Josiah & the Bonnevilles

I sit down with Josiah & the Bonnevilles to talk about music, American Idol, life as an independent artists and many other things. I hope you enjoy the conversation I had with Josiah. 

Transcript

Matt: 0:00

I had the greatest pleasure of sitting down with Josiah, the Bonneville's to talk about music. Life chasing your dreams among other things. Josiah going into this conversation felt like a genuine person. Just based off of his social media accounts. After having this conversation, I feel even more strongly about those thoughts. Josiah has two new songs out, one called I am Appalachia and the other one called Tennessee song. I hope you'll take the time to listen to those songs as well as the conversation him and I had. Yeah, man. So looking at your social media, it looks like the past like eight to 12 months have kind of been a, a pivotal moment for you. You talk a lot about how you left bartending, working at a warehouse and kind of being full-time musician. Can you kind of walk us through those, these past, you know, eight, 12 months, what that kind of meant for you?

Josiah: 0:52

Yeah, well, it goes back a, a couple years, you know, I had, I've had three record deals. The third one that I signed was in 2019, right before the pandemic started. And when that deal ended you know, just a lot of crazy stuff happened that basically got me locked in that record. For a couple of years where I couldn't release any music, I couldn't do anything. And so it was a few months after the pandemic and I just started to look around and I was like, uhoh, you know, we're gonna be in trouble. And so the restaurants and stuff weren't hiring, you know, when I was younger, I worked in restaurants and I have throughout the years when I've had to. And so I, I had no idea what to. And so I found this warehouse, this Amazon warehouse out in Lebanon, and I did the application online. They, they hired me there. I was celebrating cuz I needed money so bad, you know, so I was living you know, like 45 to 50 minutes away from this warehouse. So I would go out there, drive. I did that for. I can't remember how long exactly, but I know event that was like when it was, the weather was starting to get cold and by the time the weather was starting to get warm again the next year, I was thinking I really, you know, would love to not be in this warehouse during the day. So I found a job bartending and for a little bit of time in the middle, I was doing both for a few weeks and that was a really crazy schedule and. I transitioned over to the bartending and yeah, to be honest, I was just waiting for that deal to to, to kind of expire. And when it finally did, I was really nervous about letting go of the bartending job, but I knew, here's my mindset toward it, Matt. I knew that. anything in life that you wanna do for a living is hard. Like look at the guys in the nba. Okay? You can devote your whole life to something and still not be the greatest at it. I knew that I wasn't gonna have another chance to get back into music unless I went full-time again. I didn't know if I could do it. I didn't know how successful I could be at it, but I knew that I had to kind of take that chance again and at least give myself a shot. And I knew I couldn't do it by splitting time with bartending. So what I did was I. You know, I, my manager, I gotta give him all the credit here because he's, he signed me to my second record deal. His name's Jeremy Macy. And he, we've stayed in touch even though we haven't always agreed on kind of how to do things. And I, I called him up and I said, you know, Jeremy, what, what should I do here? And he was like, you need to stop everything you're doing and just get on TikTok and reels and just start posting there. And I did. And you know, it took a little bit of time to get things going, but I started to really enjoy that process because I found that, you know, that stuff was getting shown to new people. whereas before my experience was you. when I started doing music, you would post something and it would get shown to your people in a timeline order. Okay, I'm gonna give away my age here. It would show in a timeline order, right? And then after that, they made a big change. They're like, no, we're not gonna do that anymore. We're gonna show it based on what we think people are interested in. So, five, six years ago, you could be an artist with, you know, let's say you got 10,000 followers, your stuff's never getting shown to more than 500. So when I started using TikTok and I started to see, hey, I've got, you know, 250 followers on here and I just posted this song that got shown to 2000 people, and I know those are new. I got so excited and I started to double down and really go into it. And You know, just started doing some covers, taking these walks in the morning to figure out what I could do that, you know, to get myself back in it all and started to develop my voice. And so yeah, that's where we've been for the last nine months and it's been, you know, it's been incredible.

