Indie rock artist, Joe P, has been on a roll lately with several recent single releases growing his following exponentially and a full US headline tour on the way later this month. The artist previously most known for his 2021 hit single “Off My Mind” is proving that he is going nowhere else but up after selling out stages across the US on his debut headline tour earlier this year. The tour dates this fall will follow the release of his much anticipated next single, “Glass House”, out on October 6th. I had the chance to chat with Joe backstage for a few minutes at Oceans Calling festival following a spectacular performance earlier this month.
Hi! Today marks the start of your pretty extensive west coast tour this fall. I know you toured the Midwest and East Coast earlier this year, so are there any cities this run that you are looking forward to hitting that you didn’t last time?
All of the major cities are always sweet to play, so I would say LA for sure, but I’m almost more excited to just drive around. We’re going through New Mexico for the first time and Arizona again so I’m looking forward to just driving through other places like that. I would say as of now, in terms of cities though, I am most excited for Seattle. Seattle always has great music fans.
Do you have a dream venue at all?
I’ve got to say Madison Square Garden, although it’s so big. I’ve played at the Troubadour before which was cool because it has a lot of history, but I would have to say Madison Square Garden would be my dream venue.
You are just starting a new round of releases with “Don’t Want to Love You” and your rerelease of “Off My Mind” with K.Flay. With your last big release in 2021 being such a hit, do you ever feel like there is a sort of “expectation” of sorts when restarting that process? Internally or externally?
I feel like with every song you release you always want everyone to be like, “Oh my gosh this is the best song in the world!”, but at the same time if you try to keep that expectation for yourself you’ll get exhausted. You get good at just releasing stuff and moving on to the next thing. I always get really excited to play things live too. You just keep writing and moving forward and you kind of forget about the other stuff.
I saw that you’re from Asbury Park! I was just there earlier this summer for some shows and it’s such a cool place. The city has a pretty big music scene with iconic venues like The Stone Pony and now with Sea.Hear.Now. festival. What was that community like growing up? Do you feel it helped you grow as an artist?
The scene has changed so much now so that there’s a lot of cover bands at previously locally supportive venues because they are catering more to tourists and visitors from New York City. When I was growing up, though, and it wasn’t such a cool place to be like it is now, you could find owners of bars and clubs that would let you come in and take your chance at getting better which was great.
What is your favorite song to perform live?
“French Blonde”, I think for sure. I really like playing that song because it kind of freaks people out after playing a nice “singing guy song”, so I love playing that song. I’m always like, let’s freak people out and you see the crowd split between people that are like, “What?”, and people that are like, “Woah this is so cool!”. You always know that people are going to like the nice folky songs, so doing something different is always fun.
Okay last question! We are obviously in a carnival-esque area and there’s tons of different foods to try and rides to go on that are part of the festival, so I have to ask, what is your favorite fair food?
I have to say funnel cake for sure. Hands down.
Amazing, that’s a great choice. Thanks for chatting with me!
Thank you!
