John Enghauser
Breaking Barriers & Broken Hearts
By: Adam Bernard
Last updated March 22nd , 2010

Singer/songwriter John Enghauser has witnessed the true power of music. "I love to travel abroad," he says, "and there have been some specific situations where I've played, even just me singing with my guitar, breaking down communication barriers." He recalls one time in Myanmar (formerly Burma), when he was playing his guitar for a group of kids and "they just ate it up like it was the coolest thing they'd ever seen, and they didn't speak a lick of English." According the Enghauser, "those are the kind of moments that you draw from more so than your standard, straight ahead, gigs."

It hasn't always been smiling kids and happy times for Enghauser, though. He's quick to point out that sometimes the best art comes from the harshest pain and his latest album, Lost in the Pages, is a testament to this as it was greatly inspired by a major breakup he was going through. "As they say, you'll never write a good song until you go through some strife in your life, and sure enough it just turned on the creative machine once it happened."

Creativity is something Enghauser embraces, but it's another "C" word that he was worried about potentially embodying by writing about a breakup - "cliche." "It's really not unique," he says of the topic of breakup. "This is something that everybody goes through in their lives." With that in mind Enghauser came up with the title Lost in the Pages. "Things like this have been documented from the dawn of time, relationships not working out. The idea is we make such a big deal out of it, but we're just sort of lost in the pages."

A true veteran of the music scene, Enghauser, who is originally from Michigan but now resides in the Bay Area, has been writing and performing for two decades. Formerly the front man for both Jamawokee and Jeng, Enghauser says creating his solo release involved a major change from the way he'd normally worked. "For the first time in a long time, I wasn't writing with a band in mind," he explains, "I was just writing for me, period, because I was playing all the parts. When you're in a band you're thinking, 'Ok, this is something I can hear my guitarist playing, this is something I can hear my bassist playing,' and thinking of the sound of the band." This made the writing process for Lost in the Pages a "free thing," for Enghauser who adds Lost in the Pages was a departure for him in another way, as well; he wrote it exclusively on the acoustic guitar rather than the piano, as he had traditionally done.

According to Enghauser, his key to songwriting success is that he lets the music write itself. "When I come up with an idea and I like it I run with it," he explains, "I let the song take me in a direction as opposed to the other way around." Thanks to a long list of influences that includes everyone from Stevie Wonder, to Steely Dan, to Weather Report, to Jamiroquai, Enghauser says "one tune you might hear some of my funk, soul, or jazz influences coming through and then on another tune you might hear some heavier stuff, or some progressive rock."

In terms of his output, Enghauser is reaching for quite the ambitious goal. "I'm chasing Stevie Wonder," he says with a laugh, "he writes a song a day, so I'm working on, like, a song a week. Although it's probably looking more like one every two to three weeks at this point."

Even with another album already written, Enghauser isn't about to let Lost in the Pages get lost in the shuffle. He plans to work the album for the rest of 2010, saying "I hope that it's something that can touch some people's souls."



To check out or purchase Lost In The Pages, click here.

[Tags] Alternative, Rock

Recent Related Articles