Matt: 4:42

Yeah. So in that kind of that social media mindset, I've seen you you've super embraced it. Seems like you got a, a pretty good community of people that are, you know, constantly reaching out and, you know, everybody's kind of sharing your new your New Tennessee song and it's cool to see. So in, in that kind of mindset, Kind of wanted to talk about someone you look up to in the industry. So a lot of people get asked, you know, inspiration. But I kind of saw that moment you kind of had with Zach Bryan on the one post that I had done, and I thought that was a super cool, super cool moment and yeah, just one of your thoughts on, on that and maybe somebody you kind of look up to in the industry and, you know, try to work toward.

Josiah: 5:23

I attribute that moment to you, by the way, because you know, you posted that, I reposted that, that's what he responded to. So dude, I got you to thank for that. And you know, it's really hard to imagine answering that question any other way than saying, you know, Zach Bryant as someone I think any artist would look up to. There's a couple things about Zach that I find to be so special, and let's just put aside the immense like talent. Cause when I first heard Zach. The songs floored me. It just made me as a writer, you hear things where they just immediately make you wanna pick up a guitar. And Zach Bryan was that for me. It was a like a jolt of electricity in 2019. I sent him a message on Instagram right away. Told'em, you ever come through Nashville, bro? You got friends. Like, we love you. It was awesome. But let's put that aside and let's just look at what Zach's doing from the standpoint of releasing. Like just letting it fire all the time, not second guessing himself. Me, I'm, I'm a pretty self-conscious person and I'm a perfectionist. I've had long periods in my life where I've just haven't felt good enough and haven't felt like things were up to, to par for me, and I just stopped releasing. I just, I love that Zach is just firing all the time. He's like, this is where I'm at. These are the songs. I love that. And then you gotta look at the live, what he's doing in the live arena as far as making tickets affordable. I grew up dirt poor in east Tennessee. I could not afford to go to any of these concerts. I couldn't afford to go to concerts back then. Let alone now the, the prices are, are incredibly high and I think unreasonable in a lot of scenarios. So I get the sense, I mean, everything just points to. loving the music and the relationship with the fan more than the prophets that can be made through music. So I love him, man. I look up to him big time.

Matt: 7:12

Yeah, that was super cool for me as someone who you know, in a lot of aspects, I, you know, I grew up in a, not a great area, not a great, you know, type of deal as well. Seeing that that moment between you guys was like super cool for me as someone who had never really had a whole lot to show for himself either. And then I find myself in these spots where, you know, seeing artist kind of connect and, and being able to connect myself with artists is. Yeah, been super cool. Super, super cool. So kind of going back to your childhood is your, and what kind of music did you guys, what was playing in your household growing up? So, like, I grew up, my parents was like nineties country, right? So I was listening to like Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw, you know, those, those kind of people all the time. And then kind of grew into my own of like classic rock and, you know, went down the road from there. So, does the music you grew up listening to influence what you do now or is it kind of, you know, changed throughout time and you kind of found your own little?

Josiah: 8:07

Yeah, it does a little bit of all of that. Just like you we're very similar. I grew up, it's like, don't take the girl, you know, and I think I'm on a role here in Little Rock, like that's what I was playing in the radio all the nineties country. Little bit of classic rock. When me and my brother started to drive, we started to drive ourselves to school. There was a station called, I think it was 1 0 35, and it was the classic, the, the, the, the classic rock, which we loved. Then I got into a bunch of Brit pop blur, echoing the bunnymen. Coldplay Keen. I love that stuff. I started out playing piano when I was, you know, started playing piano when I was eight. All the songs I wrote were kind of piano based early on, and then it was later on, I wanna say. Kind of my early twenties where I discovered towns Vanzant, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, which really kind of brought me the BA in the back door around to Appalachian and more like the older country. The stuff that I, I hold so dear, but to me, when I hear like Appalachian music, I guess the way that I would describe that is it just deals in truths. It deals with the truth of life. It's not trying to, it's less of kind of party music. Music to drink beer too. And it's more of music to actually evaluate your life too. And that's what I love about this Appalachian music scene. I would say that no matter what style of music I liked from the time I was 13, I wanted to write songs about my life, like the good, the bad, the Ugly. Never wanted to like make a big chorus that people could just sing along to and repeat. I just wanted to write about my life. So I take a lot of pride.

