Johnny Kovacs
Steel-town rockabilly. Gospel organ, slapback swagger.
Bethlehem-Born
Third-generation Bethlehem steel: his grandfather Béla fled Budapest in '56 and was pouring metal by spring; his father fed the blast furnace for thirty-two years, until the plant went cold in 1995. Johnny Kovacs came up between two funerals — the mill's and his father's — taught himself to code off a public-library dial-up line, and in 1999 drove west with a six-string and no forwarding address, landing in Silicon Valley just in time for the dot-com crash. He writes his hometown songs about a character named Josh — the priesthood his mother promised him to, and which he declined — and fronts a weekend bar band called The Counteroffers. Slapback guitar, upright bass, a dirty church organ, and a spoken benediction at the end of every track.
"Bitter? They taught me to read. Ain't their fault I finished the book."
"Josh can have my hometown. He can't have my Social Security number."
Discography
Play the discography — or tap a cassette for that track.
Appears On
TITAN — the label’s titanium cycle, one element handed to the whole roster. Johnny hauled it back to the mill floor with “I Will Work Harder”: Boxer’s motto welded to the Stakhanovite hero-poster — one man in the picture, ten men underground.
Baby, gib Gas — a little theology of acceleration, Johnny Cash refracted through German. Johnny built the missing 1977 Gunter Gabriel center — throttle floored, Currywurst on the dashboard — the one song the whole crossing runs on.