John Summit Details His Rapid Rise at Billboard Live Music Summit: ‘If You Don’t Know the Rules, You Can’t Break Them’

When the music world was shutting down for most artists in 2020, it was just gearing up for John Summit.

At Thursday’s Billboard Live Music Summit, Summit and his manager, Metatone’s Holt Harmon, joined a panel discussion titled “Inside the Rise of John Summit,” moderated by Billboard‘s Katie Bain, to detail how they managed to take the dance world by storm over the past four years.

Summit’s Billboard-charting career began in 2020 with “Deep End,” which peaked at No. 26 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs that year. Since then, he’s racked up his first two top 10 hits on the chart — “Where You Are” and “Shiver” (both peaking at No. 8 and both with singer Hayla) — and crisscrossed the globe to play the biggest festivals, set up shop in dance havens like Ibiza and Las Vegas, and wow crowds around the world.

Below, find highlights from Summit and Harmon’s conversation, starting from the beginning of their journey through the release of his first full-length album Comfort in Chaos over the summer.

No Rules

Holt Harmon: “Part of the beauty of working with young people and being young ourselves is, nobody had put a title on what we were already. So honestly, it was like the beauty of the unknown and the beauty of being able to tackle anything — not living by rules that we didn’t know about.”

John Summit: “If you don’t know the rules, you can’t break them.”

Picking Up During Shutdown

Summit: “I just knew that the whole world was online because everyone was stuck at home. So I was doing streams every single day, posting every single day, sharing my music, sharing the process. … I think a lot of artists took it as a time to relax and see their families for once. But because I was living in my mom’s basement at the time — shout-out Tamara in the crowd! — she kept me fed while I cooked the beats.” [Laughs]

Harmon: “COVID was kind of like the great reset. It’s like, anybody who was leaning or — I hate to put it like this — but anybody who was being lazy and leaning on touring, and that was their entire career, not putting out great music, not putting out great art, but just leaning on that they could tour, didn’t have that to lean on anymore. Didn’t have that crutch. So it more or less reset the industry.”

Changing It Up

Harmon: “You come to a John Summit show, expect the unexpected. He’s gonna play whatever he wants stylistically. He might throw dubstep in. He’s gonna throw drum and bass in. He’s gonna do his thing. … For me, it’s so cool to watch him be able to be like a chameleon. But it allows him to do different things and not get pigeonholed.”

Summit: “That’s where I think songwriting really comes into play, that I can change the productions for a song. … I think kind of changing around the production for songs and adapting, but then also, you know, staying true to yourself.”

His Second Home…To a Point

Summit: “What makes Vegas so nice is that I do 20 days a year, and it’s a different crowd every single weekend. You can’t do like 20 weekends in Chicago, because it would just be the same. Because [Vegas is] a tourist destination, much like Ibiza. That’s what keeps it really fun and entertaining, that keeps things fresh, and the hospitality is so great there that I feel like it’s a second home for me. … But it would my hell if all I did was a residency and it was the same thing every weekend, so that does freak me out.”