Sometimes connections with people I have the opportunity to interview come from unforeseen places. I honestly don’t remember how and when Kendall Johnson’s wife (Sheila) first reached out to me, but their friendship with Paul Greene is what eventually drew us together. This past summer, Kendall and I took some time for an engaging chat, and I am honored and privileged to be able to share him and his story with my readers today.

RH: Kendall, it’s so nice to get to chat with you.

KJ: Ruth, I am humble and grateful for the interview.

Well, you can thank your amazing wife for alerting me to you and your talents. I love to highlight those in the background, but sometimes it’s hard to know who I should contact. And interestingly enough, I regularly hear people complain about the music in movies or shows, or on the flip side, they’ll say how much they enjoyed it. I don’t know if people always realize just how important music can be in these productions.

I agree. Music is definitely part of telling the story. It does tend to set the mood or the tone.

As a vocal music major and a former music teacher, it’s great for me to chat with someone who has a rich musical background.

Oh, that’s awesome. Voice is the one musical gift I don’t have. I can play a lot of musical instruments, but the one thing I can’t do is sing.

Well, I can play the piano passably. I took years of piano and was pretty advanced, but I am not a confident pianist nor a sight reader. I’ve played around with other instruments, but singing is my real gift in music. So then, Kendall, how did you get started in music?

I’m from Southern Alberta, and I grew up in a family that just loved music. My mom and dad both played piano for years and years, and I kind of grew into that. I remember in first and second grade that my parents insisted on me taking piano lessons. Then after a few years that I told them I didn’t want to play the piano anymore; I wanted to play the guitar. But my parents insisted that I would not be playing the guitar. I was expected to play the piano. Somehow, we made a compromise, and for a time, I was able to play the saxophone for a few years. I don’t know how that was middle ground.

Eventually, a couple years later, my mom bought me my first guitar. At that point, I was obsessed with Metallica. I wanted to be in the band, and I intended to be this rocker guy. For about twelve years, me and a couple other guys formed a Christian band called Submission. That was when I was in junior high/high school, and it continued after I graduated as well. Our goal was to bring hope and a good, positive message to others through our music. And that’s how I got into writing music.

In 2003-2004, we moved to New York for a little bit, and we had hopes of making it as a band. We actually were at Paul Greene’s place for a while. In fact, I was in this band for twelve years with Ryan Boles, and he just happens to be Paul’s cousin. That’s how I got to know Paul and where the small-world connection comes in. While in New York, our band actually got to perform at CBGB’s before it shut down, which is really kind of cool.

When that was over, we moved to Vancouver for a number of years. We had a lot of great opportunities. We got to open for some great groups like Theory of the Deadman and others. Some relationship stuff happened within the band. As I look back now…we had this goal as a band that we wanted to be Christ-centered and put out a positive message, but it definitely didn’t come to that. If I’m truthful and honest with myself, as I look back on those times when I was 19/20/21, I wanted to be Kendall the rocker. I wanted to be the typical rock star. I can look back and think of many moments that show me now why doors were closing back then.

My relationship with Paul does span two decades. Being from Lethbridge, Alberta Canada, we would frequently see each other multiple times a year and as I mentioned, I stayed with him in New York and Los Angeles.  In fact, his son {Ollie} is the first baby I held and babysat!  He has been a positive mentor for me at key moments of my life and I am forever grateful for the friendship we have and continue to develop.

But I’ve always had a passion for film music and the emotion it captures. I remember Jurassic Park was one where I listened to the theme of the movie all the time.

Around 2006, after the band broke up, I was with my now-wife at the time thinking about different paths and stuff I wanted to do, and I was going to Vancouver Film School. I was in more of a sound design program, but I was broadly focused on music for film. It was pretty nice. I kind of taught myself the whole music for film type thing in that setting. Everyone who had final projects or any kind of projects would come to me, and I got to do a lot of music for film that way. That’s where I fine-tuned a lot of my playing and learned a lot. I graduated in 2008.

Shortly after that, someone was telling me that one of the best ways to get into the industry is to be an assistant for a composer. About that time, there was someone who represented Shawn Patterson, who wrote “Everything Is Awesome” for The Lego Movie. I have known Shawn for about ten years now. He was so open and welcoming. So I got introduced to him, and he thought he’d love to show me the ropes. We were in Washington at the time, but he lived in LA. He worked in tandem from LA. This was while Sheila was finishing up school. It was great getting that real industry experience. It was hard work. Shawn is an awesome guy, but he is tough and truthful. He tells it like it is, and it’s easy to take what he is saying as, “That guy’s being a jerk.” He’s truly not. He’s originally from Massachusetts, so he has that east coast, tell-it-like-it-is personality. I worked on some Nickelodeon stuff with him and learned some of the ropes.

