Josh Weller

Pop music is often a label that musicians strive desperately to avoid for fear of their artistic integrity going down the drain as their songs are viewed as throwaway tunes for mass consumption.

Josh Weller would seem the ideal candidate for such a standpoint with his magpie-like approach to music, which takes in everything from old Jewish musicals to bebop, classical guitar music and leftfield indie. But the twenty- two-year-old multi-instrumentalist and singer openly embraces the label. “I think all my songs have their heart in pop music,” he says. “When it’s done well pop music can be great and while there’s a lot of other influences in my songs, pop music is always there. I like music from the Thirties and Forties like Cole Porter and some weirder stuff too, but it’s not like I’m ever going to do a sixminute jazz opus.”