Jonny Gent: music, martinis and mayhem from the founder of Sessions Arts Club

Summary

Podcast Summary: Homing In – Episode Featuring Jonny Gent

Title: Jonny Gent: Music, Martinis, and Mayhem from the Founder of Sessions Arts Club
Release Date: June 28, 2024
Host: Matt Gibberd, Co-founder of The Modern House
Guest: Jonny Gent, Artist and Restaurateur

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Introduction

In this captivating episode of Homing In, Matt Gibberd engages in an unfiltered and profound conversation with Jonny Gent, the dynamic founder of Sessions Arts Club, an inspirational restaurant located in Clerkenwell. Recorded amidst a bustling lunch service at Sessions Arts Club, the dialogue reflects Jonny’s vibrant personality—unstructured, poetic, and generously revealing. Jonny, a brilliant painter with a diverse body of work ranging from the sexually charged to tender still lifes honoring his late mother, shares insights into his unconventional upbringing, artistic journey, and the creation of his unique hospitality spaces.

Childhood and Upbringing

Jonny Gent opens up about his formative years, detailing an upbringing immersed in the atmosphere of a pub. Growing up above the Northgate Arms in Cheshire, a pub managed by his parents, Jonny was exposed to a constant influx of around 500 strangers daily. This environment fostered a deep sense of isolation in terms of his perception of beauty, as he felt disconnected from the people around him who did not share his aesthetic sensibilities.

Jonny Gent [00:13]: "The simple answer is that I felt totally alone in terms of what I found beautiful. I didn't feel that the people I had around me thought the same as I did or saw the things that I saw. I've always felt on the outside looking in. Always."

Despite this isolation, Jonny’s father’s successful management of the pub instilled in him a strong sense of confidence. The expansive environment allowed Jonny to cultivate secret spots and imaginative retreats from a young age, laying the groundwork for his future as an artist and restaurateur.

Artistic Journey

Jonny’s passion for art was evident early on. He pursued his artistic education at Edinburgh Art School, where he quickly began selling his work, despite initially lacking knowledge about the art world. A serendipitous encounter with casting director Des Hamilton, whom Jonny convinced to invest in his paintings, set the stage for his international success. This partnership enabled him to establish art studios across more than 20 countries, each uniquely tailored to his creative process.

Jonny Gent [09:17]: "I was a car salesman at heart. That's really all I am."

Jonny describes himself as a salesman of beauty, adept at engaging with collectors and creating immersive experiences that blend art, food, and music. His work often explores human complexity, a reflection of his upbringing surrounded by the raw and varied emotions of pub patrons.

Sessions Arts Club and Both House

Sessions Arts Club is more than just a restaurant; it is a manifestation of Jonny’s vision to intertwine art, food, and music into a seamless experience. The establishment gained immediate popularity, known for its elusive entrance and atmospheric ambiance, where guests navigate through dark corridors to reach a vibrant, lively space filled with impeccable music and curated art.

Jonny Gent [20:48]: "Journey, yeah. I think building that."

Both House, located in the Scottish Highlands, serves as a creative retreat for artists. Inspired by concepts like Black Mountain College, Both House emphasizes healing and self-sufficiency, stripping away modern distractions to foster genuine creativity. The space encourages residents to engage deeply with their art, leaving behind tangible creations that contribute to an ongoing archive of experiences.

Personal Life and Relationships

Jonny shares heartfelt anecdotes about his long-term relationship with his wife, Natalie, whom he met during his school days. Their enduring bond provides him with stability amidst his dynamic and often tumultuous career. Natalie’s unwavering support allows Jonny to pursue his artistic and entrepreneurial endeavors with confidence.

Jonny Gent [42:07]: "She is the anchor to it all. And the stability through, like, those moments talking, you know, where you..."

Their relationship, built on mutual respect and understanding, exemplifies Jonny’s belief in kindness and genuine connections as fundamental aspects of a fulfilling life.

Reflections and Future Plans

Reflecting on his life's journey, Jonny emphasizes the importance of kindness and intrigue over grand achievements. He expresses a desire to be remembered not for monumental works but for the small, meaningful interactions and creations that reflect his true self.

Jonny Gent [55:53]: "I would hope that they would see me as someone that is full of intrigue and kind. And that's really. If I get that, then I'm. Then I'm. I've. I've done more than enough."

Looking ahead, Jonny envisions expanding Both House’s residency program, allowing more creatives to immerse themselves in an environment conducive to authentic artistic expression. His future plans also include continuing to evolve Sessions Arts Club, maintaining its status as a sanctuary for those seeking a blend of art, music, and culinary excellence.

Notable Quotes

• Jonny Gent [00:13]: "I've always felt on the outside looking in."
• Jonny Gent [09:17]: "I was a car salesman at heart. That's really all I am."
• Jonny Gent [20:48]: "Journey, yeah. I think building that."
• Jonny Gent [42:07]: "She is the anchor to it all."
• Jonny Gent [55:53]: "I would hope that they would see me as someone that is full of intrigue and kind."

Conclusion

This episode of Homing In offers an intimate glimpse into the life of Jonny Gent, a man whose upbringing in a bustling pub, combined with his relentless pursuit of beauty and romance, has shaped a career that seamlessly blends art and hospitality. Jonny’s reflections on home, creativity, and personal relationships provide listeners with a nuanced understanding of what it truly means to create spaces that are not just aesthetically pleasing but also deeply meaningful. Whether through his paintings, the vibrant atmosphere of Sessions Arts Club, or the serene retreats of Both House, Jonny Gent continues to redefine the intersection of art and living, embodying the essence of what home reveals about our identities.

Transcript

[Matt Gibbard]

So in your childhood, did you feel shackled somehow?

[Johnny Gent]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Matt Gibbard]

Why did you feel that as a.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Child, do you think?

[Johnny Gent]

Well, I. The simple answer is that I felt totally alone in terms of what I found beautiful. I didn't feel that the people I had around me thought the same as I did or saw the things that I saw. I've always felt on the outside looking in. Always. That's.

[Matt Gibbard]

That's a really profound thing to say. Were you just born like that, do you think?

[Johnny Gent]

No, I don't think I was. I just think I was. I was somehow molded to think to really only focus on beauty because what.

[Matt Gibbard]

You described actually, so, I mean, I haven't seen any pictures of it, but the pubs that you grew up in in Cheshire, presumably they're not like aesthetically the most beautiful things in the world. So where does that sensibility of yours come from? I mean, that's remarkable.

[Johnny Gent]

I think it probably starts from the desire to disappear into something. And that can be me listening to someone at the bar, a six year old guy at the bar, talk about his marriage falling apart and hearing that tremble in his voice at that, and understanding the scale of that.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Homing in podcast. I'm Matt Gibbard, co founder of design led estate agency the Modern House. Today I'm chatting to the swashbuckling artist and restaurateur, Johnny Gent. We recorded this episode during a busy lunch service at Sessions Arts Club, which is Johnny's inspirational restaurant in Clerkenwell. It's fair to say that he'd emboldened himself with a few martinis beforehand. And what ensued was a conversation that very much represents the man himself. Unstructured, poetic and very generous, Johnny's a brilliant painter and his artworks range from the sexualized and salacious to the tenderly painted still lifes that are a tribute to his late mother. After getting himself through art school, he met a casting director who wrote him a cheque for every painting he'd ever made.