After that, we ended up moving back to Minnesota in 2009. We were debating about moving to Los Angeles or what we were going to do after Sheila graduated. This was the time when the whole financial crisis was happening. People were looking for jobs anywhere, but they were hard to come by. We weren’t convinced that LA was a good spot for us at that point. We went down to visit and stayed with Paul while he was in LA. Paul showed us some stuff, and as we looked around, we still weren’t sure that this was what we wanted to do. So we ended up moving to Minnesota where Sheila is originally from.

Over the years since, I’ve done a lot of stuff through the contacts I’ve made through film school. I’ve done some documentaries. One of my really close friends, who lives in Seattle now, worked on doing the sound design for Hero 5. And we have done tons of TV stuff for Mexico. People are surprised that I’ve done a lot of Mexican stuff, but it’s probably some of the best experiences I’ve had. It’s a different world. I don’t speak Spanish, so we didn’t always know what was going on. But usually, you sit down with people and you do some notes with the director. Those sessions are where they tell you how they’d like the music and the mood to be and anything else that they want. In fact, sometimes they’re like, “We’re not really sure so go nuts.” It is a skill that I have learned quickly by the grace of God. In fact, it would seem that God has given me a very good intuition, and because that is something you just can’t teach, I attribute all that to God. By using that God-given skill, I am able to help tell the story and emotionally impact people. I was also able to work on a film that went to the very prestigious Cannes Film Festival, and that was really cool.

Then the last two or three years, I started working with Shawn again on The Adventures of Puss and Boots which is a Netflix Original. This series was actually nominated for an  Emmy.

Sometimes when I look back to where I was and to where I am now as a musician, I realize that everything along the way helped me to grow as a musician, but it was definitely a grind for both of us. The quality and demands of the music have been an amazing experience. Tough stuff, but a wonderful opportunity.

Currently, I’m a director of worship arts at a church. I oversee all the audio and video and create a lot of video content. If there’s testimonies or special things, that falls under my jurisdiction as well.  I direct new videos for Christmas and then again for Easter. My ace up the sleeve when I do all these videos is that I write all the music to them, so I feel like that adds the much-needed emotional touch to everything. When it comes to movies and TV, many people in the industry are good at telling a story, editing a video to tell a story, and maybe even directing. For me, while I feel I’m pretty good at all those skills, but let me add that music into it and that’s my ace in the sleeve.

Kendall, you did a great job of explaining how you got started, so thanks. You made my task very easy. I really like what you said about Shawn Patterson and how he just tells it like it is. If it’s someone you respect, that’s what you want to and need to hear. And that’s a quality you don’t always see in this world. People don’t always like criticism, but even I get tired of people telling me how good something is when I know it’s not. 

Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more.

So can you tell me more about The Adventures of Puss In Boots? I am not familiar with that. 

There are seventy-seven total episodes on Netflix right now, and I have been able to contribute music for about forty of them.

So I’m assuming that music is something you still want to do in the film industry.

Yes, I’ve thought over the past year and wondered, “Is this something I’m called to do?” I think we all have different areas we can go, but for me, it always comes back to music. When I write stuff and do stuff in music, I’m always very confident. I get very emotional when I start working on this music, and I know God is working through me to write that particular piece of music. When I think about future stuff, what I want to do more than anything else is emotionally impact people through music.

Sometimes people wonder if writing this kind of music is the same process as writing other music. And well, it’s a yes and no answer. I know some musicians who compose music for big movies. If they go to the theater and hears people humming the tune from the movie all around the theater or if they are just captivated by the music, those are pats on the back for many film composers.

For me, it’s not about me. A big portion of my life, it was about me and how I wanted to be a big, famous guy. But now my outlook has definitely changed for the better. If somehow the music I’ve written has impacted a person emotionally to think about something in their life, that’s what I want. For me, I want people to be able to think, “Wow, that just spoke to me.” Maybe this character they’re seeing has spoken to them. Is this character like me? Is there something in my life that I need to work through or work on? Or what is that saying to me?

Or like when I think about a faith-based film like Paul, the Apostle of Christ. My dream is to work on movies like that. It has nothing to do with fame or money. I just want to be a part of telling stories like that. Or movies like God’s Not Dead. I feel that I have a gift that can help enhance the story. Please understand that I don’t want to discredit any other composers. For a long time, Christian music is something that has been deemed in regular society as “okay,” but it’s often not considered the best music. There’s Christian bands, and then there’s every other band. There’s a few standout artists, but mostly Christian music is just considered mediocre.  There’s a lot of Christian movies where the movies are great, but I’ll listen to the music and wonder how I would have scored or written it differently. I would love to come alongside other people involved in those films and use my gifts. I’d love to enhance another project, and that is an opportunity I continue to pray for.

