Project Description

Interview with
JOSH PYKE

(September 2020)

Interviewer – Simone Tyrrell

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Simone:
Hi Josh. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me today. Much appreciated.
Josh:
No problem.

Simone:
You have a new album coming out next month titled Rome and I read that you have said “all roads lead to Rome” and things not being as they once were. It’s about change, acceptance and adaptability. It’s very apt timing with our current climate your message with this album. What was the original inspiration behind the songs on this album?
Josh:
There’s so many different sides of the songs. I guess the core theme, something that I have been very open about is, I was having some really bad anxiety issues a few years ago which at the end of it has made me take stock of touring life and musical life and I decided to take a solid three years off touring. So, the things that formed that period of anxiety and the subsequent dealing with it, that’s a pretty core central theme to the album.

Simone:
The album was recorded in your home studio, but you went to Portland to mix it and finish it. What was the idea for wanting to go to Portland to wrap it up?
Josh:
It was really about creative closure I think is a good way to put it. The album I recorded on and off over those 3 years and it was in the last six months of 2019 that I really knuckled down and said I’ve got enough sketches of songs to make a great album. That whole process was quite domestic and I got some drums played by a dear friend of mine in the Blue Mountains, I got some electric guitars played by a dear friend in Leichardt which is just around the corner from me, I had friends coming into the studio and laying down tracks but it was all very domestic. I felt I needed a big gesture to finish the record off and to get someone else’s objectivity and ears onto it. I really wanted to work with Tucker Martine who is the guy who mixed it. So, for me it was about creative closure really and it was an adventure and a gift to go to another country and work with another creative. I was super excited to do it. Now in retrospect I was so grateful I was able to have the opportunity to leave the country before all this stuff happened.

Simone:
Yes very good timing. And it’s exciting for the release of Rome as it is your first album in 5 years, however that hasn’t meant you haven’t been busy with other projects. You also had a run of performances a while back of The Beatles White Album with Chris Cheney from the Living End, Phil Jamieson from Grinspoon, and Tim Rogers from You Am I. Majority of these shows were sell outs wherever you performed. What was this experience like for you performing one of the greatest albums in music history with other well renowned Australian artists?
Josh:
It was great. Believe it or not that was the fourth time we done that show. So, we did that first show ten years ago. But every time it has been great. It’s very different to performing your own stuff. I don’t actually know a lot of other people’s songs. We didn’t want it to be a cover show we wanted it to be like a Beatles tribute show and perform the songs with our own sort of flavour on them. But honestly it’s a joy to do those things and it’s a privilege to be given the opportunity in a country in Australia, which is a relatively small market to play at these massive venues and have these people love what we were doing. These people were first and foremost fans of The Beatles but then became fans of each of us individually as musicians and they were also fans of the venues we played in like the Opera House. It was just 100% positivity with all the shows that we did.

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Simone:
Yes that’s exciting. Also during your break between albums, you have pursued other creative endeavors which have included writing children’s books. You released “Lights Out Leonard” and co-authored the book “A banana is a banana” with entertainer Justine Clarke. You also have another three children’s books due for release during this year and next. What was the inspiration behind wanting to take on this creative endeavor of writing children’s books?
Josh:
Definitely having kids! I have two boys, 7 and 9 now. My wife started her career out in children’s book publishing, so it was always a world I was really aware of long before we had kids. And then having kids, we read A LOT to our kids. We read a lot of kids books. And I just fell in love with the class of it. It’s very much like song writing. Kids books are usually very economic and they’re not very long so you have to get your meaning into these pretty short books in a way which is not heavy handed, and is still quite poetic and involves humour or whatever it is. There’s a real craft to it and it’s a craft that I have really dug deep in. I don’t want to be a song writer that occasionally writes books, I really want to make kids books a proper part of my career. I just really love it.

Simone:
That’s amazing. You’re so creative and talented. You have such a range of different things that you do.
Josh:
Oh thank you.

Simone:
I guess writing as you already do song writing, but as you said it’s a very different avenue and a way of getting a message across as well and being very succinct about it.
Josh:
Yeah yeah.

