Arrested Youth

Arrested Youth

Arrested Youth is the recording name of Ian Johnson, a United States alternative artist whose work sits across alternative rock, electronic rock, indie rock and rock. He grows out of Louisville, Kentucky, and is associated with The Bonnie Hause label.

Early life and education

Johnson begins writing lyrics at 15, shaped by genre-crossing artists including the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Kid Cudi. He later pauses his music activity to study at Indiana University, where he graduates in 2016 with a triple major in business.

Career

After university, Johnson joins Anheuser-Busch’s Global Management Program and accepts a corporate job. Within eight months, he is offered a promotion and salary increase that would mean a much longer working week, and he turns it down in order to focus on music. He says corporate work leaves him feeling constrained, and he returns to songwriting as a way to express that frustration.

Before that return, he releases a series of mixtapes and an EP that reach the iTunes Top 25 pop charts. His debut single, My Friends Are Robots, addresses the lack of creativity and self-expression he associates with corporate life. He follows it with A Painting in Paris, a track that comments on the vanity of his generation and on uncertainty about identity and presentation in a digital world.