Joshua Burnside - Good Times are Comin’. Words: Damien Joyce

Joshua Burnside is an experimental folk songwriter, singer, and producer. He takes influence from alternative, electronica, trad, and Irish folk on albums where he explores folklore, politics, myths, parenthood and everyday life. As he prepares for a large UK and EU headline tour, I had the opportunity to speak with the Belfast based musician.

What about you, Joshua?

“How’s it going? You alright?”

It’s great to talk to you, ‘Teeth of Time’ was a wonderful album. It was nominated for a RTE one folk award, BBC 6 album of the year, Choice Awards and received much critical acclaim. It’s barely out the gate, and you have a new album out. But before we get on to that, how did you feel getting over that previous album’s release?

“I was more surprised than anyone I think that it’s sort of picked up any of these sorts of accolades, it’s nice to get a bit of praise from your peers. But by the time that record was out, I was already thinking about the next one. It’s sort of funny because once you’ve finished a collection of songs, I kind of feel when I’m playing them live now, I’m sort of doing covers of the Joshua Burnside songs that I wrote back then. I don’t really feel ownership of them anymore. The person I was when I wrote them, even though it was only a couple of years, feels like a different person almost because a lot has happened between them. I always feel like that after releasing music.”

But it must, a lot has happened, and you’ve become a father as well. Has that changed things a lot?

“Certainly has” Joshua laughed, “It changes everything.”

Remembering my own early parenting days, I asked Joshua, is there anything like the tiredness?

“It’s tiredness, but also just your whole everything, the responsibility and the way you can’t really prepare for the change of pace. But it has changed everything for the better. I love being a dad, and it’s so much crack. It’s hard work at times, but it’s also amazing. I feel very lucky to have my son.”

You started out very young, getting interested in music seriously at 13?

“Yes, That’s right. Well, I started writing songs, I think, when I was in primary school. I started playing guitar and I was 11 or 12 and started actually putting chords to words. So, I’ve been writing songs for twenty-five years!”

That songwriting craft, is it something that comes in a flood, or is it more of a stop/start type of process?

“A bit of both. Sometimes, it’s very easy, and some days, it’s not so easy. I went through a burst of sort of songwriting over the last sort of year, and then I sort of stopped. I haven’t written a song in a few months, and it kind of comes and goes like that in waves where I have a few months where I’m writing and I’m quite prolific. Then it would sort of go away again, I used to get very sort of worried about this. But it would always come back, and I’d always find new things to sing about and write about. So, I’ve now become a bit more relaxed about when I go for fallow periods, it doesn’t it stress me out as it used to.”

Joshua’s new album ‘It’s Not Going to be Okay’ released on Nettwerk, was written and recorded in the wake of the death of Joshua’s closest friend, Dean Jendoubi who tragically died at only 34 years of age. There is such attention to detail with the recording, harmonies on tracks such as “With You” and while there’s a tinge of sadness with tracks like the album opener “You and Me” the emotional sequencing of the record is handled admirably. His poetic lyrics are sometimes dark in places, phrases that stick include “scraping old blood off the radiator” on “Nicer part of the Town”.

“Thanks! I mean, with “Nicer part of Town”, the idea was to write sort of these little happy lyrics with lemons on the wallpaper and all that sort of stuff. Then in every sort of stanza, throw in a little glimpse of darkness or menace, which is where “the blood on the radiator” comes from and “the bomb in the peugeot” et cetera. That was the whole idea behind that sort of song.”

And then there is his charming turn of phrase on “The Last Armchair”;

Oh, the last armchair you ever sat on

Before you overdosed

Is the one I sit in every morning

To eat my egg and toast

“That lyric in “The Last Armchair”, I think it’s my favorite lyric on the record. I haven’t heard too many people rhyme overdose with egg and toast! It’s a wee bit ridiculous, but life and death are a wee bit ridiculous. It’s the normality of things, after someone passes that you just go back to living your normal life and getting up and having breakfast, and that seems wrong somehow. It’s quite jarring that this tragedy has befallen you and everyone around you, but you just have to just get up and get on with your day. I guess that’s what I’m trying to sort of bring to light in that lyric.”

From the outside Joshua, you appear to be someone who enjoys a session, whether you’re solo, you’re singing with musical accompaniment, or providing a support role through an array of instruments. But what’s your favorite experience, being central singing or is it the group dynamic?

“When it comes to performing live, I love playing with people. Playing gigs solo is harder because it’s quite lonely up there on the stage. You don’t have that same buzz when you get off, that you’re sharing with the people that you’ve shared the stage with. Or there’s a buzz before you go on, and I love that more than anything. As far as being frontman or accompanying, I love both. It’s been fun doing little bits and pieces where I’m not the sort of front and center. I think that’s I would like to do more of that because it’s when you are the focus as it were, it can be quite intense. But when you’re the support musician, it can be you get the same sort of buzz and crack and joy to play music. It’s just fun playing other people’s music and adding, just a little bit to lift it in whatever way you can.”

You have a headline show coming up in Dublin, May 2 in the Button Factory, and it’s lovely to see you graduating from appearing in Workman’s Club to Whelans to the Button Factory. Each time you’re coming back to Dublin, you’re getting to do so on a bigger stage. Is that a nice feeling?

“Yes, It’s kind of amazing, long may it last! Sooner or later, it’ll probably start going the other way. I just love the gigs that I’m doing at the minute, and I’m excited about the Button Factory. That should be fun, I’ve never played there, a legendary venue in many ways.”

https://joshuaburnside.bandcamp.com/album/its-not-going-to-be-okay
Words: Damien Joyce