"Our band, NeedToBreathe, is over here doing our European tour. We've been over here for about two weeks and we have another week left. We are in Birmingham tonight and in London playing Shepherd's Bush on Friday; it's been fun!"
So stated Josh Lovelace of the band NeedToBreathe as the band was about a month out from wrapping up a lengthy tour that took them overseas and to Canada before returning home to the U.S.
Lovelace and his Grammy nominated band mates have been together for approximately two decades and they are true road warriors in every sense of the word; it is something they relish. However, life on the road can be lonely at times, sometimes restrictive and others totally footloose and fancy free; at times, a real test that varies from personality to personality and individual to individual and with a new solo record scheduled for an October 25 release, a spouse and a growing family, he made a decision days ago; 560 of them to be exact.
"I'm almost 560 days without drinking," he said with great jubilation. "We're over here having a good time but keeping it pretty dry; it's been fun though, it's been good. Being in a rock band for over 15 years now, it's a different kind of lifestyle. You're out on the road and away from your family and you can allow yourself to overindulge and you kind of lose yourself a little bit. We would go out on the road and then we'd go home and it would be really tough to go back and forth. I just found myself in a place where with having kids, I wanted to be a little bit more present for them and that was the first part. I just wanted to go home and be able to put my kids to bed and be wide-eyed and remember everything the next day. Then, honestly, I've struggled with some anxiety and some depression for the last couple of years. I think, for a lot of people, especially during COVID, it was definitely a tough time. I got to the point where I needed to find kind of a baseline of normal for me and try to figure out what that was. So, I stopped for that reason too, so I could try some different medications and some therapy and some different things to get back to my baseline. So, yeah, that was part of it and since then I've stuck with it and it has been really good for me; it has been rewarding to replace drinking with life. That has been helpful to me and has made me more thankful and happy doing what I get to do."
"Shelters," Lovelace's fourth solo record is due for release on October 25 but back on September 26 he released the single, "I Stopped Drinking Yesterday," something he said is a real, "Eye opener."
"I wrote that the first time I stopped drinking, which is funny because the last verse says, "I stopped drinking yesterday but I just poured a glass of Cabernet." I think for me, I just realized that it's a marathon and not a sprint because I had some times where I'd stopped and I'd started, I stopped and I started and it's hard for me to say; I don't think I ever necessarily had a major problem with it but I do feel that when I was feeling down or missing home, I'd allow myself to go to that place and kind of blackout. I wouldn't need to think about missing my kids or how hard the road is; I was just kind of able to slip away from it and I just kind of got tired of that and so, after a couple of tries at it and so far it has stuck at almost 560 days or so.I love a good glass of Cabernet, going to Napa, a good glass of whiskey; I love it, I love the process of it. I had to decide for myself; is it worth it to continue at this stage of my life? Not really; I'm able to have a good time and when we go out and I'll be around people who are still drinking, I'm at the point now where it doesn't get me down, I'm able to have a good time without it but there are days that I miss it but for me, it was definitely the right move."
Lovelace describes NeedToBreathe as a "Rock 'n' Roll" band with multiple influences and although he isn't an original member of the unit, he has assumed, along with the others, a prominent role in their music and songwriting.
"NeedToBreathe" has been around for a little bit more than 20 years now; a couple of the guys started the band when they were in college," he explained. " I've been with the band for about 15 of those years, we're on the road all of the time, we're very busy and we love playing. We like to think we're a real rock 'n' roll band. We want to be on the road and playing shows, we love making records but what we really love is to be in front of people and playing the songs. So, it has been really fun, we've done a 40 city major U.S. tour this year and then we came here to Europe to do the world tour portion of it and then we head to Canada and we'll be done around the middle of October. We're a rock 'n' roll band, we're influenced by Tom Petty, Springsteen and bands like The Black Crowes; we love making music together and have been able to do it at a pretty high level luckily for a very long time and we really do feel grateful for that."
"In the last five or six years," he went on, "I think all of us have grown as people, musicians and songwriters. I feel like we've been able to be in a room together and write things that are going on with us and we have a trust within the band; if somebody has an idea and brings it to the band, we run with it. I feel like we've created a really healthy collaborative team that allows us to be that way. I've been really lucky in the last couple of years to get to write some stuff for the last couple of records and help write with the other guys. It makes it really fun to stand on stage and play songs that you had a hand in and get to stretch that muscle. I've always been a piano player and I play guitar some but mainly, I'm the music director for our band too so I'm keeping things organized and all that fun stuff but to be on the creative end of things and songwriting from the beginning, it's pretty special to see the song from start to finish and be up there and play it in front of a crowd is pretty amazing. I think a lot of bands say this but I honestly believe we have the best fanbase in the world. We've made nine records and been around for a long time and we've taken some chances on some records and gone a different direction sound wise and even genre wise sometimes and our fans are just great, They go with us and follow us into whatever the next thing is and it makes it so we can take chances and be inspired by other things; there is nothing greater than playing a song for people and having them sing it back to you, it's the ultimate high and doesn't get any better than that."
With the upcoming release of "Shelters" just days away and the band just finishing a tour; did he time the date so there would be no conflict with his NeedToBreathe band mates or schedule?
