Josh Cashman – Being Twenty-Five and His Upcoming Debut Album
{interview by Emily-Layne Kapetanovic}
WARRANT had the pleasure of chatting to Josh Cashman following the release of his single ‘Twenty-Five’ – the final track before his debut album Now I’m Twenty-Five expected in mid September. ‘Twenty-Five’ is a raw and earnest reflection of Josh Cashman’s years upon turning 25. The track approaches universal feelings of growing up with a reminiscent fondness for watching those around you grow and evolve while simultaneously focusing on self-development. We spoke about the meaning behind the track as well as what’s to come in the upcoming album.
Emily-Layne: Hey Josh, how are you?
Josh: I'm good. How are you doing?
I'm good. Thanks. Oh, you seem really chirpy, had a good day?
I'm on fire at the moment. I’m having a great time. I've just like been going pretty hard writing some new music for the last like couple of weeks and I've just, I'm on to a winner. This next one, I've just started today I really like so I'm in a good mood. I had a great lunch too.
That's always good. So you’ve already started writing for the next album or something?
Pretty much, yeah, I don't know. It kind of just happened pretty naturally like once album one was done, I took a couple of weeks to sort of chill and made sure that you know everything was all taken care of in regards to masters and stuff. And then after that I was bored. I was like, Alright, let's start writing some new music and yeah, now it's been like a couple of weeks of doing that. And it's, it's fun.
Yeah, it's like fair enough because you're in Melbourne, aren't you?
Yeah, I can't really do a lot right now
So fair enough. Yeah, I mean, I'm in Melbourne as well. So I understand the fact that , you took a break, but it's like, No, now I need to get back to it.
Yeah, and with this whole like ISO thing, it's almost something that makes the days pass as well. And because I work a day job, usually just in retail, a few days a week. So now that I've got all of this spare time, I'm just kind of cherishing that because I'm sure at some point I'm probably gonna have to go back to working selling clothes again.
Well, so does that mean eventually fans might get like an ISO album?
I'm thinking about that. I’ve bounced out like 10 brand new ones yesterday and made a playlist and had a listen through but I don't know, I think I’ll just make the most of this creative bracket that I'm in. And then, you know, just try and pump out as many songs as possible. And then, you know, I'd be looking at doing album two like next year definitely, like I'd already had that plan anyway. I just didn't have the songs. And now I’m starting to build these songs and it's sort of like, it seems a lot more realistic then it did say, like two months ago.
No, that's amazing. So you pumped out 10 that's, I like actually can't even fathom that, you're on a roll.
Yeah, I don't even know. Like, for me, it really comes in waves. So I'll go from not writing anything to maybe like a song every week, but at the moment, it’s almost a song a day or a song every two days, I might lay down you know, all the chords and whatnot, and do the guitars and put some beats over top and bass and keyboard and then I'll sit on that overnight and then come back the next day. I’ve been reading this book, and this book has really implemented on my setting goals and putting timelines on goals too so that's been another thing, like, having it all written down on a whiteboard in my studio to just like, what have I got? What have I got to do? and just kind of when would I like to get it done by and that's definitely helped as well give a bit of routine to the whole method. I feel that being a creative, keeping a routine can be pretty hard because creativity really comes and goes. So right now, what I've learned from the past is that , the times where I can't create it sucks, and all I want to do is create, and now that I'm actually creating I'm like making the absolute most of it. Yeah, we’ll see what happens.
I cannot wait to hear like what you've come up with when they like eventually, maybe surface and get released. I will talk to you about obviously your track ‘Twenty-Five’ which came out in early August. So it sort of gave fans another taste of your debut album. So it does sort of semi share a title with the album, How does‘Twenty-Five’ give an image of the album considering they have a similar name?
Yeah, so ‘Twenty-Five’. The album's called ‘Now I’m Twenty-Five’, and in my song ‘Twenty-Five’ it uses those words and I guess the song in particular makes a lot of sense as to why I called the album that because I've obviously recently turned 25 and I guess had those days where I was sitting there thinking, oh my gosh, like, I'm 25 years old now, where has all of the time really gone to, it's all happened so fast. I feel like the album itself really, you can hear the stories and experiences that I've shared in my time, from being a teenager to now at 25 and it's kind of this ever evolving evolution of becoming an adult virtually. And seeing a natural evolution of the people around me, like, some friends going through uni and graduating, and now they're in big roles. And my sister and my brother both have kids now. I guess, the album tells a bit of a coming of age story, as well as the single, and explores the topics of adulting, whether that be through like money or career choice, just different things that you experience, trying to learn who you kind of are and that really shows through in a lot of songs. So, I guess the coming of age story is something that I'm kind of trying to portray and you'll probably hear that in a lot of the words of the album.
