Behind the waves, Jonathan finds the stories that carried him from then to now.
If Jonathan Mendez is still a new name to you, he probably won’t be for long. With guitar at the center and honesty running through every lyric, his confessional songwriting draws you into a world that is intimate, warm, and deeply personal.
That connection is especially clear on Waves, the opening track from his EP From Then To Now. With more than 52,000 streams, the song has become an early standout in his catalog, carrying his guitar-led sound and vulnerable writing to listeners far beyond the room where it began.
Across From Then To Now, Jonathan brings those memories together into one complete chapter. The EP traces where he has been, how he has grown, and the emotions that stayed with him along the way. Time to introduce an artist whose greatest strength is making his own stories feel close to yours.
DicePressPlay: For someone finding your music for the first time through this interview, who is Jonathan Mendez as an artist right now?
Jonathan Mendez: I think right now I’m an artist who’s still figuring himself out, but at the same time, I’m probably more confident in who I am than I’ve ever been. I’m a singer-songwriter who loves taking very real emotions and turning them into something someone else can hear and hopefully relate to. A lot of my music is personal. I write about love, relationships, loss, growing up, missing people, and those moments when you’re trying to understand yourself and what you’re feeling. I don’t want to hide behind complicated lyrics just for the sake of sounding poetic. If I’m feeling something, I want to be able to say it. I’m also thinking beyond releasing songs whenever I have them. I’m thinking about full projects, live performances, the kind of artist I want to become, and the catalog I want to look back on years from now. I’m still growing, learning, and chasing the dream, but I’m taking it much more seriously than I ever have before.
DicePressPlay: I know guitar is really at the center of a lot of your music. Was guitar also where songwriting started for you, or did you come into writing songs another way?
Jonathan Mendez: Guitar definitely became a huge part of songwriting for me, but I never started writing because I thought, “I’m going to become a songwriter.” It was much more natural than that. Once I started playing guitar, I realized I could take the things I was feeling and put them into something. I’d find a chord progression I liked, start messing around with melodies or lyrics, and eventually it would turn into a song. That’s still a huge part of my process today. Sometimes I’ll pick up the guitar and play until something feels right. Other times, I’ll have a lyric or a feeling in my head first and try to find the music around it. Guitar has always felt natural to me because I can sit down with it and have nothing else around me. It’s just me, the guitar, and whatever I’m feeling at that moment.
DicePressPlay: You’ve been releasing music for a few years now, but From Then To Now feels like you put a whole chapter together. When did you realize you were ready to make an EP rather than keep releasing individual songs?
Jonathan Mendez: I realized I was ready for an EP when I started noticing that the songs I was writing weren’t isolated anymore. They were coming from a similar period of my life, and even though I wasn’t intentionally writing a project at first, there was a connection between them. Before From Then To Now, I was much more focused on individual songs. I’d write something, release it, move on to the next thing, and repeat the process. Eventually, I started thinking, “What if I put these songs together and told a bigger story?” I wanted something that represented where I had been and where I was at that point in my life. Making the EP taught me that I don’t just want to release music—I want to create projects that have meaning behind them.
DicePressPlay: Let’s go all the way back to the beginning of the EP: which song on From Then To Now was written first? Do you remember where you were in your life when you wrote it?
Jonathan Mendez: The first song written for the EP was “Never Be Alone.” I wrote it when my then-girlfriend was going through a really rough time in her life, and I wanted to give her something that felt like a sweet letter. We were in a long-distance relationship, and I was trying to express how I felt about her and let her know that I wanted to be there for her. At that point, I wasn’t thinking about making an EP at all. Looking back, it’s kind of crazy that the song eventually became the beginning of a much bigger project. That’s one of the things I love about songwriting. Sometimes you don’t realize how important a song will become while you’re writing it. You’re just writing what’s on your mind and in your heart, and later you realize it was the beginning of something much bigger.
DicePressPlay: And on the other end, which song was the last one to make it onto the EP? Did that song change what the whole project meant to you?
Jonathan Mendez: The last song was actually “Waves.” By the time I wrote it, I already had an idea of what the EP was becoming. I had written most of the other songs, so I was starting to understand the bigger picture and what I wanted the project to feel like. But “Waves” shifted a lot for me. It felt different from some of the earlier songs, but somehow it made everything else make more sense. I wrote it knowing it had a specific place within the bigger story. It became the last piece of the project, but in a way, it also became one of the songs that defined the EP. Seeing how it has connected with people since then makes it even more special because I never could’ve predicted what “Waves” would eventually become.
DicePressPlay: I really like the title From Then To Now because it immediately sounds like there’s a story behind it. What exactly are the “then” and the “now” for you?
