by Jacklyn Lipscomb and Mari Washburn
Alternative singer-songwriter Joe P has been throwing himself into songwriting from his basement studio in New Jersey since the early onset of the pandemic- recording, producing, and creating his most personal material yet with the release of his sophomore EP French Blonde.
In the midst of his first ever headline tour, we were lucky enough to catch up with Joe ahead of his stop right here in Western Massachusetts next week.
Alternative Lately: The big exciting news right now is that you are currently in the midst of your first ever headlining tour. How have the shows been going? And how does it feel to be headlining?
Joe P: It has been insane. Like, it's just been so cool- people showing up. Every show I'm surprised that there's more than one person, so every day is a good day because of that. So yeah, it's been really cool. Totally different style of playing a show as far as like, when you're an opener, no one expects anything from you so you just do your best and it's fun- way less pressure. But now it's like shit, okay, now people pay to see me, I gotta be good.
We actually, we saw you open for Middle Kids a couple years ago. And at that time a handful of people seemed to really be getting into your music, with "Off My Mind" generating a lot of buzz. Now you have a newer version out with K. Flay. What has the evolution of this song meant to you?
It's been crazy. That was so unexpected as far as a duet of the song. I kind of always had the idea but I was like, I don’t know how that will ever come together. But yeah, the whole K. Flay thing happened. She lives in LA and I'm in New Jersey, so we're as far apart as you can get. But she's really good at recording and she produces a lot of stuff herself. So I was like, oh, this would be perfect because we can at least go back and forth virtually and it’s not like she has to go somewhere to record at one time and that's what I get. It worked out because she was just like, "yeah, we can tweak that-" but I didn't even have to change anything up because the first thing she sent was perfect. It was a cool thing and I love how it just kind of changed the narrative a little bit of the song and that second verse when she comes in, it just feels like oh shit, this is a new perspective that I didn't even really hear it as. So I like listening to it in that way, where I can hear it like a listener for the first time.
Speaking of being an opener of other acts, you recently toured with Joywave and Spacey Jane, have those experiences kind of influenced your headlining tour this time around?
Yeah, I think every opening thing I've ever done is influenced by my headlining ideas, because I would just look at the headline and be like, Okay, I would do this differently, or do this differently. I mean, some of the stuff is good. But a lot of times, I'd be like, if I had that opportunity, I would want to try this or that. Of course, it's easier to see when you're in that perspective of the opener who can sit back and kind of relax and watch them. It's fun trying to exercise those things that I've always had in my mind. Now on this tour, I have like more than a half hour to play. That's crazy. I can like, tell a story. I can make a joke. I can mess up. I can change up the setlist. So it's cool in that sense, where you just have so much more creative freedom to take the crowd where you want to take them.
Yeah, you get to experiment a bit more, it seems. So that's always fun. You're always finding such unique and creative ways to promote your new music. You recently released that short horror film titled "If We Run" this past October to promote your newest EP, how did that whole concept come about? And how did it influence your musical journey so far?
That whole thing was crazy. It was just kind of like a result of not wanting to make another bunch of music videos like you always do, instead of doing a three minute music video of a song, you know. I love making music videos, but I kind of hit a wall where I was like, what if we did something different, and it was a live performance more so, and you could chop it up into individual YouTube videos of each song if you want. That was how I convinced the label to go for it. And I was like, "you'll still get your five music videos- great!" But really, it was just a way to get money to make a movie. I always had this idea to do something like that. And horror is the perfect thing to go with any kind of rock music. So that worked out and we had all these locations from making so many music videos. I have all these connections and friends that have cool cars, cool houses, and stuff so it's cool. And that's always just my favorite way to make videos. I think the New York, LA thing can be super like, oh, you need this much money because we need to rent this car for two hours, and whatever. But when you grow up in New Jersey, you don't have that world around you. So you just get really good at like, knowing someone who has a cool car and doing this, and doing that- I'll get it back to you by 9pm and we’ll give you 20 bucks. Like, you get so creative with that. It was really funny because the Atlantic team that came in as the video team to help us were like "you guys are crazy!" Me and my friend Tony directed it and like, I made every video with him. Me and him just had all these crazy things like, where are you getting this from? And that’s what you have to do when you live in New Jersey. You can't just call an agency or be like, the budget is this and this-
You make it work!
