John Connolly was born on October 21. His route to Sevendust’s rhythm-guitar position began behind a drum kit, a background that shaped how he approached riffs and played alongside drummer Morgan Rose. “Denial,” from the band’s 1999 album Home, features Connolly on rhythm guitar, with Clint Lowery handling lead guitar.
His interest in making music began before he had settled on an instrument. As a child, Connolly encountered KISS’s Alive II in a record store and was taken with its artwork before hearing the record. Recalling that discovery in a 2017 interview with Icon Vs. Icon, he described the costumes, flames and logo as enough to make him want the album. He went on to play alto saxophone, switch to drums and study percussion.
Guitar gave him another way to develop his ideas. Connolly taught himself barre chords and began moving them around the neck to build songs. “For me it was all from just a need to write,” he told Tone Freqs in 2013. He identified “Black,” which appeared on Sevendust’s 1997 debut, as the first song he wrote. His drumming experience remained part of the process: he understood riffs through drumbeats and cadences, relied on the strength of his picking hand and listened for the connection with Rose’s kick drum. Lowery, the more experienced guitarist, was also someone he could turn to as he developed his playing.
With Projected, Connolly took on another unfamiliar responsibility: singing lead. The band’s 2012 debut, Human, brought him together with Sevendust bassist Vinnie Hornsby, drummer Scott Phillips and guitarist Eric Friedman. Connolly had spent years singing behind Lajon Witherspoon, but carrying the vocal himself demanded a different kind of preparation. He told Unsung Melody in 2012 that making much of the record at home became a learning process, particularly as he worked out what his voice could and couldn’t do. The band also let listeners help choose its first single. After testing songs through Facebook polls and radio play, they went with “Watch It Burn,” which had drawn the strongest response.
Returning to Sevendust meant reconsidering familiar habits, too. For Black Out the Sun, released in 2013, the band largely set aside its usual preparation and wrote together in the studio. Connolly told The Rockpit that he and Lowery would ordinarily arrive with dozens of ideas to sort through. This time, they wanted to see what they could make from scratch in about a month. He initially wondered whether they would finish enough songs, but the sessions produced the record within that window. Working quickly helped them commit to decisions and avoid revising ideas until they lost what had made them work.
Projected’s second album, the 21-track Ignite My Insanity, followed in 2017. For those sessions, Connolly made a different adjustment: the writing was completed before recording began. That gave Phillips a clearer understanding of where the vocals and other parts would sit, removing some of the guesswork involved in making Human. Connolly also described a benefit that extended beyond Projected. In his 2017 Icon Vs. Icon interview, he said the experience had made him more confident when returning to Sevendust, whether he was singing backing vocals, playing a guitar solo or working on a song.