Jonathan Mendez: The “then” represents the person I was when those songs were being written—the things I was feeling, the experiences I was going through, the people I cared about, and a version of myself that didn’t understand everything yet. The “now” is me looking back at all of that with a different perspective. It doesn’t mean I’ve figured everything out, because I definitely haven’t. It’s more about growth. I’m not the same person I was when those songs were written. I’ve experienced more, learned more about myself, and become more comfortable expressing things I probably would’ve kept inside before. From Then To Now is about that transition. It’s like taking a snapshot of who I was and placing it next to who I am now.
QUICKFIRES
Two questions. No overthinking.
PACK THE CAR
DicePressPlay: You get one guitar, one album, and one snack for a ridiculously long road trip. What are you bringing?
Jonathan Mendez: The guitar is easy: I’m bringing my Orangewood guitar. If I’m stuck on a ridiculously long road trip, I need a guitar with me because I’d probably end up writing half a song somewhere along the way anyway. For the album, I’d take Ed Sheeran’s Divide. I’ve listened to it so many times, and there’s something about his songwriting that I can always come back to. For the snack, honestly, I’d go with Cheetos. I’ve been eating them recently, and I can’t get enough. I know we’re supposed to be thinking about the artistic choices here, but I’m going to be hungry eventually, so I need to be realistic.
THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY
DicePressPlay: Be dangerous for a second: what are three massively popular songs from three different artists you wish you had written?
Jonathan Mendez: Oh man, that’s a hard one. This is dangerous 😂. There are so many songs where I’ve thought, “Damn, I wish I wrote that.” I’d probably say “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran, “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi, and “Ordinary” by Alex Warren. “Perfect” is probably the most obvious one because I love how simple it is. It’s such a beautiful love song, and it says exactly what it needs to say without trying too hard. With “Someone You Loved,” the emotion is right there. I love songs that can take something personal and make you feel it even if you’ve never experienced the exact same thing. “Ordinary” is such a masterpiece, in my opinion. It’s a love song you can’t stop listening to, especially when it starts building up and up halfway through. It’s one of my favorites.
DicePressPlay: What does your actual songwriting process look like? Do you usually start with a guitar progression, a melody, one lyric that won’t leave you alone, or does it change from song to song?
Jonathan Mendez: Honestly, it changes all the time. I don’t have one specific formula. Sometimes I’ll be playing guitar and find a chord progression that immediately gives me a feeling. I’ll start humming something and then try to find words that fit the melody. Other times, I’ll have one lyric stuck in my head and build the entire song around that line. Sometimes I’ll be going through something emotionally and think, “I need to write this down.” Those are usually the songs where I don’t feel like I’m forcing anything. Guitar is probably still my biggest starting point, but I’ve learned not to force myself into one process. Every song kind of tells me what it needs.
DicePressPlay: Where do your songs usually come from emotionally? Are you writing directly from things that happened to you, or do you sometimes take one real feeling and turn it into a completely different story?
Jonathan Mendez: A lot of my songs come from real emotions and experiences, especially when it comes to relationships, love, missing people, or moments when I’m trying to understand how I feel about something. But every song isn’t necessarily a literal retelling of my life. Sometimes I’ll take one feeling and turn it into a completely different story. That’s one of the coolest things about songwriting. Something can be incredibly personal to me when I write it, but once I put it into the world, someone else can hear it and attach their own experience to it. I can write something because of one specific moment in my life, and someone I’ve never met can hear it and say, “I’ve felt that too.”
DicePressPlay: Your lyrics are usually very direct, but the melodies still stick immediately. Do you consciously try to keep your writing simple and clear, or is that naturally how you communicate?
Jonathan Mendez: I think it’s partly conscious and partly how I naturally communicate. I’ve always loved songwriting where you can hear a lyric once and immediately understand what the person is feeling. I don’t want to make something complicated just because I can. I’m definitely influenced by artists like Ed Sheeran, especially that singer-songwriter style where the guitar, melody, and lyrics can work together without hiding behind a lot of unnecessary things. If I can say something honestly and simply and it still hits someone emotionally, that’s more powerful to me than making every lyric overly complicated. Sometimes the simplest thing you can say is actually the hardest thing to say.
DicePressPlay: With such clear lyrics, I think there can sometimes be more pressure because every word is exposed. Are you someone who rewrites lyrics over and over, or do your best lines usually arrive pretty quickly?
Jonathan Mendez: It’s honestly both. Sometimes I’ll get a line and immediately know, “That’s the line.” Other times, I’ll write something and later realize it doesn’t say what I want it to say. I definitely rewrite. There’s this romantic idea that a songwriter should sit down and magically write a perfect song in ten minutes, but that’s not really how it works for me. Sometimes the first version is the emotional version, and rewriting helps me communicate that emotion better. But I also try not to overthink something to the point where I lose what made it special in the first place.
DicePressPlay: “Waves” opens From Then To Now, but it also has a life of its own as a single. Why did it feel like the right song to introduce the EP?
