Until recently, it appeared that nothing could stop the ascent of John Summit to the top of the dance music world. Since he infamously left the world of accountancy to pursue a DJ career, his rise has seemed unstoppable – from doing plague raves during Covid-19 to being snapped up by Defected on quite a lucrative deal.

So what was that first big bump in the road going to be? Much to our surprise at Ears To The House, it wasn’t Summit’s alcohol-fuelled image that got him into hot water – rather, it was a dispute over the trademark to the name Off The Grid that had been ongoing for many months behind the scenes.

Summit – real name John Schuster – claimed last week that True Entertainment were trying to sue him over his label’s use of the name Off The Grid. The company in question have run Off The Grid campouts since 2015 – and whilst it turned out that no lawsuit has been instigated over this matter, two respective trademark applications over the name do currently exist.

Yesterday, Schuster finally did the right thing and apologised for urging his fans to harass and go after True Entertainment. But anyone following him on social media would be hard pressed to find it – he has not posted it at all on Facebook or Instagram, with the exception of ab Instagram story which will disappear in 24 hours.

Meanwhile, on Schuster’s Twitter account, engaging with a number of his fans means his apology has been buried deep. Fortunately for Schuster, we’ve taken a screenshot of his apology and posted it here. Aren’t we nice?

So what’s the reason for taking this approach? This is obviously a question that only Schuster himself can answer – but Ears To The House might be able to provide some insight. Two years ago – back in the days when this site was a one-man band – we ran an article where a DJ openly admitted why he was doing plague raves.

Soon afterwards, his agency found out about it and contacted us. They demanded a retraction and a full apology – which would have to be displayed prominently on the website and pinned across our socials for two full weeks. In other words, the first thing anyone would have seen when visiting our site for a fortnight would have been our mea culpa.

It would have been a harsh punishment – and something which Schuster might have been forced to do if this matter had gone to court and he’d lost. The fact that it’s his label which is now being rebranded and not True Entertainment’s Off The Grid campouts, suggests his lawyers weren’t exactly confident with their odds of success…