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Music

Josh Kroehn: Not your typical singer-songwriter, not your typical EP

A few weeks back we were blown away by the lush textures of Josh Kroehn‘s debut EP Something I’ve Found

Today Josh Kroehn walks us through the ideas behind his dense, deep debut EP

Josh Kroehn

Josh Kroehn is a talented and lyrically gifted songwriter. His quavering voice is imbued with emotion that his guitar work reflects perfectly.

Words by Josh Kroehn

Finding out I was 49 years old in year 11 when I had just turned 16 came as a surprise. A pleasant and not entirely unexpected surprise. This confirmation of my mental age of 49 via a quiz I undertook in year 11 Psychology did shed light on why people had tagged me as an ‘old soul’. My usual modus operandi at parties and clubs was hanging by the wall thinking of which coffee joint I was going to hit up the next morning. Whilst I always try to shoulder responsibility for my actions, I think my parents deserve a hit.

Their diverse record collection had a huge role in shaping my taste in music and this broad range of influences has been instrumental in me developing my own style, and also contributed to my old soul. I found solace in music that quenched a musical thirst, not only as a listener but as a composer as well. As a music lover first and foremost I wanted this to shine through in my debut EP, Something I’ve Found, which is an eclectic chronicle of my evolution as an artist to this point in my life.

Processed Life

This song has been around for a while. I wrote it in 2014 when I was in the middle of Uni and questioning why I wasn’t pursuing music. Life gets hectic in year 12 with Uni entrance scores, gap years, go to Uni, don’t do this, don’t do that. It feels like if you make a wrong decision you are going to wear it for the rest of your existence. This whole process seemed perverse to me. It was starting to do my head in.

So, I struggled along with Uni, but importantly amped up my desire to pursue my musical dream. I wanted to do what was right for me and not feel like my life was a locked in process. So I started booking gigs and got into a proper recording studio to put down some songs and here we are with my debut EP.

Here I Burn

This is a tune that came from messing with an open C tuning on my gumtree bargain Maton 12 string acoustic guitar. I tuned it to open C so I could cover Skinny Love by Bon Iver at gigs and decided to write a song in this distinctly pretty tuning. This song evolved slowly and saw the incorporation of more and more dynamics. But that wasn’t enough. I added piano and strings into the fold.

By the time it came to write the lyrics I was at a period in my life where I was experiencing strong self-doubt. Being halfway through my Uni degree I decided a career in that field was going to be parked in order to pursue music, and this song is about those feelings of doubting myself.

Don’t Fight

Don’t Fight is one of the rare instances where the lyrics came first for me. This song details a breakdown of a friendship I had with someone who wanted to be more than friends with me. I felt guilty that I was unable to reciprocate those feelings and pushed the person away in an attempt to stop them from getting hurt, which didn’t work out that well but these sorts of things are part of life aren’t they.

Back In Time

Sometimes we wish we could go back to a time where things were simpler. This song captures me in a sort of wistful and melancholic mood.

For me this is a stare out the window while sitting on a train with headphones on and its raining outside kind of tune. Reflective and longing to go back to a certain time in my life where I was surrounded by certain people with certain responsibilities, and nothing that held me back from being myself. Back in Time would be the strongest indicator on the EP of the direction I hope to go in with future releases. And yeah my old soul is on full display.

Josh Kroehn’s debut EP Something I’ve Found is available on digital stores and streaming services now.