Yeah. Well, I guess when you've been releasing music for such a while, like your debut album is going to be coming of age story because you've sort of been releasing for so long that you've sort of grown up through your music. I’m excited to listen to the other tracks and sort of see that coming through. Obviously, ‘Twenty-Five’ has a sort of important message of living in the moment, to an extent, how important is the track to you? And do you think it was important to get that sort of message out?
Yeah, for sure. I sat on it (‘Twenty-Five’) for I reckon, it's probably only six months old, and that kind of came at the start of this year, and I moved into a new place. I'd been in a share house with some friends for about four or five years. And that was great. Don't get me wrong, I had the best time ever. But I've moved into my own place now and I've been through an array of different jobs and experiences, and I guess relationships as well. I feel that for the first time in a while I got that moment to reflect on where I was, and my mindset then compared to where I am now. I feel if anything the messaging in the song is I'm not really trying to, like inspire anyone, I guess. But it was more of an ode to myself to be like, you're 25 now, you've been through this been through that and I feel like it's nice to stop writing songs about my ex girlfriend, too. It was always important to get it out the minute that I wrote it, I knew I was like, this is a song I will release. It was one of those moments when I first started writing the demo, I just had some really basic guitar chords and a few keyboard lines and I think in the original demo, I just had like this bongo loop that I made. Then the minute that I bounced out the demo, I was like, I think this is gonna be a song that I definitely release. So I played it for the first time at my show in Melbourne earlier this year at the Grace Darling and the response was huge for the song. You definitely gauge off that, when you play new songs live. It can be daunting because it's like people are at your show because of the music they've already heard. When you play something new, to get a really good response, obviously, entices you more to want to get something like that out or write another song similar to get those kind of responses, for sure. Now that it's out, it's definitely been a cool couple of weeks. I’ve gotten a lot of really nice messages and a lot of people reaching out definitely relating to the song. A lot of people are writing and saying, well done that sounds great but there's also been a lot of people I'm actually having conversations with just through Instagram. I don't know these people, but they're reaching out to be like, hey, look, I'm turning 25 soon and this is how I'm feeling about myself and yada, yada, yada. It's quite cool that I guess a song that I wrote completely based on my own experiences can resonate with other people around the world around the same age.
Did you gauge that it would have that sort of reaction or were you like, I'll just see what people think?
Yeah, I think for the first time in a long time, I didn't really care too much about what the public were going to think of this song. I feel like as an artist trying to make a career out of creating and releasing you can be quite hard on yourself – like worrying about whether people are going to like your art or not. And for the first time, probably ever or in a very long time anyway, after writing and then recording, I recorded it in Canada, and every time I listened to it I just knew that whatever happened, whether people liked it or didn't like it, I knew that I loved it. I think that was a really nice mindset going into it especially because it's had such a great reaction. So I didn't go into it knowing people were going to love the song and the people that are on my team that listened to it, they were all hyping it up and that's great, but I didn’t want to think about that because it's the song that means something to me and and I'll be happy no matter what kind of happens upon its release.
Well, it sounds like the universe kind of aligned and because you liked it everyone else's liked it as well.
Pretty funny how that works. A lot of those times, you might write a song and it's always the songs that you kind of don't expect. I've heard a lot of artists say a similar thing. It's always the stuff that you don't expect. So it was a nice little surprise to get some really good feedback and some really good support from Triple J Unearthed and just people in general you know, it's actually been a really nice thing.
Yeah, that's so good. What you were talking about before, how you moved out of your share house and you've sort of had a bit of a reminisce, but how important do you think it is to look at how far you've come in comparison to where you thought you'd be?
