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Tom Jack Johnston, (better known by his stage name Thomas Jack) is an Australian DJ, record producer and musician. He is noted for the "tropical house" subgenre, and first coined the term in 2013.
Using the PlayStation game eJay he became involved in the production of dance music. He said "I kept learning and started DJing and I always really enjoyed it. You always have that dream of thinking, that'd be so cool if I could do this for a living and you can never expect what's going to happen to you". Johnston eventually moved to Ableton Live after his father gifted him the software. He previously used a number of stage names while growing up such as Dirty-D, Bassics, Tommy and Tom Foolery but they were never used professionally.
Johnston began a podcast mix series called Tropical House, which featured guest mixes by Felix Jaehn, Bakermat, Robin Schulz, and others. He became well known across EDM websites for his original tracks such as "Symphony" and "The Final Speech" as well as his remixes of popular artists such as Of Monsters & Men and OneRepublic and house producers like Adrian Lux.
His busy touring schedule brought him to clubs around the globe, causing Johnston to refer to himself as "homeless" but he has spent a considerable amount of time in the United States, particularly in Florida. After devoting much of 2014 to remixes (including his take on Gabriel Rios' "Gold") and live gigs, he released a new single, "Rivers".
On 30 October 2015, Johnston released his debut single "Rivers" featuring Norwegians singers Nico & Vinz. The single peaked fourth on the Belgian chart, fifty-first on the Dutch chart and sixteenth on the Norwegian chart. On 26 November 2015, an official music video was uploaded to Thomas Jack's YouTube channel.
When asked about his plans on launching a tropical house record label, Johnston said "Maybe, but I'm trying to figure out what music I want to make still. There's a lot of different stuff I want to make. I just want to get there first. I discovered so much amazing music at Burning Man that really inspired me to do some different things. It's hard to change straight away. I got some different ideas for what I want to do. But they're a bit too weird to change so I'm just gonna keep cruising. I've got an album to finish at the moment which is pretty cool".
On 8 July 2016, he released his second single "Rise Up" with English singer Jasmine Thompson. The single peaked fourteenth in Belgium. An official music video was uploaded to Jasmine Thompson's YouTube channel.
Speaking about tropical house, Johnston said "This genre has impacted on commercial radio. This time next year, tropical house will not be the same. I wanna still hold my name as an artist and not become way, way, way commercial. I don't wanna be limited to the name of a genre".
Johnston introduced Kygo to his former manager Myles Shear which has helped to launch the careers of Kygo and Klingande.
When asked about how he sees himself in the genre, Johnston said "I just was always doing my thing – it really wasn't anything planned. But it's cool, I like it. The interesting thing that I want to know is what's going to happen to it in the next year, you know? It needs to be taken to the next level".
| "—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory. |
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