J.P. Plunier’s career and subtle nuance for his craft have much akin to that of a master watchmaker. An artisan rarely seen but always respected by the discerning individual for the complexities contained within the timepiece itself, Plunier finds much in common as he is perhaps one of the most aesthetically-sound yet least visible entities in the vast expanse of the music industry today.
Having discovered and nurtured such talent as Ben Harper and Jack Johnson, even managing the former while directing music videos throughout the process, JP’s instinctive grasp for others artistic vision and potential is what has assured the fact that even should you be unfamiliar with his name, you’ve surely heard his work with others.
A literal renaissance Frenchman man of sorts, Mr. Plunier is many things: The owner of Everloving Records, an artist manager, a producer and a photographer whose entrance into the music business was, as he puts it, “a bit complicated…”
Says the charming Plunier in what is soon be discovered as a tangent-prone delivery, “I met Chris Darrow by chance in California and he was in a group called Kaleidoscope. At the time he had made incredible records and when we were introduced, he had moved on to other things and lost the capacity, business-wise, to be producing records on major labels so he was making stuff on his own. I was frustrated and thought I would love to produce a Chris Darrow record but I had no ambition to be in the music business…”
Continues J.P., “I had known Ben (Harper) since he was a kid and we re-connected when he was about 21 or so. I thought, you know… It would be interesting to work with this guy’s music. He had done a few things with his pals in town and I thought I’m hearing something different in what these guys were doing. I love tradition and I love traditional stuff, but I just felt like there was another dimension to be gotten out of some of the things he was working on then. So I was 33 years old and I started super late… Most guys in the music business start in their teens or twenties and I came to it way after doing other things. I was a photojournalist and a photographer for 7 years before that and I worked for Interview and Men’s Vogue in France and all different kinds of publications, small and large. But then this came up and Ben had some material, and I thought there was some real potential to connect with people and to do something different than what was currently going on…”
It was this intuitive base for finding new talent amongst a very tangible human element that Plunier says was somewhat honed in his early childhood years by parents that ensured a larger world view for their son through their many travels and friends.
“I was born in Beirut and I grew up all over the world. My dad’s business territory was Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and so on. I moved to Japan and lived there for 9 years, and I also lived in India and all this was before I was 18, so I learned as a little kid that there were all these people who believed in different things than I was taught.”
It was this bit of inspiration in the early years that would come to represent the namesake of his record label and management-wing when it finally came time to launch a proper business to house his creative endeavors.
“I grew up in a Catholic environment, but all these guys were Hindus and Muslims and devil worshippers and my parents had friends from every political bent, some worked for National Geographic and one was a Jewish mathematics professor,” says the multi-faceted expressionist. Everyone had a different take on life but only one person seemed to make sense. It was an Indian guy and he said the meaning of life is “Injai” and for a long time I couldn’t really tell what he was saying, but I realized it was “enjoy” so that’s what lead to the name of Enjoy Records,”
In what sounds like a story line crafted by Soprano’s creator David Chase, the Enjoi name was eventually retired when the eclectic producer was encountered a few years back with a rather intense group of not-so-gentlemanly East-Coast visitors.
“Apparently some Italian guys from New York had at one point owned a label called Enjoy and it was laying dormant, and it didn’t come up. But you know, they visited us and explained that we owed them money and I said ‘ah, don’t worry about it. Keep your name. I’ve got tons of names.’ I think that was the first time that they encountered that kind of non-resistance and they were very surprised and upset because they didn’t get any money, but we went with the name Everloving.”
In what becomes a very sentimental and perhaps solemn moment in conversation comes when J.P. Plunier expands on the mantra between both incarnations of his record labels and those individuals that have come to embody the mission behind each.
“Enjoy and Everloving are related in that it’s about a philosophy of life. Two friends of mine died in the past week. One I found out through the paper and one I just got an email earlier today. One was Jeff Johnson, the father of Jack Johnson and another was a guy named Andy Kessler who was a skateboarder in New York. If I can say one thing about the two of them was that they enjoyed life and it was about the enjoyment of life.”
PLUNIER_QUOTE1It’s this humanist approach that ultimately keeps Plunier nothing but sincere in both his personal politic but also the sonic and emotional palate that he has helped to create for the artists that call Everloving home.
“I have to connect with the artist on some level. Not everyone is a songwriter. There was a time when the artist was an interpreter and someone else was writing the songs for them. So the songs have to be good. Their instrument, if they are singing, has to connect on some kind of human level. I’m personally attracted to the cello range. I think that the cello is the most human of instruments so I’m looking for that kind of tone and that kind of ability to take flight or to have gravitas, some kind of weight. In the case of Ben and Jack, I thought that their voices connected instantly on a human level.”