Simone:
Obviously you’re someone who doesn’t stop creating, you’ve also self-produced a punk album under the name of “Sword Owls”. What was this like venturing into a very different genre that is different to your regular style of music?
Josh:
For me it was actually a return home. I started out in a punk band.

Simone:
Oh wow. Ok.
Josh:
For all of my 20’s up until I was about 25 and I went solo. From the age of 16 until I was about 24 I was in a punk band and we were called “An Empty Flight” and I was almost certain that was going to be my avenue for making a career out of music. It’s always been a part of me. Still my favourite bands are still “At the Drive In”, “Mars Volta” and early “Foo Fighters” and stuff like that. So, it was very much kind of taking a certain type of creativity that has always been there for me. And having a studio at home makes it easier to come down and work on tracks for fun. It was just a chance to muck around basically.

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Simone:
Yeah fair enough. That’s really cool. Your passion for the arts industry with your own creativity shows through in all the different projects and endeavors you take on. You even support others in their creative endeavors by creating the partnership with APRA AMCOS the initiative called the Josh Pyke Partnership where every year you give one up and coming artist a grant and mentorship. Previous winners of the program include Angie McMahon, Gordi and Alex Lahey. Can you tell me a bit about this initiative and the program and your work with APRA AMCOS as an ambassador for them?
Josh:
I’ve been an ambassador for APRA for probably about 12 years (pauses) or even longer. I just think they are a great organization. I got to a point in my career where I felt fortunate that I’ve had a career for as long as I’ve had and to still have a core fan base that supports what I do. There were lots of different decisions I’ve made over my career that had led me to that point. And I was thinking about it in the scheme of how I got to where I got, while the core things were very early on, I received a couple of grants that allowed me to move on with my career. But of all the things that have helped me during my career has been talking to other artists and being unofficially mentored by other artists. Learning from them, asking them questions, learning about touring, learning about how you manage life and touring. And I just thought there was an opportunity to provide those two things by partnering up with APRA and offering money and mentorship. A lot of artists at a certain point, they hit a wall and they need money and mentorship. It’s really those two things. I say this a lot; it sounds really simplistic, but I thought I was in a position to do this and it would be a good thing to do therefore I should do it. It was kind of as simple as that.

Simone:
Yeah absolutely. I remember a couple of years ago I went to a conference and they were talking about when you take the elevator up to success remember to bring it back down. I think everything you do and your philosophy, as you said unofficially being mentored yourself, but now you see that opportunity to do it more in an official capacity to offer that to artists I think it’s fantastic.
Josh:
Oh thank you.

Simone:
Another way you are showing support for other creatives during this time is that you put a call out recently for animators to apply to create a video clip for one of your songs and for that person to be paid for their services. So again, that assisting creatives and getting work. Is there a decision yet to what song that will be for and what has the response to this been like so far to this call out?
Josh:
The response has been great. We have a bunch of entries that we’re going to start digging into. The song is called “I Thought we Were A River” which is being released the same day that the album drops. It’s a bit more of a rocky song compared to the other ones that have been released so far. I think animation lends itself to the more upbeat songs in some ways as you can kind of go in any direction. The lyrics are quite metaphorical to lend themselves to animation and I’m excited to see what people come up with. I am a huge fan of animation. In my family we watch the Studio Ghibli films all the time and I just love the fact that there’s really nothing off the table when it comes to animation. The scope is as vast as your imagination. I just love that.

Simone:
That’s so exciting. I can’t wait to see, who ends up winning and what ends up coming out. You’ve got a lot of exciting endeavors on the table there.
Josh:
Yeah yeah it keeps me busy.

Simone:
I want to thank you for your time today to chat all things creative in your career and your new album Rome. It’s been fabulous to chat to you.
Josh:
Thank you. Appreciate it.

Simone:
No worries. Enjoy the rest of your day.
Josh:
Thank you. You too.

