Josh island is just like his music. warm, honest, genuine. During our interview we talked about how he tackles the highs and lows of being a modern day artist, the importance of authenticity and embracing interdisciplinary collaborations.
I first met Josh when we were both working as editors, but it didn’t take long to realize that his talents extended far beyond the confines of our office. Josh’s true passion lies in writing music and bringing it to life on stage.
You truly get a sense of his talent when you attend one of his concerts. He has this knack for connecting with people and filling the room with warmth, both during the performance and off-stage. His authenticity shines through in his captivating ballads, making it nearly impossible not to be moved by his soulful voice.
During our interview, we discussed how his first album came about, how he navigates the ups and downs of the industry, and how his unwavering optimism and commitment to staying true to himself shape both his life and his approach to being a musician.
Ok so, the typical question of what have you been up to whether you’re currently writing anything or recording anything?
So last year I released an album in September, that album was called “In my head” and that was quite a long trajectory leading up to that release of roughly 2 to 3 years. I remember the first song being written somewhat in September 2021, so it was actually two years in the making. It’s not a process where I was coming into the studio with 10 finished songs, recorded, and it’s done. It was this process where I had a few ideas, we started recording, and then a couple of months later, I would return to the studio with a couple more songs. Actually, while songs were being released, I would continue going back to finish the rest of the album. So it was very flexible, in continuous motion.
So it just happened as you went on, or was there a certain predetermined structure?
I think that when I was writing songs, I knew they would be for the album. I wasn’t sure whether they would all fit together or match. Once more songs started coming together, I did realize there were certain patterns of themes that were more prominent. Topics such as optimism, self-belief, mental health, anxiety and having faith… Those types of themes were quite prevalent so in the end I realized that is what the album was about.
Sometimes I guess when musicians write, they’ll just write, write, write and then they’ll have maybe 30 songs they’ve made and from those they’ll pick some of their favorites and end up putting those on the album. For me, it was more like starting to write songs and recording them when I felt they were good. I didn’t have a massive catalog to choose the best songs from; it was really just the first thing that came to my head. So it felt quite organic in that sense. I mean, I was picky, I was obviously trying to write the best I could, but I wasn’t forcing myself to strip down or reduce.
How was the reception of it?
Yes, it was very good. We played a lot of shows, mainly in Germany and the Netherlands, and also in Cyprus. So the reception was good. I felt like people could connect to the songs, I felt like the themes resonated with the audience, the themes that I mentioned before. I didn’t really have expectations for this first album because I didn’t know how it would be received. But when I take a step back and look at how far many of the songs have come in terms of the audience and listenership, and also how people have responded, I’m very happy with it. The funny thing is, for a lot of people a lot of the songs are new and for me I’ve been hearing them non-stop for three years. It’s a very different attitude to releasing music.
Some shows were very full, other shows were very empty, but that also then had to do with certain days of the week, or where we would play. So it was a roller coaster ride for sure. Difficult times, you’re always trying to gain some sort of recognition, also from industry peers, you know, who work in media or radio, and sometimes it can be very difficult if you don’t get that recognition.
How do you manage your highs and lows? Because I know you, and I find you always come across as so composed and as someone who has his emotions much in check. But how do you manage to get through the lows?
I think it’s a lot about just communicating about it with a lot of the people close to me. I mean, a very practical example is if we’re on tour and we have a really bad show or a show where, you know, attendance was very low or for some reason the sound wasn’t good. One of the things that can really pull you down, because you always want to perform to your best… … The best way to deal with that is really just to communicate with the band and have these conversations the next day and the next morning because, you know, we were all in it together.
Most of the time you acknowledge it, like this is okay, but what can we learn from this? And you know me, I think my emotions are quite composed, but I’m also very optimistic. So I was like, “Alright, today’s another day, it’s another show, and let’s see what happens.” So, of course I have my lows. For me the best thing is just to talk about it with the people that I work with on those projects and see like, okay, why did it not go the way we had planned? But I mean, I can still feel down after and that’s normal. I mean, the way for me to get over it is maybe to play some music or go to the gym or to exercise or so, you know, that helps me, that helps me sleep. But like any human being and like any musician, there is so much anxiety. And it’ll just pass, like sometimes it’s just one day you think, “oh my god, nobody is listening to this album”. And then the next day you get invited to perform some sort of big concert abroad and you’re like, “Oh my god, they love this album”, so it’s like almost on a daily basis that it’s ups and downs.
I imagine the highs being super high, you know? Like you say, one day it can be shitty and then you get invited to a concert and then it’s all worth it again, probably.
That’s the thing, and I’m still in a very interesting phase where I can be playing for I don’t know, a thousand people one day, and the next day it’s like 10 people. And it’s very hard to kind of find the balance between those two and to give your 100% in both situations.
Does media and social media add to the pressure of it ? Having to think of so many things and being active on all these platforms, do you have someone helping you with that or?
I do it all myself. I quite enjoy it. I used to be very strict with calendars and things that I wanted to say and post and I’ve kind of let go of that aspect. I’m trying to be a bit more organic now. I mean I’m still playing let’s say in quotation marks “the social media game”. I mean I do follow the trends, the do’s and the don’ts. But what almost stresses me more is traditional press work, which is like print media or media radio. Because usually those departments take a lot of money and the results are very minimal. So it’s very difficult to achieve what you had hoped for. So that almost is worse, because social media is like a direct connection between you and the audience. I mean in the ideal world, obviously because of the algorithms and such, most people don’t see your content, but what makes me more worried is like, how do I get to the radios and get to the print newspapers in Germany and things like that.
How is the process of that actually?