[Matt Gibbard]

What followed was a journey that took.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Him to more than 20 countries around the world, establishing art studios in everything from a cabin in Scotland to a tobacco factory in France. Now approaching his late 40s, he's finally starting to put down some roots. As well as having a permanent home in London, he spends a lot of time in the Scottish Highlands, where he's opened a retreat for creatives called Both House. Much like Sessions Arts Club, it explores the confluence of art, food and music. Johnny says of his childhood, I felt totally alone in what I found Beautiful. He begins by telling me about the Slow and Easy, which is the pub he grew up in, and the lasting impact of 500 strangers coming into his home every day. There's a bit of bad language in this episode, so maybe not one to listen to when the kids are around, but here it is, and I very much hope you enjoy it.

[Johnny Gent]

So I was born in a pub in Cheshire in the Northgate Arms is the first pub. My mother and father had pubs our whole lives. And the first time I lived in a house was when I was 19, when I went to Edinburgh Art School. So we always lived above a pub and restaurant.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay.

[Johnny Gent]

And my grandfather was head brewer at Greenall Whitley's, which was the huge big brewing company. My grandma had three fish and chip shops. And the only time my mum ventured out of this world was she was a hairdresser. She got three hairdressing salons, but we lived above them the whole time. And the Slow and Easy was massive. So you're talking about 500 people a day coming through those doors. So 500 strangers. And my father was pretty loose about me hanging about the pub. So I'd sit at the bar in the age of 3, 4, and putting stones in people's pint glasses and listening to drunks. And people sat there with their heads cut open because they've been fighting affairs. And so lots of sex and gore and. And the northwest of England in kind of early 80s, which is. And then a brother that was incredible. A brother that was five years older and an amazing drawer, and he could draw you now perfectly. And was in bands, death metal bands, black metal. A huge influence on me through music and. And I was in bands with him as I grew. So having all that stuff going on, I think that was the first place that I really discovered romance and my addiction to romance. And then the side of that. You've got my mum, who was beautiful and blonde and was a chef.

[Matt Gibbard]

So she was a chef in the pub?

[Johnny Gent]

She was, yeah. She went to catering school in St Helens. But she would always call herself a cook, obviously, never a chef, of course. And. But she was also incredibly glamorous, so was cooking a lot and also would work the bar. And I would see lots of men fancying her because she was beautiful. And the earrings and the nails and the heels and stuff. So you have all that going on. Then you have. Behind that you have a team of maybe 40 waitresses, chefs, bar people, and they're all each other, and you're part of that. And there's a lot of Stuff going on, which is some of it incredibly lovely and beautiful and naive and some of it that is really dark and northern and so let's focus on that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

Great.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Right.

[Matt Gibbard]

Homing in on the dark, northern stuff. I mean, for a child, what's it like to grow up with no boundaries in that way? How do you look back on that? Because that's unusual, to have that level of exposure to that kind of world at a young age.

[Johnny Gent]

Yeah. The no boundaries. I mean, I went to a strict Catholic school, brought up very Catholic, and my dad was very strict. Classic northern flat cap wearing.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay.

[Johnny Gent]

So it wasn't like we didn't have boundaries. It was more just. It was the canvas and it enabled me to really have. No. I don't know. I'm jumping a lot forward. But I think that when I sit in front of a canvas and start to work on a painting, all that stuff, I. I never really suffered from writer's block or any of that kind of stuff that. Because there's. It's all there. It's all there. You just. You just jump back into it. But I had boundaries.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay. And did you think it was unusual, like your upbringing at the time? Did you think, you know, well, I'm living above a pub, whereas all my other friends live in a house, for example?

[Johnny Gent]

I felt I probably got a bit of arrogance as a very confident. Because I'm talking to adults a lot, but also because we had the biggest house in the village or the town, because it was the pub. So I would swan around a little bit. And also I. I felt a bit trying to word it nicely, because I wasn't. I certainly wasn't a hideous little child, but it was. I guess it was just a confidence.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah, yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

Because I knew that they all wanted to hang out there. The locals wanted to hang, the villagers wanted to hang out there.

[Matt Gibbard]

So it was a very successful place. By Sons of.

[Johnny Gent]

He always ran successful places.

[Matt Gibbard]

They were right. Why were they successful?

[Johnny Gent]

Because he was militant, you know, good with numbers. You know, he would have a football team that would come every Sunday. And the chips, you could barely eat them because they were so salty, but the guys were loving them. And of course, salty chips equals lots more drinking.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

Little tiny things like that he was very good at. And he also had pretty high standards. So.

[Matt Gibbard]

Wow.

[Unnamed Speaker]

That's a very unconventional upbringing.

[Matt Gibbard]

But how do you feel about it now, looking back on it? Do you feel resentful of it, or do you think it was the making of you?

[Johnny Gent]

In a way, I'm intrigued by how you can't shake it and the idea of how you can spend half your life trying to shake who you are and what you. You were at that point. I think it was always inevitable that I would come back to doing something that involved hospitality and.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah, because that's all you knew.

[Johnny Gent]

Because that's all I knew. But also that was my first obsession, was that I understood the trade of looking after someone, and I saw the power in doing that and the beauty of that. And my paintings were about human complication. They were about people. So everything's been intertwined, you know, from how it's started. And from the age of 12, I was, you know, bottling up. Then I was going by in the bar then I was a. A kitchen porter. I was working the kitchen, my mom and so I was always in it and doing it. But I just got lucky and I went to Edinburgh Art School. And then I was out two weeks and I'd got a studio in Glasgow.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

And I was outside having a cigarette and this guy walked past and said, oh, I'm casting for this movie, if you want to come and cast it. And I was like, I'm not an actor, I'm a painter. And he said, okay, show me. So I took him downstairs and he said, how much do you want for everything? And I thought, okay, I've got a lunatic. Yeah. So I called my girlfriend now wife at the time, and said, what do you think I should do? And she said, how many have you got? 10. So ask for 10 grand. So I asked for 10 grand and he wrote the check. And I thought, well, this is not going to cash. But I took it the next day and it cashed. And it turns out he was a casting director, still Europe's greatest casting director. He works with David Lynch, Gaspar Noah, Mike Lee. I mean, he's amazing guy, known for picking kids off the street that had no acting experience. His name's Des Hamilton. So he came in and. And then he started bringing really interesting folk into the studio. Hilda Swinton. Ewan McGregor. Michael Caine.

[Matt Gibbard]

How old are you at this point?

[Johnny Gent]

When did you graduate? At 21, maybe, is it? And started selling a lot and people coming in and they were buying. And I quickly, I. I knew nothing about the art world or even at Edinburgh Art School. I was nearly kicked out a couple of times.

[Matt Gibbard]

And why, out of interest, why did you decide to do that? I mean, what was it about painting or drawing that made you want to go through that process?

[Johnny Gent]

Poetry. I. I always had a, you know, the glimpses of stuff. That's what intrigued me. And my obsession is romance and poetry and just the beauty of stuff. I was smitten by that. And I felt. I guess that's where I felt kind of different as a child to my surroundings.

[Matt Gibbard]

Well, you said. You said earlier that you discovered romance when you were growing up in the pub. What does that mean?

[Johnny Gent]

Everything is there. And I couldn't help but absorb all of that. You know, affairs and whispers and secrets and, you know, that sex in the room when you walk in where you can. It was just. It was full of it all, and it was so addictive, and I loved it. And that was my happy time. I don't know. I mean, I think probably there's other stuff going on there that would be. You know, we might need maybe, I don't know, six. Six months and about a couple of sessions a week on.

[Matt Gibbard]

But.

[Johnny Gent]

But I think what I like to do is package it as romance.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay, I'm with you.

