Who Is John Summit?
John Summit is a DJ and music producer from Naperville, a suburb of Chicago in the United States.
He drew attention with "Deep End" in 2020, and with HAYLA on "Where You Are" and "Shiver" he has widened his expression toward music that puts songs and melody up front.
From tracks made for dancing in clubs to songs sung back at big venues. Knowing both sides helps you see what kind of artist he is.
Basic Profile
- Reading
- John Summit (Japanese reading: Jon Samitto)
- Real name
- John Schuster (Japanese reading: Jon Shusutā)
- Origin / activity
- From Naperville, a suburb of Chicago, USA. Active at clubs and festivals in the US and around the world
- Musical style
- Centered on house and tech house, expanding into melody- and vocal-focused tracks
- Label
- Experts Only
If You're Listening for the First Time, Start With These Three
YouTube, official Defected Records channel
The 2020 track that spread his name. If you want to start with the club-oriented sound, start here.
Where You Are — John Summit & HAYLA
SoundCloud, John Summit himself
Your way into the song-driven John Summit. Compare it with "Deep End" and pay attention to the roles of the vocals and the melody.
YouTube, official John Summit channel
A track teaming up with HAYLA again. You can hear the side that conveys emotion through song, continuing from "Where You Are."
After listening to these three tracks, we want to trace his journey. How did a young man working in accounting come to deliver his own music to the world?
March 29, 2026, Miami.
The person who closed the Main Stage at Ultra Music Festival was John Summit.
He later posted the full set on his official YouTube channel and described that night as his "Super Bowl."
Seven years earlier.
John Summit, whose real name is John Schuster, was an accountant.
And in 2019, he lost his accounting job.
He was already playing small clubs by then, and his music was gradually landing on labels he admired, such as Dirtybird and Repopulate Mars.
But he was not a global star.
He wasn't filling arenas.
He didn't have a massive hit.
Seven years later, that man closed the Main Stage at Ultra Miami, headlined Lollapalooza in his hometown of Chicago, held a nine-week residency at [UNVRS] in Ibiza, and came to own his own label, his own event brand, his own festival, and even his own arena tour.
How did he get that far?
"Because Deep End went viral on TikTok."
That alone probably doesn't explain even half of it.
John Summit made tracks.
He DJed.
He sent dozens of demos.
He taught production on YouTube.
He went on Instagram Live every day.
He streamed DJ sets on Twitch.
He talked with fans on Discord.
He proved with long sets that he could "really DJ."
And in the end, he came to own the place where his music is released, the events where he performs, and the platform where he launches other DJs.
John Summit's story is less a story about a hit song than this:
the story of one DJ who took over, step by step, a "supply chain" running from music → media → community → live → label → events.
It All Started at Lollapalooza
In 1994, John Schuster was raised in Naperville, a suburb of Chicago.
One of the tracks that decisively pulled him into electronic music was "I Remember" by deadmau5 and Kaskade.
Then, in 2011, as a high school student, he saw deadmau5 at Lollapalooza.
He has said many times that watching that show in the pouring rain became a life-changing experience.
At that point, though, he wasn't aiming to become a professional DJ.
He went on to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
His major was accounting.
He completed his undergraduate degree in 2016 and a master's in accounting in 2017.
To his parents, it must have looked like a pretty solid path.
He Started DJing Because He Got Fired From a Bar
In college, John worked at a bar.
Then he got fired from that job.
He still wanted to work at that bar.
The bar told him, "We need a DJ," and John answered,
I can DJ.
In reality, he could barely do it.
That is where his DJing begins.
His first gear was Serato and a Pioneer DDJ-SB2.
By his own account, it was a controller of about $200, which was what he could afford at the time.
He played open-format sets of five to six hours, over and over, at bars around campus.
It wasn't house-only.
It was a bar where students drank, so he played what the crowd wanted.
At the same time, he gradually mixed in the house he loved from Dirtybird and the Jamie Jones circle.
What he gained here was not the skill of suddenly moving a huge festival crowd.
It was the skill of playing music for long hours while watching people's reactions.
John Summit would later become known as a flashy producer, but his entry point as a DJ was rather gritty.