I understand what you’re saying, Kendall. I’ve seen a lot of these inspirational movies, and with something like I Can Only Imagine, of course, I’ll remember the music. There’s a reason. But with most of them, I cannot even recall the music. I think sometimes in these kinds of films, music appears to be a little bit of an afterthought. Inspirational films have definitely improved in that area, and it is a blessing to the Christian community and beyond. I think using your gifts in that area would be amazing. 

As an example, I mention someone like Hans Zimmer. While I don’t know him as a person, I look up to him. What he’s done in the music industry has been phenomenal. And the guy is totally invested in the story and telling that story through the music. I don’t know what other composers in film music do, but I would love to use my passions and gifts to create something like that in the Christian world where I would be invested. Even though this is a Christian movie, let’s make it on the same level as the movies in the world. We don’t have to pull back just because it’s Christian. I want people to be able to walk away and say “Wow! That was powerful!”

So, Kendall, how does your faith figure into all of this? 

Well, my faith, my relationship with Jesus is the central part of it. For me, I’ve found success and I’ve found relationships in someone like Shawn and other people. I know the world tries to tell you that you don’t have to put up with someone who’s criticizing your work. They try to convince you that you don’t deserve that. You can do it on your own. But from a Jesus perspective, He calls us to show love and to be humble and to serve. When dealing with someone like Shawn who is telling me like it is and trying to help me improve, when I am humble and respond in love, it helps me become better. As soon as I get in that mindset that says, “I don’t deserve this. I’m better than this.” That’s when I lose that opportunity to grow.

So as I go forward helping others, it’s not about me.  It’s not Kendall’s movie where I’m gonna write some music and make it the best it’s ever been. It’s about serving my abilities. It’s very important that I am humble and see my role as serving the production by helping to tell the story. I think this is what will help me find success going forward. Now, I realize that I’m not cutthroat in the way I pursue my career, so I might lose out on some opportunities. But I believe God will provide me with gigs. I’m not going to be this heartless, ruthless person. I’ve seen that in the industry and others I’ve worked with. Maybe they get opportunities that I don’t, but I don’t care. I’m not gonna be that guy.

Are there any charities or causes that you feel strongly about?

So I understand you have a great opportunity you’re currently working on.

Recently, Paul and I reconnected, and he asked me to compose the music for his short film, Love Her Madly. And that’s exactly what I’m doing. It’s been great to hang out with him, and I’m so grateful for this opportunity. I think I’m just about done with the music.

That’s great Kendall! So happy for you. And I want to tell you that we are hopeful for more opportunities for you. It would be amazing. Thank you for sharing your heart today.

Ruth, thank you for being willing to reach out and listen to my story. Everything I do is for God.  I wouldn’t be where I am today without His grace.  My prayer is that God continues to use the music I write to emotionally impact those that hear it.

When I have the occasion to spotlight someone like Kendall, it is an exceptional reminder of why I do what I do. I understand and value his candor as it is the simplest thing in the world to become absorbed with all the elements of this business that don’t matter–popularity, fame, fortune, numbers, status, etc. There is nothing like show business to remind you of the fact that there will always be someone better than you. Or maybe that arch-rival will be waiting in the wings to seize the job you were just offered. Oftentimes, show business boasts twice as many broken promises than kept promises on any given day. It is a universe that can devour you if you’re not circumspect and pragmatic. In truth, the candor with which Kendall shared is a characteristic I find particularly inspiring and humbling. In recent years, his purpose and calling have returned to the forefront of his heart, and without total dependence upon God, there is no doubt that he would be in an intensely sullen place in spite of any success he might otherwise attain. His commitment to his faith, his family, and his craft is a rewarding combination that may not earn him a spot on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but it will merit him the enduring variety of success that comes with a job well done while impacting people’s lives in a tangible, heartfelt way. 

If you have not had the opportunity to check out Kendall’s works, I would invite you to visit the links below and follow him via social media if you are so inclined. I am thrilled to know that Paul Greene has enlisted the expertise of this fellow artist and friend to help him with the completion of this short film about which I know Paul is quite passionate. As Kendall awaits his next production in which he will unquestionably use his skills to affect people in a profound manner, I can only pray for an outpouring of blessings from above on both Kendall and his wife as they continue the pursuance of every dream and desire within their minds and hearts. Moreover, what a joy it is for those of us on this side of the camera to heartily cheer them on from the sidelines!

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