“Now that I’m older,” 27-year-old singer-songwriter Josh Kelley said in a phone interview, “I draw from things like getting married and relationships.”
Kelley used to find inspiration in other musicians, but on his upcoming album, Special Company, due out in January, the Georgia native talks “about the process of becoming a real man, getting married and taking the plunge.”
But pre-marital bliss with Grey’s Anatomy and Knocked Up star Katherine Heigl aside, Kelley’s got a lot on his southern plate: a new album in the works, a co-headlining tour with the Pat McGee band and his debut in the world of reality TV.
In the Pop Game, what Kelley calls a “documentary reality show,” is due to air later this year on CBS; Pool Boys and Sour Grapes, based on the scandalous Four Seasons Hotel in Las Angeles, will air next year on Fox.
When Kelley’s not poking fun at the bubble-gum scene, he’s working on the business side of his music.
Most breakout indie artists encourage student musicians to work hard and keep playing shows, but Kelley took a slightly different approach.
“It’s not some little fairytale world,” Kelley said. “Make sure you realize that you’re business partners. You’re not just a product.
And while Kelley recognizes the publicity that major record labels provide, he doesn’t think they’re a necessity.
“I built my own record label. And now I make $8 a record,” Kelley said. “I used to be $.50 an album. You do the math.”
“If you’re creative enough to play the guitar, you should be creative enough to sell your music,” he said.
As Kelley dabbles in entrepreneurship and TV, he stays true to his musical roots . . . even if he strays from the southern stereotype.
“I don’t think I have a Georgia sound. I don’t know what it is. It’s the sound of what I listened to with my parents,” Kelley said. “My brother was into Pink Floyd, my mom liked Luther Vandross, my dad listened to Alan Jackson or something and my sister was into Madonna.”
So what does this whirlwind of musical inspiration sound like? Start off with a soulful, sort of rugged croon a la bluesy Marc Broussard or acoustic Matt Nathanson. Then it’s either B.B. King-style slide guitar or head-bobbing pop beats.
This tour around, Kelley wants to “entertain and put on great, live shows. We get really funky and the show is basically soul and funk with a little pop-rock element to it.”
And of course, Kelley’s looking forward to his show at the Paradise on Saturday.
“I’ve played there three or four times now,” Kelley said. “Boston’s one of my favorite places to play. Last time we played there, we sold it out. It’s a city we can go to and have a real crowd. Boston’s become my go-to place.”
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
