Sweden Loves Jon Strand – Indianapolis Monthly
For several years, Jon Strand has shared his music with Indianapolis listeners and played on large and small stages as a member of the electronic pop duo COASTL. But now, through the most unexpected circumstances, the Hoosier native has found himself gaining a new audience of fans abroad, thanks to his participation in the much-loved Swedish reality TV series Everything for Sweden.
Currently five episodes in season 10, Everything for Sweden documents experiences and stories for 10 Americans of Swedish descent when they trace their family roots all over Sweden. Although the show concentrates on the place and origins of the ancestors, it still contains a competition element, where a person is sent home each episode after competing in challenges ranging from memory puzzle games to race cars on an off-road clay track.
Still in the program until episode 5, Strand wants to move on to Everything for Sweden the final, which airs March 6. As a grand prize, the winner of the Emmy-winning show gets a Swedish family reunion, where the program hunts all their living relatives in Sweden and takes them in for a party. (Even though the program has already been filmed, Strand can not contractually reveal how far he will go in season 10 of Everything for Sweden until the last episode has aired.)
With a father who worked for the famous evangelist Billy Graham, Strand and his family moved a lot during his childhood, where Strand attended three different middle schools and three different high schools. He graduated from Hamilton Southeastern High School and humorously remembers the first time he decided to try playing music.
“When I was 16, I saw an Abercrombie commercial with a guy playing guitar surrounded by girls,” he says with a laugh. “I was thinking, ‘This is how you do it!’
In the years to come, Strand gave the singer-songwriter and alto rock tracks a try, before eventually landing on the arena of electronic pop music. Both producers in their own right, Strand and Dustin Franklin joined forces in 2014 to start their current project, COASTL, which has opened up for such tent names as Ludacris and Panic! at the disco. Recently, Strand has also started collaborating with other local artists such as Etta Marie and Jason Aaron Coons, and invited them to a studio he built near Thunderbird on Fountain Square to practice songs.
“The best investment is if you invest in other people,” says Strand. “Invest in yourself and invest in people you really believe in. It will give a much higher return than the stock market. So we’ve used this studio to develop a couple of artists that we think are really good.”
Sweden’s most popular reality soap, Everything for Sweden had over 1.5 million people listen to its season 10 debut, an episode in which Indianapolis appears prominently thanks to Strand. With this in mind, the Indy artist intends to continue to showcase the music he has been working on for this new set of interested ears.
“I’m just used to flying under the radar in Indianapolis,” Strand says. “Not because it’s crazy fame, but it now takes a while for me every day to just respond to all the Facebook and Instagram messages I get. It’s just been this incredible outpouring of love from the country.”
Although the show has given his music career a boost, Strand also admits that he returned home to Indianapolis after his Everything for Sweden experience feeling more satisfied with oneself as well.
“I came from there with a deeper understanding of who I am when I found out that there are things with me that go back generations, like some of these traits of perseverance,” says Strand. “It has not been an easy path for me in life when it comes to losing loved ones, and even music. But I found out that people in my family … they just insist. They push and keep going. “It’s me to a T. I just will not give up.”