As humble as his music, Joy (or James Keogh as his passport reads) discusses how this musical journey began after another (more literal) journey through India and South East Asia finished. “I went travelling for a while and the whole time music was really close to me,” Joy says. “I had a lot of ideas going around my head and I had a lot of loose ends but I had never really told anyone that I was interested in pursuing music. Once I got back that sort of inspired all of this. I kept my plans pretty guarded the whole time though.”
James Keogh – the songwriter likes to remain a mystery. Vance Joy the performer even more so. He keeps information fairly close to his chest and prefers to let his music speak for itself. His tales of loss and love, even his own personal story, lays buried deep within his acoustically driven songs.
At the time of this chat, Joy was getting ready to head off to SXSW in Austin with no idea of what would come of that potentially career-changing and damn expensive journey. He has admitted that the powers that be within SXSW scheduling weren’t initially that keen on having him along dubbing him a “bedroom artist” but persistence seems to have paid off for Joy. With an EP finally ready to go and a lot more gigging experience under his belt, Joy tackled SXSW with relative ease for an industry showcase virgin. That’s for the best too as a trip to SXSW is an expensive investment in the future often with no immediate payoff.
“God there’s a lot of planning and it is really expensive,” he says. “I’ve got a friend coming with me too. He plays drums and keyboards so he’ll do that on a few tracks but I guess I also just want him as a companion for when we go out and follow our nose around. It’s something you can’t miss; to be going is an amazing boost.”
Icelandic indie darlings Of Monsters & Men as well as perpetual Australian indie darling Julia Stone recently had Joy along for their respective tours. The old opening slot can be daunting, particularly when you’re supporting a band like Of Monsters & Men who have such a currently dedicated following (and a crowd of people not only there just to see them but probably also just there to hear one song.) It seems that since Joy signed to liberation, things have moved quickly for him and in typical artist fashion, he’s not even sure how these opportunities came about.
“I guess there was someone in my corner,” he says. “I don’t think Of Monsters & Men had much to do with selecting who played but I know with Julia Stone, she got to approve it and it was a great experience. I felt really welcomed into that world on that tour and really included. Of Monsters & Men have so much chart success so the audience were really there to just see them but I found them quite receptive and it kinda takes the pressure off. I know they’re not there to see me so I could just do my thing. With Julia in the churches people are captive, they have to sit there and listen, no one really talks and all their attention is on you.”
With the hype and excitement following his time at SXSW and a run of impressive support slots, it’s seems almost amusing that joy felt he had to cloak his love of song writing for so long. “People never considered me to be a musician, I still had a lot of learning to do and a lot of bad songs to write,” he says. “Even though in your own mind you believe in yourself and think you can do this, people don’t see what you see. They don’t see the dream and they don’t see the finished product that you have in mind. They just see what’s in front of them which was someone that couldn’t sing, or has a rusty voice, and has a couple of OK tunes. I guess I stubbornly followed it until now.”
BY KRISSI WEISS
