Jonathan and Ethan Lacey perform at a concert at Lee Harvey’s. Photography by Lauren Allen.
Quality time for Jonathan Lacey and son Ethan is spent on stage, rocking out in front of audiences across Dallas.
Jonathan, who goes by “Johnny Tone” on stage, serves as the frontman and guitarist for Club Wood, a funky New Orleans jazz outfit that has played around Dallas since 2009.
“Music was a salvation for me,” Johnny says. “It gave me a purpose when other people around me didn’t have it”
Johnny moved to Dallas as a kid in 1973, and he cites the loud rock ’n’ roll scene of the time as his introduction to the industry. They live in East Dallas.
“The Rolling Stones came to Texas to play the Cotton Bowl in 1975,” he says. “I saw Keith Richards walk out on stage and knew that was what I wanted to do.”
Johnny worked as a studio musician in New York City during his 20s, before finding his way back to Dallas, meeting his future wife, Chris, in 2001 and having Ethan later the same year.
“I’m a very rudimentary player, very uneducated and primitive in my execution,” Johnny says. “I wanted Ethan to get exposed early and get active.”
Ethan took his surroundings quickly, diving deep into classical saxophone in fifth grade.
“I was always around it,” Ethan says. “Once I got a little older, it felt like that seed was planted, and it started to grow.”
Ethan took his saxophone talents to Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, and he began to produce and release his own music online.
During the COVID lockdown, he began listening to classic jazz as well as modern electronic music, eventually blending the two in original music he has released online during the past few years.
“I felt a longing for some sort of outlet to create,” Ethan says. “My dad and I are both weird people, and we both have things we’re dealing with. Music and art are our way of dealing with just that.”
As father and son, and as occasional on-stage partners, Johnny and Ethan have spent years learning from each other and feeding off each other’s artistic energies.
“I don’t play much around the house anymore because I don’t want to embarrass my son,” Johnny says. “I want my son to think I’m cool, I don’t want him to hear me struggle through some of the most inane stuff.
“But he’s gotten good at pushing me, and I’ve gotten good at being more accepting of it.”