Matt: 9:42

Yeah. So I think, I mean, yeah, I think your music definitely echoes that. You think So? I always get kind of blurred in the lines of you know, Americana country folk, folk, and like this kind of like you're calling it Appalachia. So Is it in that realm? Right? It's obviously in that realm, but do you consider yourself more Appalachia than Americana or more country folk? Cause definitely in the lines of all that, but you consider yourself one more than the other.

Josiah: 10:11

It's so interesting. I, I just don't think I would put a name on it. I think, I'd think I'd, I try to just deal in truth, you know. I'm from the country, so it's always gonna sound a little bit country. It's kind of the way I think about it and I sing about Appalachia, so that to me, makes it Appalachian. I, I really connect with the lyrics of a song. So for me, when I'm gonna classify something as one thing or the other, I'm gonna look at it lyrically first. So I. You know, I don't know if there's a clear answer, you know and you can look at other artists. I mean, Zach's an example of this too, you know, where does it live? I've been, I've been very blessed to be allowed into the country ecosystem where the blogs are writing about the music. It's an incredible honor to me. I never thought for a minute I'd ever get to live in any of of those lanes, so I'm very happy to kind of hitch my wagon to what they, what country is, you know, because they're allowing me in. So I would never say I'm not country, but I don't know if I could if I could exactly. Just put an easy label on it.

Matt: 11:17

Okay. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. I definitely find your music, you know, kind of like sitting, like I'm from you know, middle of nowhere Pennsylvania, so from the sticks kind of grew up in the sticks, so that music is like sitting on the back porch kind of listening music. And for me it's always been, you know, it, it, it feels like home, I guess is the easiest way to put it. Yeah. In terms of, you know, your, your social media presence and you know, your label deals, are you currently running indie, so to speak, or are you looking for a label deal? You're kind of done with those having some, some bad taste in your mouth or?

Josiah: 11:56

So I've, you know, I've tried to make it a really strong daily effort and focus to not come off as bitter toward labels. And I don't want to be the anti label guy, and I don't want my music to be just good for indie music. I want to give everything that I have to this, and I want the music to be, you know, of the quality that you can find from any artist on any label. We've had people reach out and to which I've all, I've responded to all of them and I've said, you know, I think at this moment I'm not seeking out a deal. I've kind of established with you know, the people that are falling along and listening that I don't want anything to come between sort of this system that we've got and that's that I sit here in this room, write something that I'm feeling, I share it. If it seems like a lot of people want that, then I just take that straight to product. and I just finish it. And I get it straight out to people right away cuz I don't believe anymore that there's some promo plan that somebody can give me that's better than me just telling people what a song's about. You know? I think the social media aspect of things like that, it kind of has become the job, you know? So rather than thinking, oh, well a label could do this for me or do that for me. I've been on the labels and I've seen like, you know, it. sometimes it can just create a layer between you and what needs to be done by expecting somebody else to kind of make the songs work. So I kind of like this where I wake up every day and I'm like, there's no, no cavalry coming. You know, you gotta get that video up, you gotta finish that song and you gotta get it up. So I'm so grateful to everybody that's reached out from labels and. and I would never rule it out down the line if the moment is right. But at at the moment, I'm, we're not seeking anything.

Matt: 13:48

Okay. Yeah, I mean, I think that makes perfect sense. You know, from what I've gathered, I mean, especially in an age like today, like you're, you're right, you're own advocate and like in a social media world where you can get it out to so many people, I think it's super worthwhile to, to explore that. So I think we can. Know the full Josiah story Right. Without talking about American Idol at some point. Right. Thank so I, I'm, I'm like, I I wanted to avoid it for a while, honestly. Okay. But I'm so genuinely curious. So that was, you were, you know, a teenager when that took place. Mm. just kinda walk us through that experience. It doesn't have to be anything. I'm sure you've talked about it, you know, ad nauseum with people, but it's still super curious