Jonathan Mendez: “Waves” felt like the right introduction because it represented the kind of songwriter I wanted people to meet. It captures a lot of what I love about my music—the guitar, the melody, the emotion, and lyrics that are pretty direct. It could introduce the world of the EP without giving everything away. At the same time, “Waves” wasn’t just there to serve the EP. It became something people could connect with independently, which was really special to me. Looking back, I’m happy that was the song that opened the door.
DicePressPlay: “Waves” has now passed 52,000 Spotify streams. For an independent singer-songwriter, that’s a lot of individual people pressing play. What does seeing a number like that mean to you?
Jonathan Mendez: Honestly, it still feels kind of surreal. When I make a song, especially as an independent artist, I’m usually sitting in my own little world creating it. I’m not thinking about 52,000 different people eventually pressing play. The number is exciting, but what means even more is knowing that the song traveled outside my immediate circle. Someone who doesn’t know me personally found the music and decided to listen. That’s the part that motivates me. It makes me want to keep creating and see how far I can take this.
DicePressPlay: Was there a moment when you realized people outside your own circle were actually finding “Waves”?
Jonathan Mendez: Yeah, I got a DM on Instagram from someone I didn’t know, and I remember thinking, “Wait, you don’t know me.” They told me they had stumbled upon the song, related to it on a deeper level, and were going to keep replaying it on their playlist. I was sitting there like, “Oh man, this is insane.” I even told my mom, “Mom? A stranger listened to my song.” That was an eye-opener for me. It was the moment it started feeling real that the song had moved beyond my own circle.
DicePressPlay: I saw Technique Records listed on your releases, but there isn’t much information about it online. What exactly is Technique Records, and why did you decide to create that name for your music?
Jonathan Mendez: This is actually a funny one because Technique Records isn’t a record label I’m signed to. I came up with the name myself as a way of giving my independent music an identity or banner. I wanted something that represented the music I was putting out and the world I was building around it, so Technique Records is basically my own independent artist imprint rather than a traditional label. I handle a lot of the creative decisions behind my music myself, and I liked the idea of giving that side of my career a name. When you see Technique Records connected to my releases, it represents the fact that I’m building this from the ground up myself.
DicePressPlay: As an independent artist, what does “independent” mean in your day-to-day life?
Jonathan Mendez: For me, it means I’m very involved in the decisions behind my music—the songwriting, the direction of my projects, the visuals, releases, promotion, performances, and figuring out how I want to build my career. But being independent doesn’t mean I do absolutely everything alone. I’ve met musicians, producers, photographers, artists, and people through performances who have helped me along the way. That’s one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned: you can have your own vision while still building a team around you. I’m independent, but I’m not trying to stay small. I want to grow.
DicePressPlay: You’re from the Bronx and have been performing around New York, which is such a different experience from sitting alone and writing a song. Do you remember the first time you performed one of your originals and thought, “Okay, maybe I can actually do this”?
Jonathan Mendez: My first performance was at an open mic at a bar in downtown Brooklyn. I found it while scrolling through social media looking for places to perform. It was a Sunday afternoon, and everyone got around 15 minutes to perform original music. After listening to the other artists, I was called up to the stage. I remember feeling incredibly nervous because there’s something completely different about performing a song you wrote yourself. When you’re alone with your guitar, the song belongs to you. The second you perform it in front of people, you’re giving it away a little bit. But after I finished and realized people were actually listening, something clicked. I remember thinking, “Maybe I can actually do this.” I didn’t walk away thinking I had everything figured out, but it gave me enough confidence to keep doing it.
DicePressPlay: Your songs are already pretty intimate on record, so I’m curious about what happens live. Does performing them in a room full of people change your relationship with the songs?
Jonathan Mendez: Oh, absolutely. Performing a song live is completely different from recording it. When you’re recording, you’re thinking about the microphone, production, guitar, vocals, and all those little details. When you’re performing, you’re standing in front of actual people, and suddenly the song becomes a shared experience. Sometimes I’ll perform something and realize the audience connects with a completely different part of it than I expected. That’s one of my favorite things about performing. Once I release a song, it isn’t only mine anymore. People can attach their own memories and experiences to it. That’s really special to me.
DicePressPlay: You’re now working toward your first full-length album, which feels like a big next chapter after From Then To Now. What are you discovering about yourself as a songwriter this time around?
Jonathan Mendez: I’m discovering that I’m not as afraid to let myself grow anymore. With From Then To Now, I was documenting a particular period of my life. With this next project, I’m thinking more intentionally about what I want the music to say and how I want the songs to exist together. I’m still very much a singer-songwriter, and I don’t want to lose the simplicity and honesty that made me fall in love with songwriting. But I’m also thinking more about production, atmosphere, how different songs can tell different parts of the same story, and how I want people to feel when they listen from beginning to end. I’m becoming more comfortable writing about things that aren’t easy to explain. I’m learning that I don’t always need to have the answer before I write the song. Sometimes the song is how I figure out the answer. I’m not trying to become a completely different artist. I’m trying to become a more complete version of the artist I already am.
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