The Name "Summit" Came From Simply Liking Mountains
In college, when he was about to play his first fairly big support slot, he needed a DJ name.
John liked skiing and mountains.
So he called himself "Summit."
Later he realized it was terrible for searchability, so he added John, and it became "John Summit."
Today it looks like the name of a huge brand.
But he himself says that at the time he had no intention of becoming a global DJ, and that he hadn't thought hard about the name.
This mountain motif would later be carried over into his label and event brands:
Off The Grid.
Experts Only.
Two black diamonds.
Music Production Was Mostly "YouTube University"
John began producing in earnest around 2015.
A college dorm.
A MacBook.
Ableton Live.
Software synths such as Diva, Sylenth1, and Nexus.
He had no formal music education.
He learned how to produce from YouTube and the internet.
Years later he expressed the idea that "you can learn anything at your fingertips," and explained that he learned production through YouTube tutorials and trial and error.
He showed tracks to others in Facebook producer groups, uploaded them to SoundCloud, and got feedback.
Make a track.
Put it out.
See the reaction.
Make another.
He just kept running that loop.
He says he spent more time in Ableton than studying, even in the university library.
In other words, John Summit's production career was never "release it after it's finished" from the start.
Learn while releasing, release while learning.
Becoming the one who teaches on YouTube later is an extension of this.
Accountant by Day, Ableton by Night
After graduate school, John entered the accounting world.
He also worked at Ernst & Young (EY), one of the Big Four.
By his own recollection, at EY he sometimes worked more than 80 hours a week, and balancing that with music was hard.
Even so, he kept producing outside of work.
Send demos.
DJ.
Land releases a little at a time.
"Touch Me" in 2018 was one of the first tracks that he felt had been "a little successful."
Chicago veteran Gene Farris played it.
For John, that mattered more than any numbers.
A DJ he admired was using his music on the floor.
It was small, but it was clear proof.
He Didn't Just Suddenly Quit
Turning it into a story of "he quit accounting to chase his dream" is slightly off.
John explained years later that he left his first stint at EY because the long hours were brutal, and that he continued in other accounting roles after that.
He wasn't confident he could make a living from music alone.
He kept a safe job and grew music on the side.
But music's share kept growing.
Producing late into the night.
Traveling to other cities on weekends to DJ.
Showing up to work on Monday short on sleep.
In March 2019, he was finally fired from his accounting job.
He looks back and says that he himself "was almost trying to get fired."
What matters is that he did not start DJing from zero at this moment.
He already had records.
He already had small tours.
He already had savings.
And just before that, releases on Dirtybird and Repopulate Mars, the labels he had set as his targets, had been confirmed.
When he lost his job, he didn't have only a dream. Beside him was a small but "starting-to-work business."
Dirtybird, Repopulate Mars. His Credibility in the Industry Began Before Deep End
2019.
"Detonate" with Westend lands on Dirtybird and is played by Claude VonStroke and others.
He keeps releasing on Lee Foss's Repopulate Mars as well.
The "Stimulate" EP.
"Divine Ritual."
And later "Forgotten One."
The general public didn't know John Summit yet, but his name was starting to reach house and tech house DJs.
Around this time he also began working with manager Holt Harmon.
There is an interesting anecdote.
In their earliest meetings, John didn't just say he wanted to release music; he talked quite a bit about the business side:
How would it be distributed?
How would it be marketed?
Harmon himself later recalled feeling that John "understood business as well as music, and he doesn't slack."
To say that being an accountant produced his success is a stretch.
But it is certain that John Summit was never a person who "only makes the work and leaves the rest to someone else."
2020. When the World Stopped, John Summit Went All In on the Internet
2020.
COVID-19 shut down clubs and festivals.
It was the worst possible situation for a DJ.
John went back to his family home too.
His parents' house in Naperville.
The basement.
No live shows.
No tours.
Normally, a career would stall.
John did the opposite.
According to later recollections by him and the team around him, he thought that people all over the world were online, and so he increased every kind of online activity:
Instagram Live.
Twitch.
Discord.
YouTube.
Social posts.
Production.
This is not a story of "leaving marketing to a social media manager."