Josiah: 14:30

on it. I'll see if I can drop you some new info, Matt, that nobody else has. Okay. Well I was yeah, I was, I dropped out, I was high school at 17. I moved to Texas to work at a, like fruit and vegetable packing plant, and my mother called me and she was, you know, we, me and my mother loved watching McDonald and she was like, they're auditioning in Atlanta. and she might have even bought me like a little motel room or something there because she didn't know where I was staying. I'd been sleeping in my car really just roughing it out there. And so I go to Atlanta. I tried out, I made it on, it was the original three judges. So is Pauly, r, Paula, Randy Simon, and yeah. You know, you do the five opening stages and then finally you get in front of the judges. They send me through, you know, it was. Just a whirlwind experience for me, just a kid as green as you can be from East Tennessee and so young as well. I just loved, I loved the music, you know, with all my heart, but I kind of didn't know how to, how to deal with that sort of, all of that happening at once. It was pretty crazy. I remember the producers got pretty mad at me because I had not wanted the band to play a song a certain way. And they had, they didn't wanna work with me on the arrangement. And so, I mean, they're, they're looking to be like, who's this 17 year old kid trying to tell us how to arrange this song? But I'm like, I know the way that I wanted the sound. And then, you know, it ended, I signed a deal with Warner Brothers. Right. A. I actually went to London to make my first record out in the uk. I worked with a producer named Dave Coston. But I was not handling myself very well. I was drinking a lot at the time. I've struggled with, with addiction quite a bit throughout the years, and it kind of started at this point. I was also very self-conscious about my time on that show, so, you know. when you ask. Also, you know, who I look up to? Morgan Wallen would be a great example of somebody who, he was on the voice and he had albums out before that didn't set the world on fire. You know, he didn't, he just kept, kept releasing as well. I'm very inspired by that cuz for me, for four or five years, I didn't wanna release anything. I wanted people to forget that I had been on that. I felt like there was kind of like a, it was a sin that was on me, you know, where people like, thought of me as Josiah from that show, and I kind of had a bad, just, I don't know, it was just something that I thought very deeply about and it took me a long time to kind of shake that concept and just, you know, get to work and, and keep releasing music and not worried about it.

Matt: 17:06

So you're, you dropped outta high school. You, so you're obviously self-taught in Yeah. In music and self-taught with, you know, all of that kind of stuff. Has that, you know, you think. Given you different perspective on your music or, or how to, you know, approach it as opposed to someone who maybe, you know, went to school or had some classical training in it. Do you think that that sets you apart or do you think that is just kind of in individualistic in terms of, you know, whoever it may be?

Josiah: 17:34

I think my path has set me ahead from like a creative standpoint where, you know, of the less voices you have involved, I think the more original things are gonna be cuz you're not whittling it down to try to make it work for a large amount of people. So I think in that regard, I protected myself from not letting myself get too diluted. But where I really hurt myself, Matt, was that I had no discipline. So all the things you need when you go to school or when you go to a job, which is, yeah, you gotta show up. Maybe you don't feel like it, but you gotta show up and you gotta do the work and you gotta be present and it's not always gonna be fun. That is what I had no concept of as a 17 or 18 year old. I was just a loose cannon, running wild writing songs, you know? I was gonna do life my way. So I think I've definitely, I mean, You can see it's taken me this long. I'm about to be 34 in three days, and it's taken me this long to figure out how to get a work ethic together around it, you know? So yeah, I would say it's, it's helped and hurt. Okay,

Matt: 18:41

well, I mean let me be the first happy early birthday. Thank you. But so I, I'll be honest, I do admire and, and super respect like having, so I currently work in a warehouse myself and am trying to, you know, make something of this full-time eventually. But so I super respect and admire kind of you coming from those kind of roots and really committing. To doing this. So you have an upcoming ep, Tennessee, is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. So what can, what can fans of, of Josiah and the Bonneville expect from that?

