Coghill attended
Nambour State High School in
Nambour, Queensland where his father was a
Physics teacher, graduating in 1988. While in high school, Coghill's ambitions were not directed towards music, as he expressed an interest in
football or
surfing. Upon graduating, he moved to Queensland's state capital
Brisbane and began studying
Botany at the
University of Queensland, however was interested in the Brisbane local music scene. Before long, Coghill had begun playing drums for local bands including side project Shock Fungus. Coghill met Powderfinger when he attended one of their practice sessions and joked with the band, introducing himself as a drummer. Two years later, when
Steven Bishop left the band, guitarist
Ian Haug recognised Coghill at an audition, and signed him at that point. Jon spent about six months playing alongside Scott Coleman and Marc Zande in the Brisbane grunge band, Gland, before committing full-time to Powderfinger in early 1992. In December 1997, Coghill took a brief break from Powderfinger and toured with
Regurgitator. Drummer
Ross McLennan of
Far Out Corporation and later from
The Predators, took Coghill's place for a Powderfinger performance on 19 December. Through his time in the band, Coghill has endeavoured to improve his drumming. In 1999 following the release of the band's third album
Internationalist, he took up lessons with Brisbane-based drum tutor Col Gillies. Coghill has stated that he took the lessons due to being "really sore" "three quarters the way through a show". To commemorate this, he joined with several other Australian musicians to form the one-shot band Superfinger Sleepychair. Composed of members of
The Superjesus,
Silverchair and
Sleepy Jackson, along with Coghill from Powderfinger, the group's name is a
portmanteau of all of the members' band's names. Coghill has been described by Powderfinger lead singer
Bernard Fanning as "psycho", stating "There's a constant battle between Cogsy and I as to who's the biggest psycho in the band" on numerous occasions. Fanning has also said of Coghill "He likes to antagonise people, and I don't mean that in a mean way", and continued to say jokingly that "It makes me want to smash him sometimes." and has also described him as stubborn. Fellow guitarist
Ian Haug says Coghill is an excellent arranger, explaining "he can listen to it all, just sort of sit back and go, 'Okay, that's a really good bit.'" Coghill himself has described himself as a "superhero". He has also stated that he shares the band's hatred of
band photos. In 2008, Coghill studied a mixture of politics and law at
Griffith University. He is currently a journalist for the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation. ==Style, technique, and influences==