It can be a hit or miss sort of scenario. I think it's important. It's hard as individuals, you can be quite hard on yourself. What I've always learnt is that the grass is always going to be greener. You know what I mean? Like you could have $20, but you want $40 and you could have, let's say you've got a nice car, but you want a nicer car, we always want more for ourselves. I feel like it's important to look back. I'll go back a little bit because ‘Twenty-Five’, kind of the song itself , is about the person that I thought that I was gonna be when I was 25, when I was younger. I’m just not that person and that's not necessarily negative in any way at all. But you have these expectations of yourself when you’re younger and you put a timeline on things and what you think you're going to do with your life and the things that you want to achieve, most the time it doesn't happen and like a domino effect kind of happens to the present, which is now. It's funny looking back at a 14 year old me. I always thought that I was going to be an athlete, I moved up to Melbourne to play Aussie Rules Footy, like I did a couple of years in the VFL, and that's the reason I moved to Melbourne. My younger self always thought that I was going to be some football star virtually, and now I'm 25 and I'm in the complete opposite field of work as an artist and it's quite amazing really, like I say it in a good way, but even now, the grass is always greener, and it's such a cliché thing to say but it's so true, like and you can relate that to anything.
Yeah, 100% and look, I was looking at the fact that like you've obviously achieved so much already. You've played festivals, you've supported some awesome acts, you've also played your own shows in Canada. I think I get what you're saying the grass is always greener. But then you've also got to look at what you have achieved and you've achieved so so much that it's like, you don't want to compare yourself at all to what you thought you'd be doing.
Yeah, I got caught in that a lot for about two years, from probably like 2016 to probably 2018/2019 even. I was always hung up on the things that I didn't have and the things that I wasn't getting and the things that I wasn't achieving. It kind of stunted my growth because all I was really doing is focusing on the things that didn't happen and the things that I wanted. I was doing some really cool thing. I'm still doing some really cool things, so I think it's important, even if it's the little things like keeping a journal and you can flick back through those moments and be like, wow, three months ago I was really happy about the coffee that I made on the coffee machine. And, you know, today I might be having a shitty day because my coffee wasn't that good. But hey, look back then, it was pretty good. I feel like we're our own biggest critiques. I am completely aware that there's been some great things that have happened. Sure, but I don't know if this mindset came from when I was doing the footy thing or not, but I'm always looking for the next thing. You know what I mean? And I think that's pretty natural human instinct but it's important to kind of step back and reflect every now and then and be like, hey, you've actually got some things together like things that are actually pretty cool.
Well talking about the next thing, obviously your debut album is out Friday, September 18. What are you most excited about for the release?
I look forward to obviously celebrating with some friends and some family. In a musical sense, I feel as though it's just gonna be a really big relief. I think if anything because it's been about two years worth of demoing and writing and starting again and writing the songs and I feel like the process was so fun and but it was long. I feel like once it's kind of out it'll just be really nice. It’ll feel like breath of fresh air almost, a pat on the back well done, you've done number one it's out now. I feel like, I've built it up a lot in my head like far out, are people gonna like it? Should I re-record? Like it's too late now. You have all these doubts but I feel super positive about it and I'm just excited to I just have it out and see if people vibe with it. If not, I don't really mind because it's something I'm really proud of. I think it's my best work to date and I'm really proud of the debut album because you only get one – what I've learned, you only get one debut album. This is it. I'm gonna be happy man. For sure.
That's an awesome mindset to be in. Obviously we talked about it a little bit before, but if listeners were to take away one thing from the album, what would you want it to be?
If I wanted them to take away one thing from this record, I think it would be that we are all so different. But we are all literally in the same system doing the same things. We're all so relatable in so many different ways I think, no matter what your job is, no matter how old you are, we're all kind of in this together. I feel like the album itself explores a lot of the universal things that we all go through. So it might be your mental health, it might be not knowing what you want to do with your days or your careers or the ups and downs of money. It also explores the really beautiful moments but also the really harsh and darker moments of love, relationships and loss and I feel like I just want people to take away that through the thick and thin of being human beings, I guess we're all kind of doing the same thing. We're on quite similar paths and we've got this, we can get through, we can do this thing.
Yeah, it's a good message. I feel like if you wanted that to be the message, it's already sort of begun with what you were saying before about people messaging you about how they relate to just the track ‘Twenty-Five’. I feel like that's the first step and I feel like it'll resonate with people 100% because it's the tone you've already set for the album. I was going to ask you what was next, but I guess you sort of answered that at the very start.
Yeah, there's album number one. And then I don't have like timelines on anything just yet, but I've got no doubt that there'll be album number two in 2021. I’ve got some upcoming collaboration projects too, which I think will be pretty cool. It would definitely be nice to tour again. But everything is on hold and we don't know what's normal. We don't know how it's gonna go back to normal. So the minute that we can, I'll be putting on that massive run of shows for sure. But until we know what we're doing, I guess I'll just be bunkered up writing some more music to get out there.