One Night In Stereo
- Kassia Skorzewska
- Apr 23, 2023
- 8 min read
Growing up in a music-loving family, Jon Shoer was introduced to music at a young age, through his parents and his older brother.
“My mom always had music in the car, records in the house, and at a young age, the first music I really got into was stuff that my mom listened to, which was like Celine Dion and Barbara Streisand and the BeeGees,” said Shoer.
“My older brother, Mike, he started listening to rock music like Marilyn Manson, Green Day, Del Amitri, Nirvana, stuff like that, and that was a huge, huge influence on me,” he added.
In the seventh grade, Shoer’s brother took him to his first local punk show, which led to his love for punk music.
“Punk music, that is what grabbed me, and I got really into punk-rock stuff like Pennywise, the Dead Kennedys, and from there that got into more contemporary, hard-core,” said Shoer.
Throughout his childhood, Shoer was also immersed in musical instruments, and has played the recorder (in third grade, for school), the piano, guitar, bass, drums, and the trombone.
“I got my first guitar around 10. My grandma bought it for me for my birthday, and then I immediately started lessons,” said Shoer.
“Then when I was 14, my brother and I pooled our money together and bought a drum set and I got really into drums, and played drums in bands for a long time,” he added.
The first band Shoer joined in fourth grade, which wasn’t serious. His first real band was when he was in the eighth grade.
“I started a punk band with my friends, we had band practice twice a week, and we played through high school as well, but we took it pretty serious, and we were like, ‘oh we want to record, and then we want to take the recordings and send them out to record labels, and then we want to get signed, and then we want to go on tour,’” said Shoer.
“In freshman year in high school is when I really learned about the music scene, and about living in vans, on the road, touring around, and I was like, ‘that’s what I want to do.’ But by the time I graduated high school, I actually decided that wasn’t something I wanted to do, or more so thought it wasn’t realistic, so I kind of gave it up,” he added.
Currently, Shoer is one-third of the Los Angeles based rock band Nights In Stereo.
The other two band members are 911 Lone Star actor Ronen Rubinstein, and Rodrigo Rodarte.
Throughout his friendship with Rubinstein and Rodarte, Shoer has been roommates with both of them, though not at the same time.
Shoer has been friends with Rodarte for about 11 years, and they met when he was on vacation in Los Angeles visiting his brother.
“He spilled my beer, and we started chit-chatting, and he ended up inviting me to a BBQ happening at his house the next day, or a few days later,” said Shoer.
“It was the end of the summer, I was meant to go back to New York, and he actually had a room opening up at his house, and he was like, ‘you should move in and stay in LA, and not go back to New York,’ and I was like, ‘okay.’ So I stayed in Los Angeles, moved in with him, was working some part time jobs – him and I are both musicians – so we started jamming and making music together,” he added.
Shoer then met Rubinstein approximately four years ago, and immediately hit it off with him.
“We’re both from New York, we both have family from Israel, just very similar types of people. So, we instantly meshed, and at that time, I was looking for a new apartment and Ronen mentioned that he had just moved to LA from New York and was also looking for an apartment,” said Shoer.
“At that point, I was really ready to live alone, I was 30 at the time, and I was like, ‘I got to live alone,’ and he was like, ‘nah, we should live together, let’s move downtown.’ We both wanted to live in the same neighbourhood, and I thought he was such a cool, fun guy, and I was like, ‘alright, I’ll do one more year with a roommate, I’ll live with him,’” he added.
Throughout his time living with Rubinstein, Shoer and Ronen connected with each other through music. Rubinstein shared music with Shoer, and vice versa, and Rubinstein met Rodarte through Shoer.
“Then we went our separate ways. He moved in with his girlfriend. I moved in with my girlfriend after that year, and then at the start of covid, my girlfriend and I broke up, and I ended up being in my apartment alone all the time during quarantine with nothing to do,” said Shoer.
“So, I started focusing on music for the first time in a serious kind of way, and Ronen started coming over to hang out because there was nothing to do,” he added.
During quarantine, Shoer began showing his demos to Rubinstein. Rodarte started coming over, and when they started having music sessions with all three of them, they realized what they were doing sounded good.
“It wasn’t until the three of us were in the same room with instruments in our hands and Ronen singing, that we all realized, ‘this is a really good fit, and there’s something here.’ And that’s when we decided, let’s be a band,” said Shoer.
Shoer and Rubinstein hanging out is also how Nights In Stereo became the name of the band.
“When something is in stereo, from an audio standpoint, stereo means you’re getting a left and a right side, that you’re hearing the guitar in this side, and the bass in this side, or sometimes, when you’re listening to records on headphones, you can hear certain things on your right, and certain things on your left,” said Shoer.
“Originally, Ronen and I were going through band names, and it was so hard to find one that wasn’t taken already, and one that made sense, and one that we liked, and one that related to us,” he added.
