making beats with his brother, eventually landing placements with rappers on SoundCloud. In his early 20s, he began writing his own songs and started to gain buzz with his 2018 debut EP under the name Johnny Utah, landing placements on critically acclaimed shows like the HBO series, High Maintenance. JAWNY followed that up with a handful of buzzworthy singles, including Honeypie, that landed on a number of tastemaker playlists and garnered millions of streams. In 2020, JAWNY signed to Interscope Records and soon released a pair of vibrant, critically acclaimed projects, For Abby and The Story of Hugo, which further showcased his sharp storytelling and sonic experimentation and put him front and center covering notable playlist covers around the world. Upon releasing The Story of Hugo, JAWNY headlined a US tour, selling out shows across the country, and was selected as one of Vevo DSCVR’s Artists To Watch 2022. More recently JAWNY crossed off a bucket list item in working with one of his dream collaborators and musical legend Beck on a dynamic new version of the song “take it back.” With nearly a billion streams to date and all those career highs under his belt, JAWNY remained steadfastly in the moment. And he does so now too, as he continues work on his debut album. “I just chased whatever felt right in the studio that day,” he says. “I can’t overthink it.”
