Josiah Johnson

The Starlet Room presents

Josiah Johnson
with The Feelings Parade

Doors: 7:00pm / Show: 8:00pm

$18 Advance - $20 Day of Show

On Every Feeling on a Loop, lush musical arrangements and harmonies support Josiah Johnson’s baritone crooning. At times, the songs sound like prayers. At others, his exuberance feels like the euphoria he’d always sought, this time hard-earned and wiser. He says he feels like a new person making it, charting his journey out of the dark into the wide awake of the morning, using the magic that was his all along.

Like many musicians before him, Johnson turned to drugs to cope with the burnout and anxiety that came with his new life in the band The Head and the Heart. Too many long nights and too few emotional tools - twin flames that burned at both ends. And Johnson collapsed into ash. He knew something was wrong, he knew his friends and family knew something was wrong, but from the outside, his life still looked pristine. In the midst of writing The Head and the Heart’s third album, Signs of Light, Johnson checked into a rehab facility.

With time, though, came clarity. Johnson says he could be most honest with himself when writing songs that he promised himself he wouldn’t release. Yet, the songs kept bubbling up. So, Johnson tried new ways to document the batch of songs he now carries. He learned more about home recording. He experimented with producers. Then a private show in New York City led him to work with a group of musicians led by Peter Lalish (of the band, Lucius). After the performance, a close friend told Johnson, “That was the most Josiah Johnson I have ever seen you on stage.” Eventually, the group from that night went into the studio and recorded the bulk of what would become Johnson’s first solo album.

“I’ve learned to love my process,” Johnson says. “I’ve learned to love when I’ve taken the long way and where I get to admit mistakes. Humility and uncertainty are welcome. Being seen for who I am and where I’m at is my priority. And I am exactly where I am supposed to be. The result of that new courage bears out in how I’m able to be a better friend to the people I love. That’s the gift.”