The ocean affianado and sometimes wave-crasher continues with an all too appropriate analogy, “Me personally, I like surfing. I don’t like windsurfing. And that doesn’t mean I don’t like someone who likes windsurfing, but if you go to a spot like Ho’okipa on Maui where you can see both, windsurfing is acrobatic and surfing is a pure line. So that’s what I’m looking for is pure lines within the music. “
It’s this cognizant realization of space and tonal quality that came to define the new-school, ocean-infused folk that Plunier helped shepherd into the mainstream’s greater consciousness in the nineties with the release of Ben Harper’s first records and Jack Johnson’s inaugural effort a few years behind.
Realizing that while in the studio, his job is focused on not only the technical and auditory output of the sessions at hand, Plunier is obviously aware of his responsibility to serve as an objective sounding board when, perhaps, ideas become too abundant.
“I’m not afraid of layers or layering. But sometimes it’s deceptively simple so people think, ‘Oh there’s no production here. This guy just pressed record.’ But that’s not the case. Usually there’s a breaking down period of saying look, we need to get to the core of this. So whether it’s Ben or Jack or Piers Faccini or any of the others that I’ve been lucky to work with, there’s a pre-production period in which I try to get to the essence of what the artist’s music is about and what their songwriting is about. I think it’s quite difficult for an artist to do that for himself because whether anyone wants to admit it or not, we’re all influenced by different things that we thought were bitchin’. You know Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, the Beatles, the BeeGees, whatever. But really the essence of it is when you’re in it, it’s hard to see what it is. So I try to find the pure line for the artist and in turn, help them find it.”
J.P. Plunier is the first to admit that his interests are not exclusive, nor should they be relegated alone to the production realm. Whether it is an issue of personal sanity or simply sound business practice, the man at the helms has consciously kept an open approach to all levels of artistic enterprise in an age when the recording industry’s business model itself is evolving on a daily basis.
In his pronouncement, “That’s why Everloving is both a label and a management company. It’s more and more ridiculous to try to be a label at this moment. Right now I’m much more comfortable in the role of manager which is what I used to do with Ben, because really, the return on your investment and finances is so risky at this point to put out an album. Any record that may not be a huge budget to make in the studio, but let’s say something that cost $20k… Which is not cheap, will cost you $100,000 to get it out there. And maybe 10 years ago there was some financial sense in doing that but today it’s much more precarious.”
Business quandaries and risk aside, it’s clear this scruffy and shaved-head man is ultimately concerned with a half-cup full philosophy that surrounds those he chooses to work with. Perhaps at a point in his career that he can be more selective of the projects he takes on, Plunier seems content in the moment as he discusses his most recent projects and points of inspiration.
“Right now I’m working with two bands that I think are incredible. One is the Entrance Band and the other is The Growlers. These people are bringing power; they are bringing energy and this energy is what gives me my strength and my power. Obviously it’s a two way street and I hope that I inspire them in my own way and give them courage and artistic experience to fall back on but at the same time it’s really what is bringing me inspiration at the moment. I’m always looking for people who are contesting the status quo, whatever it may be. I’m not only a contrarian although I am a contrarian by nature. The minute the general public assumes things are one way, you can be sure it’s the opposite. I’m always looking for the people that are representing something else.”
Continues Plunier, “It’s all kind of a friends network. Even the things that are more distant come through people who know us and it’s probably the same for everyone. There’s no talent scout referrals that come through or lawyers, although if that happens, it’s usually through people we know. I’m not going to give you some bullshit ‘oh its one big family story,’ but it is one big network…”
In what has over the ages becomes a mentality that one must suffer through their respective artistic endeavor to get to the core of the expression itself, J.P. Plunier is attempting to change the paradigm even if just slightly by living up to the personal philosophy of his Everloving Records. It’s this happy medium that has allowed J.P. to fly reasonably under the radar while radically impacting the general sonic state of the music industry so radically.
“It’s not a grind. It is about everloving and secondly about enjoying. There’s always difficult and frustrating moments. As I said before, just this week I had two friends that passed away, and three years ago my mom died and I spent two months with her when she was leaving. When I was really little my sister who was just 10 months younger than me died and then when I was about 3 years old my best friend and I were messing around on a bridge and he fell off and he drowned. And of course having been born in Beirut and been around Vietnam and all, it’s always been clear to me how quickly all of this can go. So I value every moment and I try never to waste it. It’s very difficult to balance life, and you try to keep a balance, but the balance doesn’t come from always being Zen. This is more Chaos Theory Buddhism.”
“There’s no limiting band-width. You have to accept the ups and downs.”
Nicholas M.H. | RootSpeak Staff
Nicholas M.H. is one of the founders of both RootSpeak and the site's parent publisher, Truth&Rights Collective. Between giving his fellow editors a hard time, he fills the remaining hours of each day with his own writing and excursions into the worlds of media cooperatives and creative consulting for various inspired upstarts.
Read more by Nicholas M.H. on RootSpeak
