“Early Beatles, couched in a sound similar to the Goo Goo Dolls, along with intelligent and creative storytelling not unlike Bob Dylan” is how Music Connection Magazine describes Joshua Path’s music. You can judge for yourself by listening to his latest CD, Headlight In The Sun.
Path began writing songs when he was in junior high school. But it wasn’t until he landed a gig as a camp song leader that he took his craft seriously. “I heard my songs being sung by the kids around camp,” recalls Path. “That’s when I realized I should give music a shot.”
After that pivotal summer, Path immediately formed a band and began recording demos, all the while polishing his live sound by performing in all the major clubs in the Los Angeles area. His standing-room-only shows landed him a guest spot on KROQ’s Loveline, along with punk rockers Bad Religion. “I had to be the most outrageous, since no one knew who the hell I was,” Path says.
Didn’t stay that way for long. His CDs garnered heaps of praise from the public as well as critics. “Path seems radio ready. And that’s meant in the most complimentary way possible,” said Splendid Magazine. Indie Music Magazine wrote, “Path manages to incorporate all the best elements of American pop music of the last three decades while simultaneously infusing it with his own deeply soulful, yet irreverent, style.”
With the release of his fourth CD, The Sugar Fields, Path was named one of the Top 100 Unsigned Artists by Music Connection. Not only that, but eight of his songs were featured in the indie film “Crutch,” directed by Rob Moretti and distributed by Illuminare Entertainment. He even received a song-by-song critique of The Sugar Fields by the Keymaster himself, Rick Moranis. “He used to be a D.J.,” says Path. “Who knew.”
Now, Joshua Path presents his fifth CD, Headlight In The Sun. Three years in the making, its fifteen songs were culled from over sixty. Blistering and edgy one minute, somber and melancholy the next, Headlight isn’t just the artist’s most accomplished CD, it’s also his most diverse. So diverse, in fact, Path considered splitting the CD into two separate ones: one consisting of rock songs, and one of ballads.
Yet it was co-producer and friend Curt Piar who convinced Path to combine the sounds onto one CD, pointing to the successes of such eclectic classics as The Beatles’ White Album and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. “These are albums that went from rock song to ballad to pop song,” says Path, “and it worked beautifully. They proved that albums don’t have to be the same song twelve times over.”
But choosing which songs to include - and which to leave on the cutting room floor - wasn’t easy. Path created over fifty different sequences of Headlight In The Sun. He even ditched a master from legendary Capitol Records after realizing the sequence was, in Path’s words, “utter shit.”
In the end, the final line-up of songs were based upon the following criteria: “Which ones sound the most real, and which ones could not be performed by James Blunt.”
To record Headlight, Path returned to Piar’s studio, Proving Ground, where Path has recorded his past four CDs. Coincidentally (or perhaps not), Proving Ground is located right across the street from the camp where Path first decided to become a singer/songwriter. “It’s like coming full circle every time I come here,” Path says.
Joshua Path lives in Los Angeles, California, with his cat, Carl, and his extremely noisy neighbors, Bo and Tom.
Just wanted to say thanks for the add and have a great week. I can't begin to tell you how happy I am to have found you on here. Now I can catch up on everthing you've done since Headrush...... it's like an early Christmas!!!
Hi, this is Larry Bagby. I would like to win a contest to tour with “Little Big Town”. As your friend, I am asking you to take one minute to vote. JUST HIT “DEMAND IT” BELOW. Proceed with your vote.
You can help me further by forwarding this to your family and friends. I need lots of votes.
Hope to see you at one of my concerts. Thanks for your friendship and support.
Is it true? The skunk-raccoon-garbage-fight night? ...Yes, they're all true stories. And it makes me grateful that no one I know is dead, because then I am sure I would spend *every* night with my eyes shut hard and blanklets over my head, more willing to suffocate than to look into someone's eyes who simply isn't there.
I rant whether permission is given or not anyway - you just happen to be a lucky receiver.
I think we all secretly don't want to exist. Existing is too much work. Too much thinking. Much easier to eliminate all that extra stuff, all those externalities that come with having an external existence... The idea that we're not just who we are, but we're who we are within some sort of imposed context.
Hi There Stranger, how have things been on your side of town? Just got back from $1 taco night at Don Antonio's on Pico. I highly recommend it. Hope you're well.
Thanks again - you're too kind. Oh, I never said I stopped writing. Just that I stopped writing *that*. Writing things keeps me sane (very few other things keep me sane, so I figure...). And because I write things for myself (never write for an audience - either that's what I was taught, or what I taught myself), I don't mind that I never finish anything. It's a process rather than a product, right? :)