[Johnny Gent]

So back to Edinburgh and then graduating in Glasgow and having the paintings there and having people come in, and me quickly realizing, I mean, I've said it before, I'm really. I'm a car salesman at heart. That's really all I am. And so I said to Des, look, you know, lots of interesting people that have money and shall we do a deal? And we went. We drove that day, and he got a lawyer and we signed a contract where for the next two years he owned everything I did. And we went 50, 50 on it and. And we were selling lots. And then a couple of magazines picked up on this days and confused an ID magazine. And then I did a couple of pieces there. And then I did a story in the Herald, the local Glasgow. Glasgow paper. And they talked about an artist that wasn't represented but was selling.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

And then Sadie Coles came up from Glasgow a couple of times, and I met with her and. And I was. You know, I had no idea how it worked. I remember the first time I met Sadie, I was. When we doing a show and she was, well, it doesn't really work like that. You know, It's. You've got 10 paintings. You know, I remember saying, you should paint that one 50 times. And me not getting my head around it and not understanding the influence of a gallerist. I came down to London to meet with Sadie and I stumbled and I was lost. This was before Google Maps and things. And I walked into Entwistle Gallery on Cork street, and there was a gallerist there called Darren Fluke. Who was looking after that. And. And I asked him where I was. Do you know. You know where Sadie Coles is? And he said, yeah, yeah, why are you going? We struggled the conversation and then he said, oh, let's see your work. And I gave him a CD with my work on. Oh. And he flicked through it and he was, oh, this is lovely. And. And we got talking a bit more and then he offered me a show at his. He'd just done a show with Richard Kern, the photographer, and he had this amazing. Which is still one, I think, one of the coolest galleries, and I think he's one of the coolest galleries. He's actually on the art committee here at Sessions now. And I did a show with him and Christabel Stewart, who is now at Tank magazine, and they had a lovely gallery there. But at that show, a band called the Darkness came to that show and they asked me if I wanted to be a war artist for them on tour. They were just breaking at this point. And when they were breaking, they. They really broke.

[Matt Gibbard]

They did.

[Johnny Gent]

I mean, they were number one in the us, the college charge. They sold out the Henry Fonda seven nights in a row. They were mega.

[Matt Gibbard]

So the war artists being essentially someone that travels around with them, documents what they're doing in the form of drawings.

[Johnny Gent]

As you can imagine, it was a huge success. Lost every drawing that we made on that tour, but not one piece.

[Matt Gibbard]

There was a war. Just nothing came out of it.

[Johnny Gent]

Oh, there was a. A battle every night.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

So I started in la and my friend, who's Amy Mullins, who was. Who was one of the first people to come to my studio in Glasgow, and she was amazing. For me, in the early days, she was pushing my work and she is. She's incredible. She was. She's an actor. I mean, I don't even know where to begin, but she's just incredible. And she said, oh, you need to meet this guy, John Papsadera, he's a casting director out there. And I thought, okay, here we go. So I. One night I went into his offices in. In Culver City and laid out the work. And he said, how much you want for everything? And I thought, oh, these casting directors really like my work. This is my. Wow. So he was just opening up a gallery in la. Anyway, he bought that stuff and then we started. He. He became my agent in LA and we started selling quite a lot of work. And at this point I was probably 25 or something, 26. And we were moving between the two, moving a Lot of work. So I. I rented a tobacco factory in. In Charon, in. Just outside of Limoges in France. Yeah. With my wife. And that was our first kind of studio outside of the uk. And then I really, from that point, just became so addicted to creating these little spaces. So then what I would do is I would go and take another space and I would kind of do it up a little bit. And there was all. They were always weird little spots. And I've probably had over 40 studios. Have you really? In Bangkok, Monaco, Venezuela, L.A. the Highlands, New York, London, Scotland. And I don't hold on to them for too long, but there's one that I really held on to, which was in the Highlands. It was such a lovely space. It was an old cabin that was used, and on the side of it you had a hanging room for animals and for. For stuff that you would catch and. Yeah, and I rented this house and my. My daughter Alba was born there. And. And this became my ultimate car salesman's trick, that I would invite collectors up to stay with me at this studio, and I would get them drunk or high, and we'd go fishing for salmon and we'd collect chanterelle mushrooms and we'd go on this beautiful adventure. And then we'd come back to the studio where I'd always have an amazing sound system handmade in Glasgow. Beautiful. And we would pay. Great music. I'd have a tailor or we'd have somebody in there making something, and we would go on this lovely journey. And by the time we got back and I didn't, I'd unveil the painting. Oh, I'll take it. That was. That's the kind of sinister side to the. To this cabin. But I realized within the years of doing this that this was such a beautiful environment and a sanctuary that we were creating that on the pillars of art, food and music. And. Anyway, I had this place and then I did a deal with a gallery in Dubai to go, and we went out, moved the family out to Dubai, and I was out there for maybe a year and it wasn't working out and. And I was struggling. My wife was. Is a teacher and, you know, was kind of holding down everything. There's, you know, as painters, I can have a good chunk of cash and then I'll have nothing for a year. And that's been kind of my story.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

And then this deal fell through in Dubai and I was out there and the costs, you know, and then I thought. I thought about the Highlands in the cabin, and I missed it. And I got an email through saying that we have to. We have to take it back because we've got a new groundsman in and they need it for storage. And so I lost that. And that was kind of the final straw where I felt totally disconnected from everything, really. So I wrote this concept called Cabin, which was about setting up a hospitality space where it's about food, art, and music. And I was fascinated by the idea of not hiring people from that world, but hiring kids that are interested in romance and design and filling the room with those people. So I wrote this thing out, and I had this young, amazing Emirati art collector called Rami Farouk who saw the concept, and he said, would you do it in Dubai? Selfishly, I thought, actually, I could do it in Dubai, and if I it up, which is highly likely.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

Then I can leave and get on with my life and no one will know.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

And sneakily, I also thought I could test it here and really understand where I can push it and what it's worth and if people.

[Unnamed Speaker]

If.

[Johnny Gent]

If. If the type of people that are hanging out in Dubai at that point would come and all that. So it was really interesting to me anyway, and. And I'd already been driving around. You know, I dropped the kids at school in Dubai, and I drive around this blade. I don't know if you've been to Dubai.

[Matt Gibbard]

Never was it. I mean, what's it. What's it like?

[Johnny Gent]

On some level, I love it. You feel like you're in. In the movie Blade Runner, and. And the dust and the light and the buildings and the shine is all. It's lovely. And. And then, of course, there's so much hideousness about it as well. And, you know, Jazz is never going to be created in Dubai, so I couldn't. I felt lost on every level being there, but I thought, let's give it a crack. And. And I found this old abandoned car park in the middle of the desert in a place that people would not be going to in Dubai. When it's a wasteland, it's nothing. It's just desert.

[Matt Gibbard]

Wow.

[Johnny Gent]

And of course, I called the agent, the owner of the building, and said, I've seen this car park. I'm really, as my. Very naive. And I was like, I'm very intrigued in renting it, and surely you're not doing anything with it. Oh, we have huge plans for this abandoned hole of a car park in the middle of the desert. And the rent is. Anyway, learned a pretty good lesson there. So I just got this space, glass fronted It. And we had. We. And. And I did everything top to bottom. So I built the furniture and we had. I made. Lovely. Because Rami had a publishing company. So we made these lovely drawing books. Archival with gold leaf. And they were beautiful pieces, actually didn't make a penny on them. And candles. So I made candles based on some of the studios that I had. And I worked with a great company out in Grasse in the south of France. And I had. So I had a candle from the Highlands and one from Dubai and one from la, where I'm obsessed by. And then I partnered with a couple of young stylists out there. Amazing. Cheb Moha, which has. That works with Gucci and lots of amazing people. And he was making these T shirts and jackets. So we would. They. I worked with him to design our first clothing range. So there was a lot of stuff going on. And then Artists in Residence. Our first show, we had Warhol, Tracy Emin, Jake and Dinos Chapman. They were. It was a big show and the place went mad within. Within a month, you couldn't get a seat. Wow. It was. It was quite something. And I didn't build a path into the restaurant, so people were arriving with their heels and walking through sand and furious.

