My Siblings Were My Only Friends As A Child – Johnny Drille

MAVIN Records artiste Johnny Drille, may seem different to a lot of people given his sound and style of music. Coming from a background of Christian and country music, growing up as the child of Pastor parents, the talented alternative artiste shares his ordeal and how all that shaped the person his fans know and love today in this interview with EELive

He said: “My family was very conservative, so there was not a lot of going out. We went out like during Christmas to have fun and almost never went out again till the next Christmas. It was a very tight up-bringing, they didn’t want us to go out so we don’t get injured or socialize with the wrong set of people. So we were always locked up inside, which was fun because we had ourselves, my brother, my sister and I. I remember at midnight when there was no light, we would just stick our legs out through the gates and just sing away through the night. Once in a while we got to go out and play with the other kids.”

Sharing how his name was coined; the artiste cheerily shared how confused he had been about a choice of name for quite a while; “I wish there was some fancy meaning or origin to the name, but there really isn’t. At some point, I was switching names; I was Johnny Vince and then I was Johnny Wills, it so happened that by the time I jumped to Johnny Drille my music began to gain more attention. I know it’s not a very Nigerian sounding name and then the music itself doesn’t help when you hear it, except for the pidgin English I infuse which some people  have said they think is a white man trying to sing in pidgin. My real name is not Johnny Drille, it’s John Ighodaro, but you know it’s going to be mouth-full if the radio presenter wants to announce it.”

Reminiscing on the most significant moment in his career so far, Johnny Drille shared; “If I had to look back at my life and pick one significant moment, I would say what I will forever remember is having my parents at my first concert, with so many other Johnny Drille fans. It just made me feel like all that investment they made, all that sacrifice – pastor parents allowing you to do love songs – the freedom, the support because they helped me get my first studio equipment. I started with the church computer and then my dad bought me my first laptop which was stolen and mum my replaced. They helped me get my first set of monitors. I just really felt blessed and I was really happy that they were proud of me. I felt awesome.”

Johnny Drille recently released a song in honour of Father’s day aptly titled “Papa”