He did it himself.
DJing in streams while reading fans' comments.
Talking on Discord.
Going on Instagram Live every day.
Showing his production process too.
At the time, he says, he enjoyed connecting with people on social media not as "work" but as communication during a period when he couldn't go out.
That difference is big.
He didn't invent a persona just for marketing.
The John Summit online was quite close to his real personality.
That later became the brand.
Before Deep End, There Was "John Summit Teaching on YouTube"
This is easy to overlook.
John Summit did not start YouTube after he became popular.
On April 5, 2020, he published a production tutorial on his official YouTube channel titled
"How To Make Tech House Like The Pros."
In just a few minutes, it explained how to build the kick, bass, hi-hats, claps, percussion, synths, and vocals.
He also distributed and sold, on Bandcamp, the Ableton project file and samples used in that tutorial.
A Reddit post from the time is still around that says,
John Summit is putting out production tutorials for free.
Years later, he looked back on this period, saying that
he spent all day in his family's basement making YouTube tutorials, and also ran Zoom production sessions.
In other words, even before Deep End, there existed not only
Producer John Summit
but also
Teacher John Summit / Creator John Summit.
This is quite important.
John himself learned production on YouTube.
And once he reached a certain level, he taught on YouTube as well.
He moved from the learning side to the broadcasting side.
That 2020 tutorial itself has now been viewed more than 800,000 times.
Moreover, when he explained the production of "Shiver" in 2024, he said he was using the same basic master chain he had used since his 2020 YouTube days.
The tutorial was not stopgap marketing.
It was connected to the production itself.
Deep End Was Made in One Night
Spring 2020.
John had been sending demos to Defected Records again and again.
By his account, more than 50 tracks.
At the pace of "make and send one track every day."
Defected was John's dream label.
But it wouldn't come together.
And then "Deep End" came together.
Production took one night.
He placed a vocal sample he had downloaded a few months earlier over the bassline and drums he had made.
It clicked.
John immediately posted a short clip on social media.
The reaction was big.
There were no live shows.
There was no reason to wait.
He self-released it once.
Then several major labels reached out.
John chose Defected.
In June 2020, it was officially released on Defected.
"Deep End" hit No. 1 on the Beatport overall chart and became the release that held No. 1 the longest in 2020.
Looking at only this, it becomes:
"A track made in one night went viral and changed his life."
But look at what came before, and it's different.
He had been producing for five years.
He had made dozens of tracks.
He had sent demos dozens of times.
He had landed on Dirtybird and on Repopulate Mars.
He was on social media every day.
He was teaching on YouTube.
He was streaming.
So what came together in one night was the track,
not the foundation that is John Summit.
The Track Sold, but He Hadn't Yet Been Proven Live
Deep End sold in the middle of the pandemic.
A strange situation.
The track spread around the world.
His name became known.
But the clubs were closed.
In other words,
the popularity of the music grew huge first, and he had no chance to catch up to that popularity as a DJ.
This became a challenge for John after reopening.
The danger of being seen as
someone who got big through social media and TikTok.
After that, John moved to Miami and began playing long sets at Club Space.
Eight hours.
Ten hours.
Rather than immediately playing his pop signature tracks, he dug through underground house for hours.
He later said this had the meaning of proving "I really am a DJ."
Win over, in person, the people who found you online.
Here, for the first time,
hit producer.
Influencer.
DJ.
These three begin to line up.
2021: He Becomes the No. 1 Best Selling Artist of the Year Across All Genres on Beatport
Without a follow-up to Deep End, it ends as a one-hit wonder.
John didn't stop.
"Beauty Sleep."
"Sun Came Up" with SOFI TUKKER.
"Human" featuring Echoes.
"Make Me Feel."
He kept releasing.
In 2021, Beatport named John Summit its No. 1 Best Selling Artist of the Year across all genres.
The following year, 2022, he was No. 2 for the year.
What these numbers mean is that it wasn't only Deep End that was strong.
In a market where dance music DJs actually buy tracks and use them on the floor, he sold consistently.
Even after Deep End opened the door to the general public,
he didn't lose the ability to make records for DJs.