[Matt Gibbard]

That's interesting, by the way, because it's the first time I've been here to Sessions Arts Club and I. One of the things I love is that you arrive and you're not entirely sure where you should go.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

The front door is pretty stealthy, right?

[Johnny Gent]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

You go in from the bright outside into extremely dark.

[Johnny Gent]

Yeah, that was a big decision.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

And it's amazing.

[Johnny Gent]

And then.

[Matt Gibbard]

And then you think that there's someone there, but you have to feel your way along the walls.

[Johnny Gent]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

And then. And then you tell her you've got reservation. And then you have to feel your way around to the lift and find the button. And then. And then as you come up to the fourth floor and you emerge into this space, there's such a sense of arrival, isn't there? And I think that must be something. I mean, you're kind of describing a similar thing there in a way.

[Johnny Gent]

And that's lynch again and Herzog and all these people thinking about the arrival and having no signage and feeling slightly awkward and off kilter and. Exactly. You described it very eloquently. That curtain is unveiled and you step in and suddenly you feel the warmth. Because it was that rabbit warren I was trying to create. That was the studio in the Highlands. That's what you get. You get it's difficult. And you move through river and forest and. And then you come across it and everything in there is things that you know. So it's music.

[Matt Gibbard]

So you think it's also about the journey to the place?

[Johnny Gent]

Absolutely, yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

Journey, yeah. I think building that.

[Matt Gibbard]

So you're talking about the Highlands. So as well as this place, you've got both house in the Highlands. So tell me about how. Well, how. How have you ended up with London and the Highlands as a bit of an axis? Because you described how you had, what was it, 20 studios and.

[Johnny Gent]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

How many years it was. So you've had a very peripatetic existence. What, deliberately not putting down roots or just not finding the place where you felt.

[Johnny Gent]

Yes, you've nailed deliberately.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay.

[Johnny Gent]

Because the work was about movement. The work was about that feeling of constant homesickness have never really been settled anywhere.

[Matt Gibbard]

Well, can I ask you about that? So if you're moving that much, I mean, obviously this is a conversation about, you know, a sense of home, I suppose, a sense of place. So did you. Did you not feel that you needed to put roots down?

[Johnny Gent]

No, quite the opposite. I didn't. I didn't want to. I didn't want to have roots at all because I guess that equates to childhood somehow and the constraints that that would bring to me emotionally. And I think the idea that I could be anyone at any point.

[Matt Gibbard]

So in your childhood, did you feel shackled somehow?

[Johnny Gent]

Yeah, absolutely. That's why LA is and is and will always be my favorite place. Because when I walk down through Santa Monica or through anywhere, I'm absolutely anyone. And I'm probably happiest right there. So I think it's all linked back to that. Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

And why did you feel that as a child, you think?

[Johnny Gent]

Well, the simple answer is that I felt totally alone in terms of what I found beautiful. That's probably the simplest answer. I didn't feel that the people I had around me thought the same as I did or saw the things that I saw. And it was. I've always felt on the outside looking in, always.

[Matt Gibbard]

That's. That's a really profound thing to say.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Why.

[Matt Gibbard]

Why do you. Were you just born like that, do you think?

[Johnny Gent]

No, I don't think I was. I just think I was. I was somehow molded to think to really only focus on beauty, probably, and what those things were that I really want to say. Force. Because I'm. I'm really overjoyed at how I look at things. I don't see it as in any way. I Don't feel burnt by how I.

[Matt Gibbard]

Look at the world.

[Johnny Gent]

Yeah, quite the opposite.

[Matt Gibbard]

But do you think it comes from a place of pain somehow?

[Johnny Gent]

Yeah, I think it has to, yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

Because what you described, actually, so, I mean, I, I haven't seen any pictures of it, but the pubs that you grew up in, in Cheshire, presumably they're not like aesthetically the most beautiful things in the world. So, so, so where does, where does that sensibility of yours come from? I mean, that's remarkable.

[Johnny Gent]

I think it probably starts from the desire to disappear into something. And that can be me listening to someone at the bar, a six year old guy at the bar, talk about his marriage falling apart and hearing that tremble in his voice at that point and understanding the scale of that and I think and wanting to get into that and feeling the beauty of that, that's probably. I don't know why Jamie Oliver's popped into my head, but he. In fact, I met Jamie here through a friend of mine who is Dexter Fletcher.

[Matt Gibbard]

The.

[Johnny Gent]

And Dexter said, oh, I have to bring my pal Jamie here. And I said, I'd love to meet Jamie because Jamie grew up in pubs and.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yes, of course, yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

So he brought him here and I remember being really excited to jump into that, but there I've only ever met. So Jamie I've met and then I've met one other person in my life who was also brought up in a club and there was an oddness about him. I'm not saying Jamie Oliver's odd, but the three of us are the people that I've met and they will all. The thing that drives them, the thing that they see and the thing that they adore comes from that line. I don't know what his journey is, but my guess is it will be as, as beautiful and as horrific as mine.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

It goes back to that 500 people coming into your house every day.

[Matt Gibbard]

That's amazing.

[Johnny Gent]

With that. You get, you get. It's a broad brush of stuff and it's.

[Matt Gibbard]

And I mean, one of the things we talk about quite a lot on this podcast is have a sense of personal space. So did you ever get that?

[Johnny Gent]

Yeah, absolutely. Because the place was so huge. So I would, I would have my, I would have my secret spots all over.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay.

[Johnny Gent]

Disappear locks, things I had, you know, dens that were built that no one knew about.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah. So that's actually wildly imaginative then.

[Johnny Gent]

Oh, it was wildly imaginative, yeah. And then I had a. You know, my brother, he was, he was a magician himself. You know, I remember we Even though we had probably, you know, 14 bedrooms in our house, we would sleep. Slept together in the. Until we were probably 14 or something. And he would do. He would lie in his bed at night and he would say to me, just think of anything. And I would. I would say, a car. And he'd pull a car out from the duvet. Tennis racket. Tennis racket. Natural tennis racket. So he kind of was playing these games as well throughout my childhood. And he would do. And that's the tip of the iceberg. He would do incredible things. He would, you know, lay me down. He would. We would get under a duvet together and then he would say, there's someone there. You cannot leave this duvet, but I'm gonna go and check. And he would go. And I would be maybe five or something, then he would be 10.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

And he would go, four hours.

[Matt Gibbard]

Really?

[Johnny Gent]

So these.

[Matt Gibbard]

Sweet.

[Johnny Gent]

Sweet. And. And. And kind of, you know, I mean, you could look at that in another way.

[Matt Gibbard]

No, it was magical, though, but magical.

[Johnny Gent]

And stuff was happening. So I had that going on on one side. And then you had this massive house. Then you have all these people coming through. So it was just. I. I should probably speak to a few more people that have had pubs and things. I don't know. I don't know what they're up to.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah, yeah, it sounds like that. Sounds like there'd be some common ground there.

[Johnny Gent]

Do you.

[Matt Gibbard]

Are you close to your brother now?

[Johnny Gent]

Yes. What.

[Matt Gibbard]

So what does he do?

[Johnny Gent]

He's been many things. He was in a really successful band called Quake. Well, not really successful. They were about to be called Quatus, which was a black metal band. And then. Then he went to Sicily. That fell through the drummer. Something tragic happened that didn't happen. And then they were on the verge of. They were coming to London from the north and playing to 2,000 people and Sony and a big deal. And then that fell through. I think that kind of maneuvered his life as well into a different. And he was stood in photography and then he moved to Sicily and then France and then he was a builder and then he was doing other projects and then. And now he's a fireman in Cheshire.

