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 six minute jazz opus.”
So, what does his music sound like? Well, ‘Tough Luck In Love’ is a good place to start…the song leaps into life with an up-tempo Baltic waltz before easing into heart-melting harmonised vocals and off-kilter guitars as it works towards a breakneck climax of competing melodies with guitars shifting from an Eastern European bent to fast strummed flamenco. It’s a strange bastardisation of traditional gypsy standards with roots that stretch down into unexpected depths. “I guess the whole song is based around ‘If I Were A Rich Man’,” he laughs. “But then I was listening to Classic FM and I came across this guitar piece with a great riff and worked that into the song. I guess I just bumble along, throw things together and hope they sound good.”
Another stand-out track on his recent EP ‘Push’ is ‘She Can’t Quit Smoking’, which has all the lyrical scathing and wry-observation of a young Elvis Costello, as Weller berates fashionable London twenty-somethings who light up to look cool. Musically, it’s a scrappy affair that alternates between atmospheric crooning over brooding guitars and rousing sections of stompalong beats, choppy riffs and keyboard lines with a summery Tropicalia twist.
And finally, onto the man’s image… he looks odd; like the troubled indie troubadour son of David Lynch’s Eraserhead anti-hero, replete with a tall shock of curly hair, ill-fitting secondhand suits that are at least two sizes too small and tatty red bow ties. “People think it’s some kind of art-house statement, but it’s really not,” says Weller. “I’ve never seen Eraserhead; the only David Lynch stuff I’ve seen is Twin Peaks. I think the way I look is just who I am, it’s something that’s grown over the years and it’s just a reflection of the way my music sounds.”
Words by Rob Dabrowski
