John Ford (born July 24, 1985), better known as JOYRDYE, is a British electronic house music artist. His music pushed forward, sonically and stylistically, the newly-birthed bass house scene, with a string of releases in 2016 that included the likes of “Hot Drum”, “THE BOX” and “SPEED TRAP”. Each with an accompanying music video, featuring fast imagery referencing cars and extreme visual effects, JOYRYDE made a name for himself as a one-of-a-kind talent and forward-thinking act.

Ford is the son of Phantasm Records founder John Phantasm, and growing up he spent his childhood DJ-ing worldwide, eventually launching his own psytrance act, Eskimo, at the age of 15, becoming a popular act of the time at such a young age. During the rise of dubstep in the early 2010s, Ford formed a duo with Oren Emmanuel called Lets Be Friends, which had hits on the Monstercat label with Best In The West and FTW. Eventually, Ford left the project to pursue solo endeavors, launching JOYRYDE in 2016 with a flurry of singles and accompanying music videos, which quickly took off, amassing millions of streams and leading him to getting tons of live shows and recognition by some of the biggest acts of the day. While the releases slowed down in the following years, Ford still made waves with a collab with Darnell Williams in 2017 and “AGEN WIDA” with Skrillex in 2018, which became one of the biggest hits in the scene that year.

While Ford was writing his first EP, a disk in his lower back collapsed, forcing him to undergo extensive treatment. The drugs caused him to have hallucinations and suicidal thoughts, among other mental issues, leaving him unable to finish the project. He tried to get off the medication to improve his mental state, but suffered from the shakes, drug withdrawals, insomnia, and general pain. The music he wrote during this time became the basis for his debut album, BRAVE, and once he recovered he would end up completing the project, with it finally releasing to acclaimed success on April 3rd, 2020.

After Brave’s release, Ford went on extended hiatus. Though he stilled played live shows, his output was limited to production and mixing for other artists – with two songs with Kenya Grace, including the platinum-certified hit Strangers, a song on the soundtrack of FAST X with BIA, production on 4 tracks on Skrillex’s 2023 award-winning sophomore album Quest For Fire, and more. Finally, after briefly stating that he would start writing songs again, Ford hinted that he had new music, and that he would be back.