[Matt Gibbard]

Is he really?

[Johnny Gent]

Which is a. Which is fascinating.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

So hunky.

[Johnny Gent]

Very hunky.

[Matt Gibbard]

So tell us about your art. It's a pretty diverse over, isn't it? I mean, I. I actually made a note of this because.

[Johnny Gent]

Oh, here we go.

[Matt Gibbard]

Because that was. It's called Winston's Flowers. So that. This painting of Winston's Flowers really struck me because it's incredibly tender, poignant. I think painting beautiful. And then some of your work is highly kind of sexualized, salacious, you know, sort of opposite end of the spectrum. So tell me about that. Is that. Is that the sort of two sides of you and your upbringing and your life kind of coming together?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

Funny that you've. Because that's exactly it. Yeah. You've really.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

Really got it. I read a book called Painting as a Pastime. I don't know if you've read that, which is. No. A book that Winston wrote on painting. That's actually lovely. I'm not some mad. I don't know, you know, study Winston's war strategies. I'm not intrigued by him on any level or.

[Matt Gibbard]

But his paintings.

[Johnny Gent]

Yeah, yeah. But his paintings I really like. And he had a painting. I think I could be wrong in this, but I'm going to say it for drama. I think that was his last painting he ever painted.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Okay.

[Johnny Gent]

Of the flowers. And it goes back to my mom and me being obsessed by my mom and adoring her and. And her being so. She's so gentle and. And I think struggled her whole life with many things. Many. Some tragic things and her own capabilities. I think she was same as me, just dyslexia and prob. Probably ADHD and all that kind of stuff and not quite been able to find that groove and.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay.

[Johnny Gent]

And she was a painter that never painted and. But so I started painting. They were all paintings of her vases that she would pick from the garden. And then the last ones I did of those was because they were the last flowers that she died a couple of years ago and totally over it. And she. And she. That vase was the. Yeah. The vase that was next to her bed. And she would look out of her window. And I realized when she started painting at the end of her life, she was always painting these flowers. And I was like, for sake. You've got to be sure, you know, you can paint something more than flowers. And she couldn't walk at the end of her life and she was in bed, and I realized that was her view out of the window. That was all she could see. So that's what she was painting. So that mixture there, that's. That wraps up Winston's flowers painting.

[Matt Gibbard]

You got me going there.

[Johnny Gent]

That's.

[Matt Gibbard]

That's amazing story. Well, I mean, I have to say that that really comes through in that painting.

[Johnny Gent]

I painted it a few times. I'm going to really sour it now because I did a Show in New York, where I was selling a lot of those, and I was in the back with the hair dryer, trying to bang them out so I could get a few more out the door just to loosen it up.

[Matt Gibbard]

To Mummy Winston's 100th bunch of flowers. Well, maybe you're. I mean, technically very adept. I mean, what are. What are you?

[Johnny Gent]

Oh, I'm useless.

[Matt Gibbard]

No, you're not.

[Johnny Gent]

And I've been told I'm useless quite a lot. And I'm colorblind in all colors. I had to cheat to get into Edinburgh.

[Matt Gibbard]

Are you really?

[Johnny Gent]

This is not to say I'm not confident with the work that I make, but it's more. Just. That's not the angle.

[Matt Gibbard]

Not a conventional kind of, you know, draftsman.

[Johnny Gent]

No.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah. No, but how do you feel when you're. When you're making one? What's going on in your head?

[Johnny Gent]

Like a madman.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

Oh, and what. What are you talking. Gibbering. Top off, talking in paint. And I go for it, and they're really quick, and I don't hang about because I want to get out of there. It's not some lovely moment of an exorcism. Oh, yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

That's amazing music.

[Johnny Gent]

I think music is probably my greatest love.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

And think. Talking about sessions, I. I remember what. What I saw here when Florence Welch played this dining room. Oh, wow. And I was stood at the side of her and watched her. And it was at that moment where I realized that paintings and books and films and things, often buildings get built in secret, in drawings and behind in studios, and then they're delivered or they're shown in their full glory. But performance like that, where you get to see it happen, it was just breathtaking to see her. I remember at one point seeing her hand go up where I was, and I was watching, and I could see her preparing herself to hit the note, and I thought, yeah, this could go anywhere. I nearly. I nearly went in to hit the note for it. It's the greatest thing to see it happen in front of you.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

See that art happen in front. It's nothing like it. So music is a huge thing, and I think in sessions, it's massive. In both. It's huge. We're doing this residency program in both. Billy Martin has just come out today with our Autumn, so we ask interesting folk to do our playlists. And then I want to ask David lynch if he'll do something for us, then Neil Young. We're hoping to get to do our playlist.

[Matt Gibbard]

So when you say do your Playlist. When, how and when does that get played?

[Johnny Gent]

Now. So this is Billy's now.

[Matt Gibbard]

So someone makes a playlist for you and you. And how long will you play it.

[Johnny Gent]

For the play for the season. Everything is season.

[Matt Gibbard]

Everything season.

[Johnny Gent]

And at the moment we've got a solo, we've got a group show on a sessions at both house. So the whole idea is that I'm trying to get a few of these on the go, then you can have a real studio. Right now I feel a bit like a fraud. You know, we call this a studio and I see the team here feel that they see themselves and their studio assistants and they're. We need to talk a bit about the team here as well. Because when you talked before about the success of this place and why and how it's.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah, I mean, it's worth saying that I said this to you off, off Mike. But it's impossible to get a table here and it's phenomenally successful. So.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

Well, what do you put that down to?

[Johnny Gent]

I think, as I said then, luck is a huge part of it. I think the concept is truthful and honest and there's no bullshit in it, but it's 90% the team and the people that deliver it day in, day out. And I get really emotional when I think about them. And I often think about the time I was in here and I was probably. Probably been open three months and I was having a dinner and I was looking down at Gus, who is one of our team, and he was working the bar. He was on his double shift and he was exhausted. And I was watching him talk to the hedge fund guy. That is a jackass. Of which there are many, and there are many that are not. And I watched Gus deal with him so beautifully. And. And I was thinking about, you know, the pay and what they do it for and the. The beauty of how they do that. And so I think the success is down to them and their personalities and a little bit of praise. Back to the concept is that the freedom of which they. The first things we said when we were hiring people is, is that bring your problems to work. We really want that. We don't want some right. Smiling thing going on when you're. When you're dying at home, it's not right.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay.

[Johnny Gent]

And I feel that they. They are. I feel that they're free to express themselves. They're all incredible people with huge lives going on outside of this.

[Matt Gibbard]

And I think they feel honesty is. That honesty is very important. What about the food?

[Johnny Gent]

What's.

[Matt Gibbard]

What's the influence there.

[Johnny Gent]

So I came to. I knew no one in London. I wasn't from this industry or. So I came and I met with John spiteri, who founded St. John's with Fergus Henderson. And within 10 minutes, I. I totally fell in love with him. And we actually, we talked about hospitality and the whole idea of. Of what that means and what it is. And one of the first names that he talked about was Florence Knight. And I met with her within the month. And her daughter loved her. She was at this point where she had another project she was thinking about that she was going to do herself. And the timings didn't quite work out and it was. And the space that we had at that point wasn't quite right for her. But anyway, time passed and then found this building. And when we went into Covid, that's a whole other story. Do we want a Covid story?

[Matt Gibbard]

Oh, definitely not.

[Johnny Gent]

Oh. So anyway, Covid happened. And my first thought was, what the hell is Florence doing? So we called her, I met her here and we talked. You know, Florence's background is fashion and textiles.