One thing led to another, and with the band ‘Crime in Stereo’ and the song ‘Moving In Stereo’ by The Cars, the term ‘in stereo,’ came to Shoer’s mind.
“I was thinking, ‘a night in stereo could be, like, a crazy night out, where your senses are going off, or a night with Ronen and I where we’re writing music, it’s just like, a night of surround sound, and for people listening to our music, we want them to feel like it’s a night in stereo if you come to our show or if you listen to our music,” explained Shoer.
Back in January, Nights In Stereo released their first single, Open Door, and within about two months, their song reached 150,000 streams.
“For us to hit 150,000 streams in what we did, I definitely ascribe it to Ronen through his hard work, and his talent,” said Shoer.
“Everyone has been so supportive and respectful of this project that we’re doing together that I look at the 150,000 streams, and I think, ‘who are all these people,’ and ‘thank you,’ and ‘I really, honestly hope you’re enjoying it,’” he added.
Open Door is very meaningful to the band. The riff of the song was originally established by Shoer a decade or so ago, and Rubinstein wrote the lyrics based on his own history.
“Open Door is a love song. It has to do with heartbreak and heartache, and it came from Ronen’s history, but it does actually speak to my experience as well,” said Shoer.
“I think the song really means more to me, of this journey that I’ve been through, for 15 years of carrying the song with me. The breakup was a really significant moment in my life. Then to have my best friends come over and help get this song and this project off the ground during this time of uncertainty in the world, ” he added.
Currently, Nights In Stereo is working on their second single, Underwater, and back in February, they posted a sneak peek.
“We were excited to put it out, people got really excited when we put it out, and then we got really excited to see how excited people were,” said Shoer.
Underwater echoes the messaging of Open Door about needing people in your corner.
“You need good people in your life to help you get out of feeling like you’re underwater. Whether that’s depression, anxiety, swamped with work, you hate your job, whatever it is that’s holding you back can feel suffocating at times, and you can feel trapped underwater,” said Shoer.
“So, underwater has that feeling of, you’re trapped underwater and there’s ways to get out of it, and I think it’s about surrounding yourself with the right kind of people. Whether that’s friends or partners. Support can help you not feel suffocated,” he added.
Underwater is also the first song the trio have worked on collectively.
“We were at my home studio, and there’s a piano riff that I had written, that’s all I had. We were all hanging out in the studio, and I played the piano part kind of on loop, and Rod came up with the guitar part, and Ronen kind of came up with the vocal part, and by the end of the night we had the demo finished,” said Shoer.
“Usually what we’ll do, is we’ll start with a riff, and then we’ll think of what can go under that, what would come after that, and we kind of feel it out, work on it, and then we’ll record it at my house, Ronen will take that home with him or I’ll send that to him, and then he’ll come the next day and be like, ‘hey, I had a great idea for this part,’ the more he listens to it, the more ideas he gets, he’ll send us a voice recording, I’ll drop that on top of the demo,” he added about the band’s work process.
Shoer has always been in bands with his best friends, and according to him, it’s always special to be making art with your friends.
“We collaborated on something really special, and now we get to share it with the world, and we get to share the joy that comes from seeing people enjoy your stuff,” said Shoer.
“It doesn’t feel like work. I’m literally hanging out with my friends and the music and the band is a by-product of that, so it’s fun and comfortable,” he added.
If Nights In Stereo ever goes on tour, one of the dream places Shoer would love to play in is Brazil.
“Every video I see of bands that I love, whenever they play in Brazil, the crowds are always huge and passionate. If you go on any big rock band’s twitter or Instagram, you’ll always see the comments, ‘come to Brazil!’ Also, Metallica, you see them play in Brazil, and a million people show up, nobody has cell phones, everyone’s just singing and passionate,” said Shoer.
“One of my favourite bands right now is called Turnstile, and Ronen really loves them too. They just got back from Brazil, and we were sending each other videos that they were posting of their shows, because the crowds were so crazy and so passionate,” he added.
Looking forward to the future for Nights In Stereo, Shoer hopes that he can continue to make more music for fans with Rubinstein and Rodarte.
“We want to put out records, full-length records, and we want to go on tour and play big shows and festivals, and make music videos, and we want to do that so we can share it. I think that we have so many great ideas that we think people would really like, and we write a song, and we record the song, and then we have ideas for the music video, like, ‘it would be sick if the video for this had this thing,’ ‘and then for the live show, it could be like this,’” said Shoer.
“I come from a production background, Rodrigo was a screenwriter for a long time and worked in film, and Ronen is a performer, so, I think that’s where our mind goes immediately. We think of it in a whole 360 package, like, we write a song, and we’re already thinking about the video, the album art, and the live performance. So, that’s what we want to do. We want to put out great performances, and art, and music, and great packages for people to enjoy.”
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