Joshua Taylor: San Diego Hidden Gem
Meet Joshua Taylor, a singer-songwriter from San Diego, California, that has been nominated for and won multiple San Diego Music Awards. I enjoyed watching Joshua perform at the Amplified Studios Songwriter Support Group and was amazed by his lyricism, structure, and overall performance. Let's get to know Joshua Taylor and see what he says about songwriting, recording, playing live, and what he has planned for the future!
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YOUR NAME, WHERE YOU ARE FROM, AND WHAT INSTRUMENTS YOU PLAY, WHEN YOU STARTED YOUR MUSIC CAREER.
"My name is Joshua Taylor. I am a vocalist and guitarist, and I've been doing music professionally since 2012, full-time since 2015. I was born in Los Angeles, grew up in Oklahoma City, and lived in Maryland, Virginia, and Florida before moving to San Diego in 2011."
WHAT GOT YOU/HOW DID YOU GET INTO SONGWRITING?
"I dabbled in some early exploratory songwriting as a teenager but really wrote my first songs in maybe 2009 when I was about 26 and still in the Navy. My initial inspiration for songwriting, broadly, was probably the same as most new songwriters: catharsis through literal autobiographical dumping, garnished with some emotional abstractions."
"These days, I write more purposefully to tell compelling stories, though most of those are still grounded—initially, at least—in the details or impressions of my own life or the lives of people I've known. Some songs are still largely autobiographical."
WHAT DO YOU USE TO GET INSPIRATION FOR YOUR SONGS?
"I wouldn't so much say I look for things to 'use' for inspiration, as that sounds much more calculated than my songwriting experience. I think that once you learn to connect with the part of yourself that writes in your own true voice, it sort of runs as a background process as you live your life. Not to get too heady about it, but I think that part just emerges when you either sit down intentionally to tap in or unexpectedly when something sort of tugs at your sleeve to get out."
WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE TO SONGWRITERS LOOKING TO IMPROVE THEIR SKILLS?
"Advice is a tricky thing in songwriting, as everyone will find a different process, but here are some things I'd say to just about anyone, most of the time."
"DON'T FORCE IT. It's hard to end up with anything meaningful if you sit down insisting that what you're doing is writing a song. When you carve out intentional writing time, do it just to tap in and explore what's there, and if that becomes the seeds of a song, or if a whole song falls out of you, take that as a pleasant surprise. Just spend the time with yourself as an observer, checking in with whatever shows up. It's the same even if you're using a prompt or picking up an idea already started—just see what's there."
"WRITE BAD SONGS. Try to keep the editor out of the writing room in your head. Say the lame thing now, keep your momentum, then reevaluate later to try to say the true thing. Don't be afraid to write something that sucks. Nobody needs to hear it if you don't want them to."
"DON'T BE PRECIOUS. The ultimate goal is a meaningful song that says something true, not literal narrative accuracy, or that word you really liked and wanted to shoehorn in, or the clever rhyme you're attached to. When it's time to edit what the writer in you drafted, be critical and unrelenting in your pursuit of an emotional truth worth saying."
"FIND YOUR OWN NARRATIVE VOICE. Are you saying this in a way that is true to you? You don't have to have novel experiences—few human experiences are—observe through your own eyes. Don't write 'writery sounding' things. Write it how you hear it. If the narrator, in this case, is a medieval lord, 'thou' is totally appropriate. Just know when that's the case. No hard rules here; don't bulls**t yourself or your audience with fluff syntax because you read it in English Lit."
"FIND PEOPLE YOU TRUST FOR FEEDBACK. Sometimes it's other writers; sometimes, it's your band; sometimes, it's a friend who can tell when you copped out with that 'start/heart' placeholder rhyme but failed to say something real. Make sure you trust their feedback to help you convey what YOU REALLY meant to say, not someone who just wants to put their thing on it or who will make you feel warm and fuzzy about everything you write—good writing confidants are like good friends: they will call you mercilessly on your bulls**t. You're too important a creature to get distracted by self-deceit."
"IGNORE ADVICE THAT YOU CAN'T USE. Including all this sh*t I just said. If it doesn't pass your smell test, maybe it's not relevant to you. Maybe you're not there yet. Maybe you have a different attitude. Maybe it's a dance/pop song, and it just needs to get people shaking their as**s and forgetting about the workweek. Take everything you can use; discard the rest."
Joshua Taylor at Belly Up
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE/MOST MEMORABLE LIVE SHOW STORY?
"Most memorable live moments are generally when somebody rips off some monster of a line in a solo, and the whole band loses it. I've shared some big stages with some big names and heavy cats, but nothing gets any better than those little moments when your crew is on fire, reaching the room, and everyone knows it."
YOU WERE NOMINATED AND AWARDED BEST ROCK OR INDIE/ALTERNATIVE SONG AND BEST POP ALBUM IN THE SAN DIEGO MUSIC AWARDS. TELL ME ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH THAT. WHAT WERE THE AWARDS LIKE?
"The SDMAs are a f***ing zoo. It's hilarious. Every muso in town, who never gets to hang out together (unless we're co-billed), gets totally loaded and wears the weirdest thing in their closet because we're all always working on the same nights. It's great. We're all misfits in some way, regardless of however put together some of us may be in other ways. It's nice to see all those faces together in one place and be reminded that we're not alone at sea, trying to make things happen. I generally ignore the ego stuff—it's all about community."
Photo taken by Ron Monahan
LET'S TALK ABOUT YOUR MOST RECENT RELEASE, "UNSCENE," WHICH CAME OUT ON OCTOBER 30TH, 2022. WHAT WAS THE RECORDING PROCESS LIKE?
"Recording 'Unscene' was great. The band is all seasoned pros, and we did a handful of pre-production rehearsals, so we went in with lots of paint ready to throw at the canvas. I'm a deliberate arranger, and all the guys I work with are very intentional about that, but incredible surprises always fall out on the day. With the full band tracking live, we tracked basics for all eight tunes in two back-to-back 6-hr days at Studio West Room A. I was in an iso booth for Vox, with my amp running out in an isolation cubby, backing vocals were in an isolation booth, and the rest of the band was on the floor. The second guitarist was on the main floor with his amp isolated with baffles. Keys and bass were on the floor running direct, and the kit, of course, was mic'd up normally. Room A has excellent sight lines, so I could MD from the booth throughout. We kept it efficient by folks tracking overdubs during listen-backs throughout the day, and most everything was done in about three complete takes, with a couple of punches here and there during overdubs."
"A few weeks later, we did a couple of pickup dates at Satellite Studio with Jeff Berkley, who also mixed and produced the album. During those sessions, we got additional key sounds. I re-tracked a few lead vox, Sandi (my wife and main backing vocalist) re-tracked some backing vocals, we both added some additional harmonies, and my second guitarist and I re-tracked a couple of guitar solos. That was an extra 6-8 hours of tracking after the initial 12."
WHAT CAN FANS EXPECT FROM YOU IN THE FUTURE?
"In the immediate future, I'm working on some fun co-bills and booking some cool venues between here, L.A. and Phoenix to play with my band. My wife and I are the cover story in the upcoming July issue of the San Diego Troubadour. I've been writing again recently, so new songs are already coming, and I'll start working those into the show as they come. If I can get the funding going, I'd like to get some new releases out before the end of the year, whether that means singles, an EP, or another full-length. Time will tell. One day at a time."