[Matt Gibbard]

Right.

[Johnny Gent]

And talking with her and, you know, the levels that she performs at and her. Again, the truthfulness of how she works and her brutality and plating and her simplicity and how she does that and her aesthetic and all that.

[Matt Gibbard]

So it was incredibly pure and simple, isn't it?

[Johnny Gent]

Each plate, it's so difficult.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

The less the chef touches the plate, the harder the job.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

And her hand doesn't touch the plate that much. And that's such a gift to have that. That's such confidence and again, composition and all that stuff. So anyway, that was. And she was in. She came in and she saw the room. She was, okay, I'm in, let's do it. And the whole studio thing, she was loving and all that stuff. So I think the success is a combination of her strength and the focus on beauty. And then we're back to look where people were suddenly became in here. And it was be opened at the point where you. I think you. You didn't have to wear masks. And we sat with the team and said, look, I. I don't give a fuck if you wear masks or not. And nobody wore them.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Right.

[Matt Gibbard]

Interesting.

[Johnny Gent]

So when the doors opened, people coming here with their masks and they were seeing this, the team were not. And suddenly we hit that wave of, this is old world. This is prehistoric hospitality.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

And then. And then the fire was lit and that was it.

[Matt Gibbard]

It's really interesting. And so at both house, how does that compare to this? Because I haven't been there. So what's it like there?

[Johnny Gent]

Very different. My thing with both House was that the word that I was thinking about was healing.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Okay.

[Johnny Gent]

And not in some hippie bullshit way. So we have a head gardener there. Amazing head gardener. How can we have people come with us? The first thing was to pick the building up and shake it. Empty all the stuff out and get rid of the TVs and phones and all that stuff. And I was obsessed by this idea of one person greeting you and one person giving you his card and one person looking after you and total pain in the ass for mass. Who is at the GM up there?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

Right. But it's off grid kind of thing.

[Johnny Gent]

Yes.

[Matt Gibbard]

There's no technology.

[Johnny Gent]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay.

[Johnny Gent]

And I knew that would be awkward and difficult and for myself, because I remember going up there in February. I was in there and. And I was telling Natalie, my wife, about this whole idea of doing this. And I was in the bath watching Antiques Roadshow on the TV because we hadn't quite ripped them out yet. And she was. Oh, sure, you don't. You don't mind the TV now, do you? So it was about healing and doing that. I was also reading lots about Black Mountain College.

[Matt Gibbard]

Tell us about that. Mountain College.

[Johnny Gent]

Well, I don't know much about it.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

And I've been reading lots.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

And I'm gonna get it all wrong.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

And that's 10. That's how I kind of were. I pick the things and I probably. And I make them. They become fake, but they become my truths.

[Matt Gibbard]

Right. So if you tell it in a different way enough times.

[Johnny Gent]

So in my mind.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

Which is totally wrong. Black Mountain College is a group of. Well, it was shut down by the Nazis in the Bauhaus movement. All that was shut down. It was kind of reaction to that. And they went over to, I think, Montana, which is probably wrong. It could have been Wisconsin or Wyoming. And they built this place where they were growing. They built their own studios. I mean, some of the great abstract expressionists were hanging out there and they had this whole. It was kind of. There was a lot of teachings and learning going on. I love the self sufficiency thing, you know. And I was thinking of that with both of. Right now, the Cafe is probably 40% from the grounds we take. And how do we get that to 100? And how do we really look after ourselves? I was thinking about it in learning and what we can learn and how these techniques are dying and. And. And stripping them Back again, back to prehistoric techniques with ceramics and all that stuff. And also the color black, I just adore. My early paintings were all black and white. And so we. When I first went in and painted everything black furniture and buildings and everything. And we would talk about this idea of not thinking about it in a hotel, but thinking about it in people coming here and learning is a really annoying thing. It's very. The minute you get. The minute you feel like you're learning something, you want to get out of there. So how do we do that? How do. How do people experience things rather than learn, sit down and learn them? Well, first of all was the residency program. So that it's the three or five or a seven day. And the idea is that if you are. So we're talking to Stuart from Bell and Sebastian. I think the idea that there is. I absolutely did not want to heavily curate this idea of what you have to do. So I think the freedom of that with someone like Stuart, the idea is that he would arrive again, work the land. We have a little studio that we're building an old tcam, which Springsteen and Wuang Clan and lots of interesting people have recorded on. And there's some samples and there's some lovely little instruments they can use. And the idea is that he'd work the garden and record, do stuff. These are not finished articles. This. It's sketchbooks.

[Matt Gibbard]

But you want people to. To come, creative people to come and be inspired by the landscape and the.

[Johnny Gent]

Context and inspired by disappearing, truly disappearing, which they're not able to do. None of us are.

[Matt Gibbard]

That's interesting.

[Johnny Gent]

And. And what they create in that. And. And what they create is a sketchbook and it might trigger something that is bigger.

[Matt Gibbard]

And can I ask you what.

[Johnny Gent]

What.

[Matt Gibbard]

What will happen with that work? What do you hope that will sort of come out?

[Johnny Gent]

The hope is that they leave something behind. That's all we ask from.

[Matt Gibbard]

So you want to try and build up a sort of archive of experiences.

[Johnny Gent]

Yes.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

Whether it's a painting or a song.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

Someone like Stuart, the dream would be that it would be. He'd actually make something that was really interesting. Then we would press 500 copies of vinyl campaign. Then he would come to sessions and perform that moment. And then you. Suddenly the studios start to talk to each other and you get that and.

[Matt Gibbard]

You'Re supporting each other and.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

And then the idea is then that the diet. The main house is. So in the summer, the. The cafe and the grounds. It's about 40 acres. The grounds becomes this lovely place to Hang out. It's very loose and flatbreads and pizzas and people getting loaded in the garden. Then you move into the house in the winter and it becomes a bit more experience and, and the food begets a bit more. What's the words? I think there's a, there's an intensity about what we want to give the clients. Clients.

[Matt Gibbard]

Guests, yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

Let's leave clients in.

[Matt Gibbard]

Cheers. This martini looks good.

[Johnny Gent]

Oh, the martinis and mummies.

[Matt Gibbard]

Martini's and mums.

[Johnny Gent]

Well, we've done mums, haven't we? The wives.

[Matt Gibbard]

You can never. Enough mums.

[Johnny Gent]

Partners.

[Matt Gibbard]

The wives. Tell me about your wife.

[Johnny Gent]

Oh, wow.

[Matt Gibbard]

Is it? How long have you been with her?

[Johnny Gent]

I wasn't expecting you to have such. I don't know anything about you, but I wasn't expecting you to have such a ruthless ability to strip me to the core. She is long suffering. I, I, and she's gonna hate this and I'm gonna get it out and I'm gonna tell it because she, every time she tells me not to say it to random people, to friends, never mind on a podcast. So I can't wait. She's gonna hate me. She. I was at a very strict Catholic school in the north of England and her father is Scottish and mother is Irish, but they, they did very well. And they were off in international schools in the Middle east and Switzerland. Total opposite to my life. But she arrived at my school, St. Nicholas R.C. high School when she was 15. And I remember going to a Rocky Horror Picture show and not dressing up as anyone from the Rocky Horror Picture show and going to watch this thing and looking over my shoulder and seeing her on the bus, it was her first day there or something. And thinking, oh my God, what is this before me? Yeah, it was, I don't know if I tapped into her to. Because she'd, she'd had lots of schools and was, she was exotic.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

And obviously beautiful and all that stuff. And I thought, and then the next day I, I went through the proper channels of going through my friends and saying, how do I, how do you get me to this thing? And then we had a date at 15 and we've been together ever since and never parted. And she can't bear that story.