2022: He Starts to Stop Being "Someone Who Releases on Other People's Labels"
2022.
John Summit starts his own label and event brand,
Off The Grid Records.
The references he cited were presences like Dirtybird and Jamie Jones's Paradise.
It is not a label that merely releases tracks.
There are artists.
There are events.
There is merch.
There is community.
There is a worldview.
John began building, on his own side, the systems of Repopulate Mars and Dirtybird that had helped him in the past.
The first release was his own "In Chicago."
In 2023, the brand was renamed "Experts Only."
The double black diamond that marks the expert ski runs.
"Summit," meaning a mountain peak.
From his early DJ name to the label's worldview, everything is connected in one line.
Where You Are Lifted Him One Level Above "Popular Tech House DJ"
John Summit's next major turning point was
"Where You Are" with HAYLA.
Tracing back its origin leads to Kaskade and deadmau5.
John loved Kx5's "Escape" and was singing it on an Instagram Story.
Kaskade contacted him directly and asked him to do a remix.
Through that job, he came into contact with HAYLA.
From there, "Where You Are" was born.
Released in 2023, it became the work John himself calls "my biggest record."
His musical style changes here too.
Early John Summit was quite clearly a tech house guy.
Where You Are has huge vocals and an emotional build.
Tens of thousands at a festival can sing along together.
It works not only in underground clubs but also on the main stage.
John expanded from "someone who can make tech house" to
a songwriter/producer who can move the emotions of a large crowd with his own music.
2024: He Sells Out Madison Square Garden in Two Hours
June 29, 2024.
Madison Square Garden.
John Summit played for about five hours on a 360-degree stage.
Tickets sold out about two hours after the announcement.
The figures reported to Pollstar were 15,636 tickets and gross revenue of about $1.5 million.
John poured an enormous investment into producing this single show.
He later said that he ended up losing about $1 million.
But instead of "lost," he rephrased it as
"I invested $1 million in myself."
Why did he go that far?
To test whether club music could work in an arena.
Proof of Concept.
It also sounds like something an ex-accountant would say.
It works at MSG.
After that, he did multiple shows at the Kia Forum as well.
And in 2026, it expands into an arena tour of about 20 shows.
He didn't end one giant show as a "commemorative event"; he used it as an experiment and rolled the successful structure out sideways.
The Album Showed a John Beyond the "Drunk Party Guy"
John Summit on social media is flashy.
Drinks.
Festivals.
Jokes.
Parties.
But he says the real John Schuster is more introverted.
On his 2024 debut album "Comfort in Chaos", he brought that duality to the surface.
"Where You Are."
"Shiver."
"Go Back."
It spreads from early tech house to melodic, progressive, and drum-and-bass-like elements.
By his own account, it took more than ten years of producing and more than eight years of releasing before he was confident he could make an album.
There's an order here too.
He didn't say "I'm a versatile artist" from the start.
First he won in tech house.
Then he branched out.
Not Just a Label: Events, a Festival, and Residencies Too
Experts Only eventually became more than the name of a label.
He hosts events.
He releases young artists.
He handles works by Max Styler, Layton Giordani, Deeper Purpose, and others.
In September 2025, he launched Experts Only Festival on Randall's Island in New York.
From its first year it sold out over two days, drawing more than 50,000 people.
In 2026, the same two days expand to three stages.
In Ibiza, moreover, he took charge of the Main Room at [UNVRS] every Monday for nine weeks as
John Summit Presents Experts Only.
This is not simply a story of "John Summit DJed in Ibiza nine times."
John Summit's own brand is curating a club night every week.
The person who once aimed to be let onto Dirtybird and Repopulate Mars
has now become the one who puts other DJs on the lineup.
2026: He Really Did Go to the End of the Ultra Main Stage
In the article on Yousuke Yukimatsu, I wrote that "Ultra's Headliners category" and "closing the Main Stage" are different things.
John Summit's case is different.
March 29, 2026.
John Summit truly closed the Ultra Miami Main Stage.
His own comment on the official YouTube channel:
It was my Super Bowl.
About four months later.
On July 30, 2026, he returned home as a headliner of Lollapalooza Chicago.