Josiah: 19:15

So we're gonna do two eps. And then they're coming up. I have them both recorded. So from the Tennessee ep, we released the Tennessee song. First time ever getting on new music. Friday, apple put it on six or seven playlists, which it's just un unbelievable. You know, I wrote this song when I was. in London at the end of this very last record deal and everything was going bad. I miss Tennessee so much and I wrote it. I didn't think it was any good. I thought it was a song I would just kind of sing to myself at times, cuz I have some songs like that that I just know, know, are kind of personal songs. So to have that song be on, on all these playlists has been unbelievable dream come true to me. The, the rest of the, that EP is gonna round out the story of how I got back. There's a song, Which actually I've had for a little, a little bit of time. It's one of the last songs I got to play my mother before she passed away. It's called I Am Appalachia. And that's about, you know, running away from that area that I grew up in and knowing that I had to return. And then the, the last song Run, it's gonna be called Back to Tennessee, which is about kind of that moment of pretty much the same thing, but from a different perspective of nothing's working and the boxes are packed and, you know, you're just basically running back home with your tail tuck between your legs because you've, you've tried it and you've kind of failed. It's, it's facing a, a lot of failure. I feel like that the CP is, but I've, in a, in a triumphant way to me, because, you know, I feel here in this place where I belong, that I'm capable of withstanding the highs and lows of life because they're gonna come and it's hard enough just living and breathing and. You know, li life is hard enough on its own. So to be insulated, to be here in a place that I love, where I do have friends and I do have family, is very huge. So that's, that's what it signifies to me, and I hope people will be able to sense that through the ep.

Matt: 21:10

So you talk about getting back to that support system and, and having those friends and family and has obviously your, your family been super supportive of all this and, and everything you've kind of gone through. I mean. has that support, has the support always been there? Is it as a struggle at times? Have you struggled to, to see it at times? Obviously we go through this mental health thing where, you know, we have the talent or we have the ability, but we struggle to see it. And even though our support system might be, you know, rooting us on, it's still, it's easy to get in your own head and, and push the, that support away or push it down and have it has it. easier or, or harder since you've been back? In that sense? I

Josiah: 21:47

would say, you know, my experience with my family is very interesting. They are amazing people. The most loving people you can find. For me, I've that, you know, I'd never felt that I wasn't seen or that I wasn't loved and was always, you know, very well taken care of, even though we were poor. But I, I did, when I was younger, I'll be honest with you, there were times where, you know, I. It's not that I looked down on it, but I resented the fact that my family didn't know anything about what I wanted to do. They didn't know anything about business and I was out in, you know, LA or wherever I was just burning bridges left, right, and center cuz I had no concept of how. To deal with any sort of relationship that involves working together and kind of business or, you know, my family is just very simple. So they were all, you know, my dad worked in the furniture factories in east Tennessee, had his boss, he listened to the boss so, The kind of relationships I, I, you know, have over a long period of time learned how to build and learned how to maintain. It's been, it took a long time for me to figure out how to do that and so I felt, you know, I always loved my family. They were never able to support. you know, financially, but they always loved me and even if they didn't understand what I was doing most of the time, you know, then, especially now with Spotify and all this stuff, and you know, with LA if you tell somebody in East Tennessee, you sign to a label, they'll, they'll be over the moon, you know? Well, I've, I've had three now and I'm like, well, I know it's not quite all it's cracked up to be, you know? You know, I would say I, I, I love my family. What they've, they've given me, you know, in love makes up for everything that they don't know about the other things. And my friends here in Nashville are just amazing. We went to high school together, so nobody's in music, they're engineers. we'll go play, you know, basketball out at the court down the street, or go over to the Y M C A or something and we'll sit around around a fire. So it's very, it's very good. I like, I like my regular people. You know, I'm not an industry man. You will not find me at a cocktail party in LA ever. It's just not what I

Matt: 23:58

like. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I. I get that. Yeah. Like I said, growing up around where I grew up, that's, that's what life is around here. So I'm curious where, so Josiah and the Bonneville's, where does the, the Bonneville's come from?