[Matt Gibbard]

But why can't she?

[Johnny Gent]

I guess. Yeah. In. Good question.

[Matt Gibbard]

Because that, I mean that's amazing. It's amazing to be with someone for that period of time, especially at that young age.

[Johnny Gent]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

Isn't it? To kind of glue together at that point. So you, it was just an epiphany. And you just knew that for me it was.

[Johnny Gent]

I don't know, I think. I'm not so sure it was for. I think, you know, when we talk about it, it's like it was love at first sight and.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah, you talked into it, didn't you?

[Johnny Gent]

Sure it was, but I don't know. Yeah, but it's lovely and I'm really proud of it. It's probably my greatest.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah, it's amazing. Well, especially if you describe yourself as.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Do you have adhd?

[Matt Gibbard]

Or is that just something you say?

[Johnny Gent]

But I absolutely do, and my daughter does now, and my son doesn't, interestingly enough. And he's very. He has the ability to have that calmness and be structured and do that stuff, which. Which Natalie is the same.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

Way Far too. Far more intelligent and far more academic and it has that ability. And. And then you've got Albert and I bashing around the house like.

[Matt Gibbard]

Like wildebeest. Yeah, but that's kind of amazing, isn't it? If you. Because you're obviously someone that's, you know, you've got this amazing energy about you and you're obviously always up to something. Is it. Is she. Is she the person in your life.

[Johnny Gent]

That just keeps you the anchor, the total anchor?

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

Could you. Could you survive?

[Johnny Gent]

You get me going. No, she is, absolutely.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

She's the anchor to it all. And the stability through, like, those moments talking, you know, where you. You can make $10,000 in a year and you have a. You have a child that needs stuff and she goes out to work to feed us all, you know, that's. That's massive stuff. And. And with that comes the faith that she has in you as a person, as an artist, and as. And not once in my. However long we've been together has she ever questioned it, ever. Not even the dark times. Not in the times when we were buying a chicken because it wasn't. We didn't want roast chicken. We wanted it because we could get a stock out of it and we could get sandwiches out of it and we could make it last the week. And. And I never once on the tube going at six where I'd be lay out in bed because I've been on a bender going to an opening in Hackney. Never once did she question it, so.

[Matt Gibbard]

That's right.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

That's mega.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

Meg is not a great word either.

[Matt Gibbard]

Maybe that.

[Johnny Gent]

No.

[Matt Gibbard]

But Giffy, I mean, that's lucky you. That you. That you found her.

[Johnny Gent]

Yes.

[Matt Gibbard]

Amazing.

[Johnny Gent]

Yeah.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

So is she very constant?

[Johnny Gent]

Is that the Same story with, with what?

[Matt Gibbard]

With Faye and me. Who knows?

[Johnny Gent]

Let's get it. Let's have a little bit. Come on. Who knows?

[Matt Gibbard]

I mean, no, in our, in our relationship, I'm the. I'm. I'm very consistent character.

[Johnny Gent]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

And Faye is an artist, so I guess it's. I guess that works, I think. I don't know if it's.

[Johnny Gent]

Are you consistent? Yeah. That's lovely. I love consistent. Not that I'm.

[Matt Gibbard]

It's the way that I'm moving into flirt mode. Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

Consistencies. I love consistent people.

[Matt Gibbard]

Well, I, I. Yeah. And obviously I'm very attracted to people that are inconsistent as well. So there's, you know, we need all sorts, don't we? And, and so, so as you know, the, the. With this podcast, we sort of think about the past and the present and, and the future as well. So we. I feel like we've kind of delved into the first two, but looking in.

[Johnny Gent]

Certainly done the past.

[Matt Gibbard]

Looking a bit further ahead, how, you know, you've. You've lived in, you know, so many different places, you've done so many different things. Is this the time in your life now for some of that consistency? Maybe not too much, but some of it. And how do you see things panning out, moving forward?

[Johnny Gent]

Yeah. This is the longest we've ever lived anywhere, which has been three years now. I've never lived anywhere three years when we live in Barnes.

[Matt Gibbard]

I wasn't expecting that.

[Johnny Gent]

Why were you not?

[Matt Gibbard]

Well, no, because, you know. So.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Right.

[Matt Gibbard]

So you're living actually a kind of, you know, what. What people would say is a traditional family, very quiet existence in bonds. Right.

[Johnny Gent]

Very privileged, very middle class. Very.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

Tilda Swinton. I remember saying to me, live your life quietly and your art will be revolutionary. I thought it was a great. Lovely. And I think what. I. I can't live in Hackney or in Soho. I couldn't do it. I'd go mad.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

I need total peace. And I need. Because the. I never really turn it off. So when I turn it off is on a. It's on a Saturday when I go to the farmer's market in Barnes and get. I buy the FT and I make myself a little tea and I sit before anyone gets up. And then I walk around the common and I go into Ginger Pig and buy something and I get some flowers and. And it's so insanely quiet.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

And I think that's. Without that, I'd just be. I couldn't do it.

[Matt Gibbard]

You know, what kind of house is it?

[Johnny Gent]

Here we Go the building.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah. We're back to buildings.

[Johnny Gent]

The first. How many windows does it have exactly?

[Matt Gibbard]

When was it built?

[Johnny Gent]

It's Georgian.

[Matt Gibbard]

Georgian. Lovely.

[Johnny Gent]

I hope it's Georgia. I think it's Georgia. It's old. It's lovely. Creaky. I mean, it creaks the floorboards.

[Matt Gibbard]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

Three stories a little. It's a great house. Little tiny terrace at the back and I'm two minutes, I'm on the Thames, I can jump into that griminess.

[Matt Gibbard]

It's very, very quick there, though, isn't it?

[Johnny Gent]

Very pretty, yeah. Really is.

[Matt Gibbard]

Some beautiful buildings, then.

[Johnny Gent]

But that's not where I'm dying.

[Matt Gibbard]

No, I was going to say. So, okay, so you've been there three years, which is the world record. So what's coming.

[Johnny Gent]

Where I'm most comfortable is the Highlands in California. That's where I'm an island. So I've got this little triangle of. My mum was from Sligo and.

[Matt Gibbard]

Sligo and Ireland.

[Johnny Gent]

Sligo and island. So that's my real. You know, when I land in. In LAX and I go out and I see the friends and I. The restaurants and stuff, I feel that's where I'm really incredibly comfortable. When I land at Inverness Airport and I go up to both house and I'm fishing and I'm very comfortable and then the minute I land at knock Airport, then I'm home. So the. The future is. As a kid, I've drawn this house probably from 12, but it might have been a bit younger than that. We used to draw. Mum used to ask us our dream home. She was obsessed by the lottery and obsessed by getting out and all that stuff.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay, so. So she was going to win the lottery. She want to think about the dream home.

[Johnny Gent]

Oh, every night, in fact. Natalie was baffled. She would come round or. She was baffled by lots of things coming around to the house, but. But baffled by the incessant talk of winning the lottery. So I've been drawing it a long time and it was always. And I got loads of lovely little drawings and I. It was always. I draw something on top of a mountain. It would be quite. Always quite difficult to get to. It'd be quite lonesome, quite depressing. Well, we live a little bit on.

[Matt Gibbard]

Top of a mountain here and it's quite difficult to get to. So that's obviously a thing.

