Joe Pug was enrolled in a playwright course at college when he decided to throw in his tertiary studies in
Joe Pug was enrolled in a playwright course at college when he decided to throw in his tertiary studies in the dramatic arts in favour of a career as a singer-songwriter. Pug’s evocative folk style has led him to be compared favourably with Bob Dylan; like Dylan, but maybe without Dylan’s confrontational edge, Pug has exhibited a contrarian spirit that suggests an irrefutable independence of mind and thought. Having chosen to distribute his first record, Nation of Heat , free from his own website, and with the favourable patronage of Steve Earle, M.Ward and Josh Ritter, Joe Pug is fast becoming a person of serious interest in the folk rock scene.
"I didn’t have any schooling in the guitar," Pug says, when I ask him about the early days of his journey to the world of performance. "My dad taught me some chords and that was about it," he says. Initially Pug experimented in the proverbial bedroom, adapting the literary skills he was learning at college to his fledgling practice as a songwriter. While Pug was glad to eventually drop out of college, he concedes that his time studying drama writing proved useful when he came to write songs. "Yeah, I suppose it taught me habits that you need as a writer," Pug says. "You’ve just got to shoot your ass down, and have a go at it."
Pug’s lyrics have been lauded for their emotional depth and literary qualities; as a singer songwriter, it’s inevitable that audiences will try and understand Pug through his lyrics. Pug isn’t entirely concerned at the prospect of such analysis. "All my songs are pretty personal," he says. "But they’re never supposed to be a journalistic recap of events that have happened in my life – that said, all the things you experience in life can find their way into songs," he says. Pug’s lyrics place himself at the heart of the narrative, eschewing character-based narratives. "I accept that people might expect to know me through the lyrics of my songs," Pug says. "I suppose I rarely write from the perspective of a particular character."
Pug wrote and recorded his debut EP, Nation of Heat, on a shoestring budget. Determined to get the product out into an already hyper-competitive market, he decided to mail the EP to anyone who expressed an interest in the record. The response was flattering, and productive. "There’s so much noise out there, so many bands to listen to," he says. "How do you break through that to get attention? No-one wants to pay $10 to listen to something they haven’t heard before."
A couple of years later, and with a record deal to replace his previous DIY approach, Pug says he’s still improving as a songwriter. "I’d like to think that my song writing has matured over the last couple of years," he says. "But I also feel that artistic development doesn’t just happen in a linear fashion." Pug has spent a large period of the last two years on the road touring in the United States, Europe and, for the first time late last year, Australia.
With his current run of success, Pug is happy with his performing and recording lot. The prospect of having to fall back on his brief career as a carpenter is distant. "I’m glad I’m not working as a carpenter anymore – that’s definitely a good thing," he says. "I was a pretty shitty carpenter, so it worked out well for everyone."