Josiah: 24:13

So originally I had a, so after American Idol since I was living in my car, my car had broken down a dealership, gave me a Pontiac Bonneville. It was a 2000 Pontiac Bonneville. I think it was awesome. It had like leather seats, power windows, and I drove, I just drove the wheels off that thing by the time I started this project. I had a guy playing guitar, guy playing bass. There were two really tall guys. Now don't tell anybody, but I'm not the tallest guy in the world. Two really tall guys, and I would say, and the car was breaking down at the same time and I was like, why don't we just name it Josiah and the Bonneville? Cause you guys are two, two big dudes. The car's breaking down. And that's how it started. I ended up going on a couple tours solo just because of the nature of the finances of touring. You know, it can be expensive to do with the band if, if you don't have you know, a label with tour support or, or just whatever the case may be. And they were both a little bit older than me, so the band just kind of drifted apart. We didn't break up, but the original three, we, we just kind of, Agreed that it was, it was better left for them to do their thing and for me to kind of carry the project solo. So for a long time I didn't know what the Bonneville's was, and people would ask me that question and I would say, I never knew how to answer. I was self-conscious. I'd go on stage and play shows with this band name and it was a few months ago, and somebody on TikTok said, can I be, can I be a bonne? and a light just went on in my head. I responded back and said, yes, she can be Bonneville. And I just knew it right away. I was like, this is, it's perfect because it's me in this bedroom. The only reason I get to do this for a living is cuz of everybody listening. So I made stickers that said I'm a Bonneville. I sent'em out with every, we did a t-shirt run. I sent'em out with every T-shirt and I'm just gonna keep reinforcing. Matt till the day I die that it is that that is what it is. You know? It's me and it's the people that are allowing me to do this. And it can't work without either. It can't, it couldn't work without that half, you know. Yeah.

Matt: 26:16

No. Yeah, I love that. That's, that's awesome. Honestly. Yeah. And super like organic on how that happened. That's super cool. Yeah. So what, couple, couple more questions here before we wrap up, but, okay. So what is your favorite song that you've ever made or put out? So, not necessarily like your most popular song was something, you know, you listened to and you're just super proud of it. Super happy with what, what came.

Josiah: 26:42

I would say for me that's a song called Old 10 Can it's a song I woke up one morning. In East Tennessee, I was staying at my grandma's house where my grandma and my dad live. I woke up in the one morning and I had this, the, just the melody and the idea in my head. I was gonna take my other grandma up to see where my mother's buried. My mother's buried on the side of a mountain. Okay. Like, no lie, it's behind a couple of trailers. There's a dirt road that like grows up sometimes and like if it's raining, you can't get up there. The day she was buried, it was raining. People are slipping and like falling down mountain. So, you know, my grandma's joke is that my mother, you know, is, or somebody joked that she's, you know, complicated. Even in death. My mother is I have a little, a little like metal kind of can, I think it's a old lunchbox and I leave it up there and I've always, whenever I've gotten music done, she passed away in 2009. It was before I got my first record out with Warner Brothers, and we were trying like hell to get the record out while she was alive. The label was trying. We were all trying, but she never got to see that first album come out. So from then on I would take my CDs and I would put'em in this. Kind of tin can about, about where she's buried. And I was going, I was taking my grandma. I had a new CD of some burn, some burn music that I did, and I just woke up and I had it in my head. I stepped out on the front porch to grab a guitar. I tried to write it, I couldn't write it. I'm just bawling. Like I can't, I can't even sing the words, you know? It took me maybe three months to be able to actually get it all. I wrote it that morning, like down on paper, but it took me like three months to be able to actually sing the damn song. and I sang it four times in the garage and I was like, I'm, I'm, I can't do it anymore. I'm done. And that's one of, one of those takes is one of the ones that's the one that come out, has come out. So, and it's, you know, for me, I would say, when I think of it and when other artists ask me for advice these days, you know, I just think of that song, which I don't think it got put on any playlists. I think, you know, day one, it maybe. 150 streams or something like that. And this still doesn't get, this still doesn't set the world on fire streams wise, but I just, it, that to me embodies the reason why I do it. It's my way to make sense of my life, you know? So old, old 10 can very, very special one to me.

Matt: 29:09

Yeah, that's yeah, I mean, I could clearly understand why. So what about a song you've had on repeat lately? Maybe not, one of your songs, but song by somebody else that you just, you just can't get enough of?