The festival where, 15 years earlier, he had watched deadmau5 as a spectator and fallen into electronic music.
This time he was the headliner.
And in 2026 he announced his second album, "CTRL ESCAPE".
The title itself overlaps his accountant-era PC keyboard shortcut with a life that "escaped from there."
In the fall he starts a North American arena tour of about 20 shows from Champaign, home of the University of Illinois.
The story has come full circle.
John Summit Is Not Just "a DJ Who Worked Hard on YouTube"
From here on, it's interpretation.
YouTube mattered.
Social media mattered.
TikTok also had a big effect on the spread of Deep End.
But
"He succeeded because he was good at social media marketing"
isn't enough either.
What did he put out on YouTube?
Production methods.
What did he stream on Twitch?
DJing.
What did he show on Instagram?
His life and his music.
Who did he talk to on Discord?
People who listen to music.
In other words, content and the main job were not separated.
The process of making music was itself the content.
This is strong.
You don't have to create different material every day for marketing.
Practice.
Produce.
DJ.
Show that process.
Growth itself becomes the media.
Lined Up in Order, the Path to Success Looks Quite Repeatable
Greatly simplified, John Summit's career looks like this.
- 2011
- Sees deadmau5 at Lollapalooza and is strongly drawn to electronic music.
- College years
- Bar DJ. Five- to six-hour open-format sets. Learns DJing on YouTube.
- 2015
- Gets serious about production in Ableton. Repeats learning and releasing on YouTube, Facebook, and SoundCloud.
- 2017
- Completes his master's in accounting. Produces while working as an accountant.
- 2018
- "Touch Me." Gene Farris plays it. Small industry credibility begins.
- 2019
- Dirtybird, Repopulate Mars. Loses his accounting job and goes all in on music.
- Early 2020
- YouTube production tutorials, Instagram Live, Twitch, Discord. Raises his online activity.
- 2020
- "Deep End." Defected. Beatport No. 1.
- 2021
- Beatport Best Selling Artist of the Year No. 1. Tours the world after live shows resume.
- 2022
- Founds Off The Grid. Owns his own label and events.
- 2023
- Renamed Experts Only. "Where You Are" spreads him further to the masses.
- 2024
- "Comfort in Chaos". Sells out Madison Square Garden.
- 2025
- Experts Only Festival begins.
- 2026
- Closes the Ultra Miami Main Stage. Headlines Lollapalooza in his hometown. Nine-week [UNVRS] residency. "CTRL ESCAPE". On to the North American arena tour.
What matters about this order is that it is not
track → viral → success.
More accurately, it is
skill → small venues → small industry credibility → broadcasting → community → hit → proving himself again live → own brand → large-scale shows.
What DJs Can Learn From John Summit
1. Build evidence on the side before you quit your job
John did not quit accounting the moment he thought "I want to be a DJ."
Releases.
Gigs.
Labels.
Savings.
Only after small but real evidence had accumulated did he end up moving to full-time.
2. Don't stop at learning; publish what you learned
He learned on YouTube and taught on YouTube himself.
Teaching increases recognition.
At the same time, it organizes your own production process.
3. He Increased the Number of Attempts Instead of Aiming for One Perfect Track
He sent demos to Defected more than 50 times.
He didn't turn each track into a "life-changing work."
Deep End came out of that large volume of attempts.
4. After going viral, he returned to the floor
He didn't end up as just someone who got big on TikTok; he played eight to ten hours at Club Space.
He converted internet popularity into credibility as a DJ.
5. He Didn't Rely Only on Other People's Platforms
At first, Dirtybird and Defected released him.
Next he built Experts Only himself.
Then he went on to build events and a festival.
Once successful, he moved from the side that "gets booked" to the side that "creates the venue."
6. He Didn't Neglect Anything Beyond Music
In 2026, John said, in effect, that someone at his scale has to do
production.
DJing.
The label.
Events.
The festival.
Merch.
Multiple social networks.
All of it.
In his own words, the modern DJ needs to own the "entire supply chain."
That sounds a little extreme.
But it is the result of John Summit himself having carried it out.