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ROME
Tracklist

1. Old Times’ Sake
2. Doubting Thomas
3. I Thought We Were A River
4. Home
5. Still We Carry On
6. Don’t Let It Wait
7. The Closing Eye
8. You’re My Colour
9. I Don’t Know
10. Old Songs Now
11. Where Goes The Girl

Buy ROME HERE

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JOSH PYKE
Releases 6th Studio Album
ROME
– Out Today

+ Shares New Single & Video
‘I THOUGHT WE WERE A RIVER’

News HERE

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JOSH PYKE
“Rome”
(Album Review)

HERE

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Follow JOSH PYKE
Website – Facebook – Twitter – Instagram

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BIO

Josh Pyke’s first studio album in five years, Rome, finds him coming to terms with a simple fact: everything fades. But for the Sydney-based creative there is hope and beauty in accepting one of life’s hard truths.

“It’s that line, all roads lead to Rome,” he explains. “You can’t escape yourself. You can’t escape the reality of your own experience and your own life, and Rome as it was when it was in its great period doesn’t exist anymore. Everything fades, everything crumbles, and you can’t escape that experience, and all roads lead back to that fact.”

Sitting in a corner of his home studio, Timshel Industries, his litany of ARIA awards sitting atop a nearby piano, his thickening beard framing his face, he leans back on his chair and lets out a small laugh.

“It’s not necessarily a negative thing. It’s just the way it is. And if you dwell on that it’ll either make you feel nihilistic or you’ll feel like, let’s just do good work now and engage in art and creativity. That’s pretty much what preoccupied my thinking and has massively informed the album.”

Indeed Rome is anything but a negative, nihilistic album. It’s a record filled with love – of family, of creativity, of nature, of life and its many possibilities – yet at 42, Pyke knows our existence is full of ups, downs and sideways moments, and we’re left with little choice but to accept and adapt to them all. In that regard, it’s also an album of healing.

“It’s the self-therapy idea of catharsis and accepting things for the way they are and not trying to fight it.”

Rome is Pyke’s long-awaited follow-up to 2015’s But For All These Shrinking Hearts – which debuted at Number 2 in Australia, his highest chart entry to date – and marks his return to his solo career following a two-year break from the stage.

That break came off the back of an intense three-year stretch in which Pyke released But For All These Shrinking Hearts; performed with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (immortalised on the ARIA Award-winning Live At The Sydney Opera House album); released a Greatest Hits LP; toured with an all-star line-up performing The Beatles’ White Album; and played some of the biggest local and international solo shows of his career.

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While remaining incredibly busy pursuing other creative exploits during the hiatus from his solo career – more on that later – the time away gave Pyke a chance to take stock.

“I didn’t look at my hard drive of songs for nine months. And then I came back and looked at all the songs and went, I actually love these songs! Then I was super fired up and I wrote another eight. And I realised that over those five years I’d written around 40 songs.”

While in the past Pyke would write on tour, demo the songs at home and then head into the studio with a producer, the benefit of time afforded a more relaxed, unstructured process. Some nights he’d head out the back of his Sydney home to his studio, pour a whiskey and record “whatever I was mucking around with” and then just leave it. The first song he wrote for the album, “Old Time’s Sake”, stretches back to 2016 but was only finished two years later.

“In some ways the only other album I’ve done that with was my first album [2007’s Memories & Dust],” he says. “It was good. You’d come back with proper objective ears.”

By early 2019 Pyke was ready to record, self-producing in Timshel Studios and playing most of the instruments himself. (The drums were handled by Josh Schuberth in his Blue Mountains studio.) As with the writing sessions, recording was a relaxed process, in which friends such as All Our Exes Live In Texas accordionist/vocalist Elana Stone (piano, accordion), acclaimed musician Stephanie Zarka (strings) and Skinny Legions’ creative force Glenn Hopper (accordion) would pop around to lay down tracks when required. Long-time collaborator Matt Fell added bass and sonic flourishes at his Leichhardt studio, rounding out the creative process.

“I can’t imagine making a record any other way in the future,” says Pyke.