Josiah: 29:20

Dude, there's a girl you, I'm curious if you've heard of this girl. Her name's Sarah Clang. Have you heard of Sarah Clang? I don't think, no, you've gotta go. You're per, you're the perfect person to listen in the movie Sarah Clay Canyon. So the song is called Canyon. The girl's name is Sarah Clay. It is some of the best music I've heard in years and nobody knows about it lot. You know, last time I checked she had like 300, 280 or 300 k monthly listeners on Spotify. I found her because my girlfriend made, we made a playlist and she put this song called Ghost Killer on it. buts, Clain Canyon. It's a incredible vibe. You can work out to it, you can listen to it driving, you can put it on in the background. It's great if you're hanging out like with your girlfriend or with your partner, whoever. Highly

Matt: 30:08

recommend. Yeah, I'll have to, I'll have to give it a listen for sure. Yeah. So I guess wrapping up, what is, one piece of advice you'd give, to, to artists out there, to anybody really just trying. Commit or, you know, make it full-time doing something that they enjoy rather than, maybe working that warehouse job or working that job that's, that's paying the bills.

Josiah: 30:29

So I would say the number one thing that changed my life and was, let me, I'm trying to think of how to put it correctly, is that I just, I decided that I was gonna tell myself every day that, that I was a musician and. The way that I would explain that to people is that like failure has got to be an option. Have you ever watched the the Bulls documentary about the Michael Jordan and the Bulls and them? Yeah, There was a moment where Phil Jackson sat down the team and he was like, you guys may lose. And that hit me powerfully when he said that, because you think of winning as just confidence. You think of, you know, Morgan Wall on stage crushing beer cans against his head, throwing the crowd, and you just think, oh, winners always. but it's not true. Like there will be failure. But I try to tell myself every day that I am a musician, no matter who streams it, no matter who does this or that. If you love something and you want to be it, and you're willing to kind of navigate the hard times and just keep firing, I feel like that's the number one step. It may not mean that it'll lead to, you know, for everybody to, to, to make it to where they're getting to, but I feel like that's the number one step to say like, this is what I am, win, lose, or draw on a daily basis, and to wake up and keep doing it. The second part of that would be that the, the public's memory of failure is very, People generally only win, only remember your wins. So you, you know, with TikTok too, man, like you can put out 18 in a row and they don't do anything, and you put out another one. No one's looking back to say, oh, look how many, look how, what a loser this guy is because of all these ones that didn't work. Nobody's doing that. You know, so that's what I try to tell as many people as I can. Like, if you want to be it, be it, and, and there'll be failures, but just keep firing away and you'll eventually, you'll find a way to make it.

Matt: 32:26

Yeah, no, I mean, I couldn't, couldn't agree more man. Like in that same sense for me, like this has been a, like a year coming for me, that I've been doing this kind of thing and it's never would've guessed a year ago that I'd be in this kind of spot. So, yeah, couldn't agree. Couldn't agree more with that. So I'm gonna give you a chance, like, let everybody know what you got coming up kind of plug what you wanna plug and then, Okay.

Josiah: 32:46

Call it amazing. Yeah. So we've got So we got this Tennessee ep. I can't say too much, but there is something big coming. There's a couple big things coming. So Tennessee ep, there's gonna be another EP that's gonna come out that I'm actually can't give you the name for yet because I'm gonna let people on my Patreon. Vote for the title of this ep. There's two options that I'm gonna give them. In the pa, in my pa on my Patreon, which in lieu of a label is how I've been funding a good portion of being able to make the stuff made. I'm starting now to do basically a how-to, so how I record in logic, some my songwriting techniques my vocal chain, how I master stuff. What distribution I use, how I get songs. Basically from the TikTok tees to the final product, I've opened up a new tier there where I'm sharing all this info. So each, each month I post a video for anybody who wants to check that out. They, they're welcome to come and just see. How I've doing it, which I think I've got a pretty good way of doing it. That's not complex at all, cuz I'm not, I don't, I don't know how to do a lot of things, so I just, I just bust it mostly. But there's that, and then there's this ex EP that I'm very excited about, and then I'm, I'm working on new music, so, you know, there, there, there's some very exciting stuff coming later this year just in regards to getting more music done.

Matt: 34:07

Cool. Awesome man. We'll have to I'll make sure I get the link to your Patreon in the, in the show notes and man, I can't thank you enough for being on here and it's an honor man. Nothing but nothing but good vibes for you going forward, man. Looking forward to, you're

Josiah: 34:19

putting out, dude, I believe in you. Send this to me when you've got it. I can't wait to hear it. Absolutely, man.

Matt: 34:24

I definitely will.