HAPPIER

I thought I had nothing left to say after releasing New England, but this past winter proved me wrong. Reading back my last newsletter from December, its hard to even recognize that version of me - what he was thinking, what he was chasing. The path I thought I'd walk and the one I'm on now feel worlds apart.

The cold came in hard and fast and everything around me fell silent - forcing a level of honesty I didn't know I was avoiding. From it, the next chapter of my music started to come together: a return to my singer songwriter roots - live instrumentation, raw and imperfect recordings, and stories I'm finally ready to share. The first of them is a song I'd written the year before, when I first moved to New York.

I'd been fixated on this city since I first visited in 2016. I can still remember exactly how I felt - euphoric and full of optimism, my Polaroid Land Camera strapped firmly across my chest, chinos in the not so timeless skinny configuration. One sip of drip coffee and the sight of yellow cabs, I was hooked.

Nine years later I got my wish. Loading into our cupboard sized apartment, I was still holding onto that same naive bliss Josef at 20 had - everything was going to fall into place, and away we'd be. But months went by and nothing changed. The world kept spinning, and I had the same insecurities I'd had in Boston, the same flaws I'd packed with me in New Zealand.

No amount of New York serotonin could flip the script. That same phrase I'd been playing over and over in my head - I will be happier once I move here - began to evaporate, and my mind switched to problem solving. Maybe I need to go back home. Maybe Australia or London is the answer. What if I'd done this instead of that. That's when I caught on to the trick. It was never about where I was, but who I was - the quiet belief that you'd be happier somewhere else. A different city, a different job, a different version of your life. I might not be alone in that one.

For a long time the demo sat in the corner of my computer, going nowhere. The over compressed voice notes, loose guitar playing, drum samples stitched together - I knew I had something, I just didn't know where it belonged with the music I was making at the time.

On the other side of winter though, the song collecting dust finally had somewhere to exist. It's the first time I've brought people into my world instead of doing every part myself. What started with tracking drums at Power Station on the Upper East Side with Chase Elodia set off a chain reaction - Jack Broza on piano, Matilde Heckler on violin, Sean Saville on guitar. Handing parts of a song over, after years of never having to explain myself to anyone, was terrifying and completely freeing - and I believe the song is better for it.

So here we are. Happier, a song I didn’t know would ever see the light of day, is out September 2nd. Made for the love of the game.

Josef

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