You have a press agent that you hire, who is well connected in the region. But the thing is that even though you pay them for a project, you can say something like “okay, I have an album and I would like your help to promote this album with your contacts”. Basically, it’s like that. But even though they can contact these people, there’s absolutely no guarantee that they will pick up a story.
So these are the people, they all do a great job, but the problem is the results are not guaranteed and that can make it a massive investment that really goes down the drain, which happened a little bit with this album actually. We had hoped for some bigger results in Germany, like there were some nice milestones, but there was nothing major that really would defend the investment. But those are things like project by project basis, I’m trying to see whether I’m doing the right thing, you know.
That’s what I find so difficult. I’ve encountered varying opinions from different musicians and artists regarding the modern expectation for artists to also be entrepreneurs. entrepreneurial spirit. It’s the juxtaposition of these two worlds that feels so strange to me.and Yet, in today’s context, you have to find a way to integrate them.
That’s absolutely it, like we are no longer just musicians. I think if you’re maybe on a very high level and you’ve got your team in place and you’ve got the support that you need, maybe you can be. But even then, it’s very important to know all aspects of the business and also for your own benefit, because you want to know how the business works and the contracts that you’re signing… Because that happens so much where artists have record deals fall apart and labels taking money that wasn’t theirs, all those things..
It’s interesting how artists feel differently about this. Some don’t like the business side, while others think it makes them more ambitious and enhances their ability to achieve their goals.
Yeah. No, it’s something I enjoy, but also it’s so much stuff that it’s good to have help. You know, it’s good to have people, even if it’s just friends helping you with things. That’s sometimes the lonely thing, you know, it’s like the one man show type or one woman show type feeling that you have in this as a solo musician. So, not always easy, but yeah, pros and cons.
You brought up traveling—how do you see the comparison between the reception from German, Luxembourgish, and Dutch audiences?
I think all audiences generally are very open. I think that in the Netherlands, I’ve not really had the experiences yet that I’ve had in Germany and Luxembourg simply because the types of shows that I’ve played there have not been of such a scale. They were more like small, more intimate things. So I just had like short times on stage, but everyone’s very open, very friendly, very international.
Luxembourgish crowds tend to be very dynamic because it’s such a large international community, which makes it very interesting because I also have a lot of international people in my band, so there’s kind of a different attitude that works really well in Luxembourg. I really feel at home there. In Germany, people tend to be really focused on the music and really paying attention to the concert that they came for. And then in the Netherlands, because it’s such a big country, there can be a lot of regional differences, but generally there is also a big love for live music there. I think in all three countries we were very lucky to have people who really love music and love concerts and also where the genre of music that I play fits quite well.
Are music festivals something that you’re envisioning to do more of in the future?
There’s a few coming up this year… I mean, festivals are the best way to access a new market because you’re put on a stage, usually a large stage, where people don’t necessarily come for you, maybe they come for the act after you, so it’s a great way to get a slot.
So that’s just a question of finding the right ones and making sure that the agent books you in and hoping that works out. It’s really just a lot of networking and having luck, to be honest.
Like, I’m playing this festival in May, Schlossgrabenfest in Darmstadt, which is nice because I grew up there. So it’s really almost like a homecoming show. But it turns out that when I was playing a showcase in Hamburg, one of the guys who came was good friends with my sister. So my sister told him “You should check out my little brother, he’s playing that show”. And, you know, otherwise he would never have seen the show.
I mean, sometimes these announcements seem big and everything, but they just come down to tiny fragments of luck.
There are some international acts that you opened for, such as James Morrison, Passenger… Did they give you any advice? How was that experience in general for you? Could you learn something from it?
It was a great experience in the sense that you’re getting recognition when you’re allowed to open for those acts because what happens is that they pitch you to the management of the artist and the management has to agree, obviously. So, they have to listen to the music and they have to like it for them to accept it. So the fact that you’re able to open the show already shows like, okay, we know what this guy is doing matches, first of all, stylistically and is on the level that we can include it in the show. So it’s just like a seal of approval that feels really good.
I had a bit of contact with Passenger… You know he was a street musician busking in Australia before his song went viral. It’s a bit like this story of when one song goes viral and then suddenly you’re on bigger stages and now you’re touring worldwide, so that wasn’t necessarily an advice, but i can see in these people where they’ve come from and also Passenger was super friendly towards me and and that also shows that he he remembers what it was like to be a support actor. I really, really appreciated that about him. And you could see him being, like, really nervous before the show.
That’s nice to see, especially when it’s like a big act and you look up to them, and then you see they’re just as nervous as you are entering the stage.
And suddenly it all kind of comes down to just keep going, to stay authentic to your art and just keep going. Because at some point, if you stay authentic, people will connect to it. It will find its audience.
And with Clueso, we got to play in front of a big audience. I think there were like two and a half thousand people or so, maybe three. That just showed to us that, you know, we belong on those types of stages. It’s not that we are some regional band who is playing some crappy bars or something like that. No, put us on a proper stage with a proper audience and we will prove to you that we can rock that show you know. That was one of those days where yeah I think we really did that and it helped us to acknowledge that fact that we can be on that level.
On that note, any dream collaborations?
I would love to do something like a project, a sort of theater play, not really a musical, but like a theater or a story where I get to write the music. Those types of collaborations would really interest me. And I don’t know who that person, who that collaborator would be, but working with people in the arts, cinema, or other creative fields where I could bring in the music, I think that would excite me the most. Like music where you would just write it, or also sing it. So if there’s like a film director who wants me to compose the music to the film or that’s interesting you know, writing the music to a theater play, those types of projects would really feed my creative energy.