Naperville native headlining Lollapalooza Thursday as one of world’s biggest DJs

Tamara Schuster knew she would never force her kids to play piano.

Growing up, the 64-year-old Naperville resident was pushed by her own parents at a young age to pursue the instrument. Despite being a self-described music lover, she vowed her children would not feel the same pressure.

Yet both her daughter and son ended up gravitating toward the piano. Her son, John, repeatedly asked her to buy one when he was in elementary school.

“I remember asking him more than once, ‘Are you sure?’” Schuster said. “I went to Costco and got one of those (electric) pianos. … I still have it by the way. (The kids) loved it.”

Nearly 18 years later, the world knows John Schuster these days as John Summit, “one of EDM’s biggest rising stars,” according to Variety magazine in 2024, and a headliner this week at the Lollapalooza music fest in Chicago’s Grant Park.

Since his rise to fame in 2020, Summit has garnered roughly 13 million monthly listeners on Spotify, performed at major festivals including Coachella and Tomorrowland and built his own record label, Experts Only.

Ahead of his Lollapalooza performance Thursday, his mother spoke about what he was like growing up, his transformation into a house/techno music star and navigating life with a now-famous son who turns 32 on Wednesday.

Music was an important part of Schuster family life, Tamara Schuster said. During the day, there’d always be AC/DC or Rolling Stones or other rock tunes playing in the background. His dad, an airline pilot, plays acoustic guitar, she said.

Though her son pursued music at a young age, singing in his church choir for three years, his creative endeavors evolved as he approached middle school. YouTube came on the scene in the mid-2000s, and many — including John — were influenced by the raw, amateur home videos that found a home on the streaming platform, she said.

Using his mom’s video camera, Summit and his friends would make videos and upload to them to their own channels.

“They were always at the park and they’d make a skit and they’d do different funny stuff,” said Schuster, a Naperville real estate agent. They’d take the videos home to edit and upload them. “It was a really great hobby,” she said.

Summit started taking film classes when attending Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, and found he had a knack for it. His short films won awards at the Chicagoland High School Video Festival in 2011 and 2012.

Despite his talent, and her own love and appreciation for the arts, she cautioned him against pursuing film as a career.

“I said, ‘You can double major, but you really need something that’s going to pay the bills,’” she said. “As a mom, I wanted him to have a backup plan.”

Finding his path

Summit majored in accounting at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and took a job as a CPA at Ernst & Young after graduating.

But he never lost his artistic side, discovering his love for DJing in college, where he started going by the stage name “Summit,” which he chose because it was a reference to his love for skiing. He added his first name when he started landing professional gigs, Schuster said.

“I remember he said, ‘I’m performing tonight, Mom.’ (When) they introduced him … that’s when they said, ‘What’s your name?’ And he said, ‘John Schuster.’ And they said, ‘No, what’s your DJ name?’ That’s when I knew he was more than just a DJ spinning records at the bar when you walk in.”

But it also led to a double life of which his mom was initially unaware.

When he wasn’t poring over spreadsheets late into weeknights, he was laboring over turntables at underground clubs late into the weekend, sometimes not even coming on stage until 2 a.m. He spent all his money on speakers and headsets.

His music was more than just a hobby — it was a calling. And in 2019, he decided that if he was going to make it as a DJ, he would have to devote himself to music full time, Schuster said.

“That’s the part that was really hard on me,” she said. “I’m like, ‘You’re on your own, you know. Please keep a part-time accounting (job).’ He goes ‘No, Mom, I’m gonna go all in. Give me a year.’”

Not long after, COVID-19 shut down music clubs and the concert scene. But if the world was slowing down, Summit was only speeding up.

He moved back to his childhood home in Naperville, making beats in the basement that at times would shake the house, Schuster said. He’d spend 18 hours a day uploading YouTube tutorials on music mixing, streaming his work for fans and sending out dozens of records to music labels.

“It gave a fresh outlook to life,” Schuster said of the music her son created during the pandemic. “COVID hit hard lots of parts of the world and so to have something that is refreshing and new and uplifting made a difference because it was a scary time in the world.”

In summer 2020, Summit hit the jackpot. Defected Records, a major London-based music label, wanted to put out his track “Deep End.” The label released it in late June and it went viral, becoming the longest No. 1 running song in 2020 on Beatport, the electronic music-oriented online store.

For Summit, that time at home and the subsequent success of “Deep End” was just the beginning. For his mom, it was an opportunity to learn more about her son and the music he loved.

“I really love the variety of the house music,” she said. “I love the beat. I love the tempo and I love how everybody dances. Fast-forward a couple of years later, I’ve had people take me aside very nicely (and say), ‘Your son’s music saved my life. The world was shutting down (but) he was doing entertaining videos online.’”

From fans giving her bracelets at festivals to seeing her son’s face on billboards, there are countless moments that have left her feeling like a proud parent. But she also acknowledges that navigating the reality of her son’s fame is not easy.

There have been times when she has been recognized as “John Summit’s mom” while running errands. A trip to the grocery store now requires putting more thought into what she’s wearing since she never knows who is going to stop her for a photo.

“I have a hard time with him leaving now because as a mom, this fame is really hard,” Schuster said. “You see him all over, but you physically don’t just see him as much as you used to.”

This year, Summit surprised her by coming home for Mother’s Day, the first time she has spent the holiday with her son at home since the pandemic.

“He got up early on Mother’s Day and actually made a huge mess in the kitchen. He was gonna make me cookies. I don’t think he ever made cookies before in his life,” Schuster said.

And for a moment, he was not world-renowned John Summit, but John Schuster: the young boy who begged for piano lessons and shared his mother’s love for music, she said.

cstein@chicagotribune.com

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John Summit

When: 8:30-10 p.m. Thursday, July 30

Where: Bud Light stage at Lollapalooza in Chicago’s Grant Park

Tickets: Join the waitlist for Thursday, Friday and Saturday shows at lollapalooza.frontgatetickets.com/. Single-day GA tickets are still available for Sunday starting at $185 at lollapalooza.frontgatetickets.com/