ABOUT
At the age of 16, John was exposed to the anti-globalization movement through his brother who showed him video from the Battle of Seattle in November of 1999. A year later at the age of 17, John was exposed to public corruption at the local level when the death of a family acquaintance was covered up by a corrupt local district attorney who had been previously investigated by the FBI for fixing cases for drug dealers and human traffickers. While attending the funeral, John saw firsthand the devastating human impact of public corruption. Determined to solve this problem, John started a high school student activist organization called Students in Democratic Action. What started with innocuous community projects like street cleanup campaigns and delivery groceries to the elderly grew into public comments at local city council and county commissioner meetings and, eventually, massive demonstrations calling for the district attorney’s resignation. It culminated with the mass arresting of multiple city officials, the election of a retired FBI agent as Mayor, and John’s acceptance to law school despite multiple politically-motivated arrests on bogus charges that were overturned and sealed by the courts. In his time as a community activist and union organizer, John helped pass a Living Wage Ordinance for county workers, found a civil service commission to protect municipal workers from political encroachment, and stopped the construction of a massive private prison.
After graduating from Georgetown Law, John went on to found his own company, Castro & Co. With two years, Castro & Co. was able to generate more than $1 million in a single year. Within a few more years, it was generating over $1 million each financial quarter. Despite being a recent graduate, John quickly found himself in the unusual role of being a young millionaire and successful entrepreneur. John’s rapid success caught the attention of a writer at the Harvard Business Review who recommended an Executive Education Program at Harvard Business School to John that was only available to proven and successful entrepreneurs.
After the election of Donald Trump, John again became engaged in politics; launching his first bid for federal office in the 2020 primaries as a candidate for the U.S. Senate. Although John announced his candidacy only 35 days before the election, he secured over 85,000 votes as well as a massive social media following. He quickly realized, however, the difficulty of communicating who you are and what was motivating him to run for office to a cynical public that rightfully questions people’s motives.
With all of that in mind, John decided to communicate his mind, heart, and spirit through song. His first album was a tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement that contained a series of modernized cover songs and transformative critique songs for the music that shaped his political belief system. In the coming years, John Anthony plans to release a lullabies album for his children and a Christmas album for generations to come.
“Thank you for your interest, but it’s not enough to just listen to my music. All evil needs in order to prevail is for good people to remain silent and do nothing. I need you to live the music. I need you to march to the music. I need you to take direct action. Start in your own home and amongst your own friends. Do not be tolerate of intolerance.”