Yeah, and you can get a way better looking thing because you're not relying on your budget and you can still have a tiny budget and make something that looks like it's a million dollars.
For anyone who is just discovering your music, what do you ultimately hope that your listeners take away from your songs?
I think I almost never know what I want people to take away because people have already come up to me saying they like a song for xy&z reasons, and it's none of the reasons that I made it, in a weird way. It's cool because everyone has their own way of interpreting things. So I like that. I kind of just like leaving it open to them and I hope people can get out of it what I get out of it by writing it because that's all it is for me. When I get done writing something, I don't think of it like, Oh, cool, I hope people listen to this or whatever. It's more just like, I had to get that out of me. And I think when people listen to me, you get that same feeling of like, I had to listen to this and get that out of me, whatever that is. So I'm just trying to do that. I'm just trying to get people to do their own version of whatever that feeling is for me initially.
Do you have any favorite songs in particular that you perform live that really emphasize that sort of connection with the audience?
I mean, "Off My Mind" obviously, we play that last and that's the one that everyone sings and knows the words to and all that stuff. But it's cool because afterwards people talk to me, they're like, oh, yeah, it got me through this breakup or whatever. And I'm like, oh wow- it’s not about that at all to me. It's funny, everyone has these different reasons for liking it. And in the end, for me, it's just a totally different memory and feeling that it comes from. That one's probably the most special right now just because the reception of that one is always so crazy when we play it. But yeah, that one and "Kids In The Summer" - I like playing that one a lot too.
Do you have any future plans?
I should right? Damn. I don't know. Right now I’m living minute to minute. Like, where am I gonna be able to go pee in five minutes? I don’t know. But yeah, I have a bunch of plans to basically release a bunch of new music. Because we’re on tour I can't record, and I'm not at the studio or at my house or anything like that. So I'm kind of just trapped away from that for now. But tons of stuff is like 99% done and I just can't wait to get home and start ripping through them and get them 100% done and be able to step back and look at it like, okay, here's 100 songs to pick from and make a full length record. I think that's the next move- not an EP, but a full length record. So a couple singles, and the whole thing.
I have a lightning question for you. So we are Alternative Lately and we want to know: what have you been listening to lately?
I have been listening to a lot of Fiona Apple, and Jeff Buckley, and Björk, and always Radiohead works its way in there. Yeah, I think something in that world. I think it's a lot of Fiona Apple that I’ve been listening to because there's just so much to it. I like listening to stuff like Jeff Buckley or Fiona Apple, where it's a little more like, the song isn't so: here's the verse, here's the chorus, here's the verse, and here’s the chorus. You kind of are just hanging on for dear life and following along with wherever they're taking you. And it's cool. It's good to listen to stuff like that as an artist or a songwriter, because it gives you a little more confidence to be like, oh, yeah, I don't have to follow this stupid formula. I'm sure that's what my record label would like me to do, and when the time comes, I do do that. Obviously, the song tells you what it wants no matter what. But yeah, I don't know. I love their stuff. It’s just so freeing. Those are the songs I can listen to on repeat because you learn something new every time you listen to it. Whereas if you listen to like, a pop song that’s on the radio every day- it's cool but after once or twice your ears start to get kind of numb to it a little. So yeah I’m kinda into that.
So wrapping things up a little bit, we are so excited that you are including a stop in Amherst on the tour next week, actually, one of our home cities. What can fans who are planning to attend that show expect?
I don't even know because every show there's something- my string broke last night, I’m like falling down, it was super hot because we were in wherever the heck we were - Mobile, Alabama. It was humid and I was like oh wow, I haven’t had a humid day of the year yet so this is my first one and I’m in front of all these people and it's just hot. And yesterday, I was playing and four songs in, I have like a- it's just singing and I don't really play guitar. So I do the classic put the guitar behind the back thing and just hold the microphone, and I looked down and my fly was open. So I would say, I can't even tell you what to expect because it’s going to be chaos. The songs will play, and I will play the songs, and everything in between... that is a mystery.
Be sure to check out Joe P's newest EP in full and catch his first ever headline tour- with a stop at The Drake in Amherst on Thursday, May 4th!
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