An unwavering desire for creative adventure resulted in Pyke leaving the suburban bubble of his home studio and flying to Portland to mix the album with acclaimed producer Tucker Martine (The Decembrists, My Morning Jacket, Modest Mouse).

“The recording was so domestic that I wanted to go to Portland to mix it because I really felt I needed some kind of creative closure for the whole project,” says Pyke. “Tucker brought a depth of experience, and a level of objectivity. And he was so pumped on every song. And hearing that from a Grammy-nominated American mixer who mixes The Decemberists and Sufjan Stevens, it’s a massive confidence builder.”

When taken in conjunction with the universal themes that inform the album and its title – you can’t escape the reality of your own experience – working with Martine in Portland changed Pyke’s view of his creative output.  

“It put me in that frame of mind of going, these songs are just songs. They’re not Australian songs. I’m an Australian, and they’re proudly written from my experience of living in Australia, but they’re just songs. They have a life in this world. So it brought an international perspective to it where I was like, this doesn’t have to be an Australian album. This is just an album. A piece of art.”

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In some ways, Rome is the sound of the Josh Pyke we’ve come to know and love, with songs such as “I Don’t Know”, “Another Song” and “Where Goes The Girl” featuring his trademark mix of gorgeous, wistful melodies, heart-warming harmonies and nostalgia-tinged storytelling. It’s a combination that has seen each of his five studio albums become Top 10 hits in Australia, garnering four ARIA Awards in the process while also accumulating a large international fanbase (his final European tour before going on hiatus was his biggest to date).

Yet there is a difference to Rome – an audible sonic twist spurred on by Pyke being afforded the time and space to recalibrate. You can hear it in the squawling stabs of guitar in the languid “Don’t Let It Wait” and the arrangement of the upbeat, anthemic “Doubting Thomas”.

“One of the benefits of the break was getting rid of self-imposed rules,” he says. “‘Doubting Thomas’ references the fact I’m just making music I want to make. It’s got a weird, long instrumental solo thing in the middle that I would never have done five years ago. Having no time constraints and no real agenda gave me freedom.”

Though Pyke is well established as a singer-songwriter, his creativity has long extended well beyond that discipline. His two-year absence from solo touring provided an opportunity to fully pursue other artistic endeavours, as he ventured into the world of children’s books, releasing the award-nominated Lights Out, Leonard as well as co-authoring A Banana Is A Banana with renowned entertainer Justine Clarke. (He has three more kids’ books due for release in 2020 and 2021 through Scholastic.) He also snuck a self-produced punk album onto streaming services under the name Sword Owls (a name conceived by one of his sons while still in kindergarten).

Pyke’s perspective on his career changed after a chance meeting with a fellow parent who also works in the entertainment industry.

“She said, ‘You’ve got to stop thinking of yourself as a musician, you’ve got to start thinking of yourself as a creative’,” recalls Pyke. “And literally from that day I was like, that’s right. Music is the thing that became my main career, but everything I do, whether it’s making content for social media or thinking up ideas for merch, all of those things are creative decisions. And as soon as I started thinking about my life as being a creative and not just being a musician it shifted everything. And it’s been a really great creative period, and it scratches a lot of different itches.”

Pyke’s relentless creativity also extends to some of his philanthropic pursuits. A passionate supporter of Indigenous rights, Pyke is a lifetime ambassador of the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. In 2014 he teamed up with music rights organisation APRA AMCOS to establish The Josh Pyke Partnership, which each year gives one up and coming artist a financial grant and mentoring expertise to assist with their career (previous winners include Angie McMahon, Gordi and Alex Lahey). Pyke is also an Ambassador for APRA AMCOS, a role that involves him advocating for the rights of creators.

This broad approach to creativity supports one of the core themes of Rome – though in time everything crumbles, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make the most of each moment.

“The only thing you can do is not be nihilistic and not give into these dark feelings and just enjoy the things that are important. Which is basically creativity and love,” he says. “We’re not in control of the things that form us, but we’re in control of how we respond to the things that form us.”

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AMNPLIFY – DB