Yukimatsu and John Summit: There Is More Than One Way to Reach the World
Putting the article on Yousuke Yukimatsu next to John Summit is interesting.
Yukimatsu polished DJing itself for 17 years.
Not a huge hit, but selection, transitions, structure, and the floor took him to the world.
John Summit is different.
DJing.
Production.
YouTube.
Social media.
Community.
The label.
Events.
The festival.
He stacked all of these and grew huge in a few years.
This is not about which is correct.
Quite the opposite.
Putting the two side by side makes it clear.
There is more than one route to the world.
But the two also have something in common.
They did the work before going viral.
Yukimatsu had been DJing for over a decade before Boiler Room.
John Summit had been producing for years before Deep End, sent dozens of demos, reached Dirtybird and Repopulate Mars, and even did YouTube.
From the world's perspective, he "appeared suddenly."
From his own perspective, it wasn't sudden at all.
Deep End Changed His Life. But Deep End Alone Wouldn't Have Made Today's John Summit
If you were told to choose the one track that changed John Summit's life,
Deep End.
That would be right.
But Deep End didn't make all of John Summit.
If it were only one hit, he wouldn't have become Beatport's No. 1 artist of the year in 2021.
If it were only social media, he couldn't do ten hours at Club Space.
If it were only DJing, a huge vocal record like Where You Are wouldn't have been born.
If it were only popularity, he couldn't have built a label and festival like Experts Only.
If it were only business, he couldn't have made tens of thousands dance on the Ultra Main Stage.
What was strong was not one thing.
Make. Teach. Release. Talk. Spin. Host. Own.
He didn't stop any of it.
2019.
The man who lost his accounting job was still nobody.
2026.
That man stood at the very end of the Ultra Main Stage.
Perhaps the most important thing in John Summit's story is not that
he "made a living doing what he loved."
He turned what he loved into a system that runs every day.
I think that's the point.
Main References
DJ LIFE Magazine, “John Summit: Life at the Top”
djlifemag.com/2023/08/john-summit-at-the-top-interview
MusicTech, “For John Summit, the only real challenge is knowing when to slow down”
musictech.com/features/interviews/john-summit-interview-comfort-in-chaos
DJ Mag, “John Summit: bending the rules”
djmag.com/cover-features/john-summit-bending-rules
Gies College of Business, University of Illinois, John Summit alumni profile
giesbusiness.illinois.edu/news/2023/12/12/gies-business-and-iventure-alumni-among-forbes-30-under-30-recipients-for-2024
John Summit, “How To Make Tech House Like The Pros”, YouTube
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eCK7wwSGxY
John Summit Tech House Tutorial Files, Bandcamp
johnsummit.bandcamp.com/album/john-summit-tech-house-tutorial-files
Beatportal, “Deep End” interview
www.beatportal.com/articles/443799-tears-hugs-and-champagne-john-summits-deep-end-is-a-beatport-number-1
Defected Records, “Deep End (SIDEPIECE Remix)”
defected.com/music/releases/deep-end-sidepiece-remix
Beatportal, Best-Selling Artists of 2021
www.beatportal.com/articles/406752-beatport-insider-top-selling-tracks-artists-and-labels-of-2021
Dancing Astronaut, Off The Grid Records interview
dancingastronaut.com/2022/04/john-summit-details-origins-of-self-founded-off-the-grid-records
Dancing Astronaut, Experts Only rebrand interview
dancingastronaut.com/2023/09/experts-only-the-story-behind-the-new-name-of-john-summits-label-and-event-brand
GRAMMY.com, “Finding Comfort In Chaos”
www.grammy.com/news/john-summit-interview-creating-debut-album-comfort-in-chaos
Pollstar, Madison Square Garden / touring coverage
news.pollstar.com/2024/08/15/john-summit-announces-kia-forum-headlines
John Summit official YouTube, Ultra Miami Main Stage 2026
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aloPGSlq31Y
[UNVRS], John Summit Presents Experts Only 2026
www.unvrs.com/updates/john-summit-announces-debut-unvrs-residency
Experts Only Festival
www.expertsonlyfest.com
John Summit official website
www.johnsummitmusic.com