[Johnny Gent]

Yes, that's a theme. So. But then I got quite into it and I started drawing them properly and then there was a couple of paintings and there was a painting that struck me, that was an Irish Painting. So I was drawing. I would draw these studios and I would get quite into it. I would. In the. At the bottom I would have my studio and then. And then you would only get there by boat and. And I didn't want. I didn't want anyone, but I want. And then I would often draw them with huge, big satellite things to pick up stuff. Don't quite get where I was going with that. But slowly it got a bit more civilized and it was just a lovely glass studio that I could sleep in and I could work in and you could only get to by boat. And it was always on. In California, somewhere off the coast of la. But as I'm getting older, I'm just thinking, right, well, who do I actually want to be around when I'm. When I'm dead, When I'm dying even? Yeah, who do I want around the bed and all that stuff? And there's. There's no better race than the Irish to be around with death.

[Matt Gibbard]

Why is that?

[Johnny Gent]

Because they just understand it and their take of it is so joyous. When I think of my. My mum, which didn't have a particularly great one because my. From the English side and the family and didn't. It was such. I saw that huge difference in how they dealt with it and how we dealt with it and. And they got it right and. And I think if. If I'm thinking about the dream house, I think about one, the conditions in which I want to live, which I love. The idea of being totally shut off from people. I don't like people when I'm painting or when I'm doing stuff. And so I think building up to that, I think that's the dream home. And who I would get to make it, I'm not sure and how it would all work. But I think in death it would be somewhere off the coast of Sligo probably, which is where my grandfather was from.

[Matt Gibbard]

And are you still painting it? This.

[Johnny Gent]

Yeah, I did one. I did a show at Mummery and Schnell in from Andrew Mummery, who is a great gallerist. He had a gallery in Malibu and that was the last. I think I sent a picture of it to you. Yes, yes, that was the last painting I. I did of it. And I'm doing a show in Paris in December at Gallery Pixie. And I'm. I'm going to do another couple of versions of it actually. I'm going to get quite, quite into it.

[Matt Gibbard]

And I mean, obviously the weather's quite different to California, so would. That would that. Would that be okay? Do you quite like the elements like that?

[Johnny Gent]

I'm not too fussed about the weather.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

I don't understand the whole talk of it's sunny, it's wet, it's raining.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay, so you're okay. So. And, but are you. Are you kind of someone that gets outdoors a lot or.

[Johnny Gent]

Yeah, a lot.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

If it's raining, you don't, you know.

[Johnny Gent]

I'm happy when the feet are wet or.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

I don't care about that stuff.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

What's the appeal of California then? That of interest? Because obviously a lot of people say it's the weather, but putting that aside.

[Johnny Gent]

I think my first arrival in California and Hollywood and the people.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

And that. And the. That I did not believe was, you know, everyone talks about this over optimism and the fakeness of. And I didn't buy into any of that at all. I just found. I found a group of people that were, again, interested in being romantic.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

And being nice and being joyous about life. I didn't find it bullshitty. So I love California for that and I love hanging out in la. And the, and, and the fact that you can walk around it is absolutely anything. The first time I arrived, I remember I was wearing a lovely. I arrived in LA in a lovely French boiler suit and amazing cowboy boots. And I felt very happy clicking along Santa Monica. And I didn't get a stare, not a glance. So that's. That could only be a good thing.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay.

[Unnamed Speaker]

But.

[Matt Gibbard]

So you're. But essentially it's a. It's okay to be eccentric there, and it's okay to be whoever you want to be. Right. That's the land of opportunity thing.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

And that's.

[Johnny Gent]

And the idea. You can create your lot. Yeah. You can create a story.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

I think the greatest gift is the ability to. To have the freedom to create your story.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

And at any point. 57.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

So when you're. When you're in your house that you built in Sligo or California, but probably Sligo, and you're looking and you're surrounded by mad Irish people and they're. They're making things quite jolly for you.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

Which I think sounds good.

[Johnny Gent]

I like that idea. Ah, the laughter would be hilarious. Oh, the wind escaping me at that point. That would be howled at and sniggered at the whiskey flowing. The songs that will break out. Exactly. What a death.

[Matt Gibbard]

Breaking wind and breaking out.

[Johnny Gent]

Yes.

[Unnamed Speaker]

So.

[Matt Gibbard]

So what. What do you think that you'll look back on over your life with the greatest kind of fondness. And how would you like your life to be seen by others?

[Johnny Gent]

In a way, I think kindness, I think, is the.

[Matt Gibbard]

Do you think there's not enough kindness around?

[Johnny Gent]

No, and I don't. I'm baffled by it because it's so much more difficult to be a dick.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

And I see it in so many people, and I just think. I don't. I can't quite understand how they've not computed the fact that it's so much easier to be nicer. I actually really don't care what people think, but I care what my wife thinks of me and what my kids would think of me.

[Matt Gibbard]

Okay.

[Johnny Gent]

And I would be. I would hope that they would see me as someone that is full of intrigue and kind. And that's really. If I get that, then I'm. Then I'm. I've. I've done more than enough.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

But do you think. Are you someone that wants to certainly leave a bit of a mark on the world in some way? And I don't mean that in an egotistical way, but you know what I'm saying. Do you. You know, you're clearly not someone that's settling for the mundane. Right.

[Johnny Gent]

I don't think I am, because I think I'm. I feel like I'm aware enough to know that it doesn't really matter. The things. The greatness. Think of all the great things that have happened and it's the little day to day, the little glimpses, little moments, the little things. And actually they're all forgotten anyway. So I'm not. I'm not intrigued by leaving a. An incredible building or an incredible painting or an incredible work of art.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

A buck or a. I'm not. It's because I think they'll dissolve to dust anyway.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

So kindness and intrigue.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Johnny Gent]

I think they're. That's what I'm after.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

With your dyslexia and your adhd, which, I mean, may or may not have been diagnosed, but, you know, you. You accept that you have this side to yourself that you obviously have a slightly. You know, I don't know if you'd put it like this, but maybe a slightly different energy to some other people might have.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Yeah.

[Matt Gibbard]

I mean, I describe myself as kind of consistent. My observation of it from meeting you would be that that's been absolutely the key to everything that you're about and your success, because you've. You've clearly grown up in an environment where you've been surrounded by all sorts of different characters and You've got you, you know, you've got that in your personality anyway. And it seems to me your great skill is being able to converse with people and find common ground with them. And, you know, you're clearly a great raconteur and. And you just clearly just love people. So I think, I suppose that's how I would look at you and see your kind of legacy, in a way, if I may say. I think that you're.

[Johnny Gent]

Lovely of you to say.

[Matt Gibbard]

Well, no, I just think you're, you know, you're a really interesting person to meet. You're incredibly open in a way that a lot of people aren't. So I've really enjoyed talking to you and getting to know you a bit. And hopefully I can get a restaurant reservation at some point.

[Johnny Gent]

Well, that's done. But it's been. I've been overwhelmed by the pleasure of doing it. I was worried about it and I didn't want to do it at some point, actually. And this morning even more so. And I've wrestled with it a few days. But after meeting with you as well and going to get really corny, I think what I would like to do is, is talk to you more. Absolutely focus on you.

[Matt Gibbard]

I know, right? That's the end of it.

[Johnny Gent]

And get this away from me because I think the way you've answered, the way you've. Your sensitivity has come through and I'm really excited to get into that. And let's get away from me for a little bit.

[Matt Gibbard]

Good place to start. Thanks, Johnny.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Thank you all for listening. And thank you to Johnny for a very memorable afternoon. As always, if you can spare a second to rate and review the show, that would be hugely appreciated. A reminder as well to please tap follow on your screen so that you're alerted about new episodes as soon as they get released. Homing in is a podcast from the Modern House. You can find out more about us by visiting themodernhouse.com this episode was edited and produced by Hannah Phillips with music by Father. Very much look forward to talking to you on the next one. Bye for now.