"I've released some music outside of the band before but it was all for children. I've made a couple of records for my kids when they were really little. I made some records that were folky and for families to listen to. When I started, I saw a void; there's music for grown-ups and then there's music just for kids but the family dynamic of being able to listen to something together; I felt like I wanted to create in that space and I did. I did three records in that world and now my kids have gotten older and they are big NeedToBreathe fans; which is really fun. The last five or six years have been really challenging for me personally and I just kind of walked through a lot of different things and just kind of started writing songs, not really for a record but just kind of started writing songs almost like journal entries and I felt like it was time for me to explore that side of myself as an artist and create something that is unique to me and some of the stuff wouldn't be appropriate for families or children but at the same time, it's cool because I get to play songs that maybe a NeedToBreathe fan would like but that wouldn't fit with a NeedToBreathe audience because it's not singular to them, it's singular to me and this gives me a platform to do that. So, it's a really vulnerable record, I really believe that; it's honest and I'm proud of it, nervously proud of it but very proud to put it out. The October 25 release is funny; I actually have had the record finished for a while and I really wanted to put it out this side of the year for a lot of reasons. I believe, as an artist, you kind of get to where you're just kind of like, I gotta get this thing out because I've been living with it for a long time. So, a lot of it was that and also, our band has been on the road for a really long time and now that it's October, we're gonna take some time off and give us some time to breathe, no pun intended (Laughs) but we do need to every now and then. So, I'm going to go and do some shows and some stuff and hopefully it gives me some space to really reflect on this season of my career and what I want to be as an artist in that space and kind of gives me some time to do that which is good. It's exciting, it's thrilling to finally put it out. I have some great people like; I'm a big fan of the band Dawes and I have Griffin Goldsmith who is their drummer playing on the record. So, there's little things like that; I'm so excited to put it out, if I could've released it yesterday I would have, I'm pumped for people to hear it."
Primarily a keyboardist, his interest in the instrument may have been "Heaven sent."
"I was born and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee and I still live there too," he laughed a bit. "When I was a kid, my dad was a pastor so I grew up in church and sometimes during the week I'd go with my dad to work and he'd go in the office and do his thing and I would sneak into the sanctuary and sit down and play the piano because that was kind of all you could do there while he had to work. So, I'd just go in there and play and I found a language with it a little bit where I was able to get some of my feelings out while playing and I'd write songs or if I was listening to something, I could find a mood through what I was playing. I didn't know what therapy was when I was a kid but it was that for me. So, that's where I kind of started and by listening to other piano players; my first concert when I was young was Elton John in Knoxville and I was like, that guy is amazing, I want to do that for a living. So, I've definitely been influenced by piano players and people who can write a song that the whole crowd can sing-along to; I've always been amazed by that and as a young kid, I always knew that this is what I wanted to do. A lot of kids, when they're young and maybe naive, will say, I wanna be an astronaut or I wanna be a teacher or a doctor, I've never wanted to be anything other than what I'm doing now. I've always wanted to do this and the fact that I get to do it and I've always wanted to do it is pretty special and it's all I've ever known. It's funny, there were some artists and different piano players that I really respected. I was fascinated by the Hammond Organ when I was a kid and so I really got into Jimmy Smith on Blue Note and Wes Montgomery and some of that jazz stuff where it was like a show to watch him play and then the first movie I remember seeing when I was old enough to actually understand what I was watching was "The Blues Brothers" and that band was unbelievable and just so good. So, that band inspired me even as a kid, I just wanted to be in a show band; I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Gospel music, I definitely was inspired by that. The feelings and emotions that come from some of those chords and the way people played definitely inspired me to be the player I am today and I still tour with a Hammond Organ and a piano now and I'm still blown away by it. So, it's really fun; it's kind of a full circle thing since I was a kid."
Since the tour is done and with a scant week or so in between his record's release; what does he plan on doing to promote his solo work?
"The band is going to take a good chunk of next year off because it's a hard time to tour right now; it's really expensive and sometimes it's based on demand and if people want to come see you and we've been really lucky over the years to have enough demand to make a living and support our families and play music. I kind of just want to see what happens, I want to play around and keep releasing music, do some shows; part of this was almost like an exercise for me to prove to myself that I could do it and that it would be something I could do myself. I produced it, I wrote it, engineered it and pretty much did everything on it. So, yeah, it was like an exercise to push myself in that way and yeah, I'd love to release more music and possibly some more kids music. I really get inspired by what is right in front of my face and so, for the next little bit, I hope to dig more into that and try and see what's next. I'm already writing for more projects and other things, producing other artists and stuff. So, there is all kinds of stuff coming down the pike and I'm really excited for that."
Perhaps the greatest reward one can get as an artist, be it music or otherwise, is to have the masses relate to your work/art and discover that they appreciate what you do. Lovelace embraces that feeling, appreciates it and realizes that if he hadn't opened up a bit; things may have not turned out the same.
"The world is so weird as far as the internet and how people connect with each other and it has been really cool just putting out a couple of songs and having people connect and talk about them. Maybe they've gone through some things or maybe they stopped drinking; the stories you get to hear when you're vulnerable, I'm thankful for that because it's really special to put out music that's honest to you and have other people find themselves in the story."
To find out more about "Shelters," NeedToBreathe or Josh Lovelace, please visit https://www.joshlovelacemusic.com/
That's it for this week! Please continue to support live and original music and until next week....ROCK ON!
