“The biggest lesson I learned is that you can’t do everything alone! You need a good team around you.“
Born in Budapest, Hungary, as the eldest son of a Jamaican pastor, Johnny was raised with music all around him. His earliest memories of performing were those of his family of eight caroling in their Austrian neighborhood on cold Christmas nights. As caroling is mostly unknown in Europe, they were often greeted by bewildered stares upon ringing the doorbells and had to convince the confused neighbors that they were not singing for money. “Whenever we sang I would see people’s faces light up and I realized that it only took so much to make someone happy.”
Growing up mainly in Vienna, Austria, as well as regularly traveling all over Europe while accompanying his father on his many journeys, gave him a multi-cultural worldview. This approach had a meaningful influence on Johnny’s style of performance. His openness and ability to create an almost immediate connection to his audience is fascinating to experience. It is impossible to be a passive bystander once Johnny makes his entrance.
The first step toward his musical career began through his love for dancing. At the age of thirteen he formed his first HipHop dance group, and soon started composing his first rap lines which eventually led to more. After receiving an offer for a record deal with Universal Music Austria as part of a boy-band project, he consequently went on to sign with Universal releasing 2 singles, an album, and touring Austria as one of the 4 members of the group “JetztAnders”.
Johnny played countless shows and events in Germany, Holland, Rumania, France, Belgium, England, Switzerland, USA, Jamaica as well as his native countries Austria and Hungary. He gained experience and “know-how” by sharing stages with big names like Delirious, T-Bone, Jermaine Jackson, Kevin Max and Kirk Franklin and worked with TV networks (RTL, ORF, Puls4…etc) as well as major companies (McDonalds, Nike, YWAM Kayiko,…etc.). Johnny Palmer starred in the German-Austrian Motion Picture “Kottan Ermittelt” (2010). And the video for his single “Break Away” made it into the top 10 charts all around Europe. This lead to his nomination for the 2012 VIVA COMET AWARD in the Category BEST NEW ARTIST. Also a very active songwriter, he has worked for internationally known TV formats like XFactor, The Voice, Megastar and the Eurovision Song Contest.
“Lightyears” official video :
Date of birth
I was born on May 30th 1984 in Budapest.
Was a beautiful initiative as a family to go door by door and sing for the Austrian Families during Christmas, why this choice?
Christmas Caroling is an American tradition that we were already accustomed to from television and other American Culture media references. My father didn’t have to explain anything to us. My mom’s family lives in America and in Jamaica they have a lot of American traditions too so I guess that’s how it became part of our family traditions as well!
What would you suggest to who is out there and would like to follow your same career?
Be diligent and never give up! Talent alone will only get you so far but talent paired with commitment and hard work will go a long way!
What do you feel when you are on stage?
When you are on stage it is about transmitting an emotion and getting a response! So if the audience responds well you feel energized and are able to give back an even higher emotion. But there are always cases when the audience does not respond well (or at least not in the way you expect them too) in this case being on stage can be very frustrating! Generally I think people come to a music event to shift the focus from everyday trouble and the worries of life… so when on stage our mission is to help the crowd to do that! We take them away into a different world with us where they can forget their everyday life for an hour or two. Also often music brings up memories from the past, memories that tie you to big emotions.
Each one of us face several obstacles on the way to reach our dreams: which obstacles gave you troubles or difficulties and how did you manage them?
The main obstacles are lack of knowledge and experience, then you have lack of contacts and off course money! The biggest lesson I learnt is that you can’t do everything alone!
You need a good team around you.
Only then can you make progress! Over the years I studied myself and made a honest assessment of what it is I am good at and where it is that I need help. And then I went out and looked for people that do those things better than I do. A big point also is you have to be a good communicator, you have to know what you want and be able to convince people to join you in the mission of achieving that goal. Find out what it is that makes you valuable and find people that are willing to trade that value for something they have that is valuable to you!