(Credit: Colin Kelly )
Ladies, he is easy on the eyes and his voice will make you scream with delight (try not to, people will stare). We had a chance to sit down with this local rising star to find out more about his chance encounter with a homeless man and to see if he was one of “those” middle schoolers who posted their celeb-crush in their locker.
First off, congrats on opening for Destroyer! Are they the biggest national act you’ve ever opened for?
Yeah, probably one of the biggest. The biggest ‘crowd’ and act that I’ve opened for was Josh Kelley in 2003—about 2,000 people. Just hearing your voice boom through that size of a sound system is a complete mind-blowing experience. I’ve been pretty lucky throughout my career to be able to share the stage with some very cool national acts: Athanaeum, Carbon Leaf, Fighting Gravity, The Samples, Elliot Sloan (Blesses Union of Souls), and Brian Vander Ark of the Verve Pipe—just to name a few. But, I am definitely excited to open for Destroyer.
Are you going to buy Destroyer a couple beers and totally schmooze them?
I’ll definitely try. I have sort of a ceremonial thing where I take a couple of Jaeger shots before each show….so maybe I’ll try and get them in on the action!
You moved to Denver in 2006 to help your songwriting. Has it worked?
A thousand times over. This past year or so has been fantastic for me creatively. I think the fact that I wasn’t able to play as much live when I first moved here left me a lot more free time to play/write. I’m at the point where I’m working on material for the next album. It’s’ such a great place to be in to have that much material to work with going into the studio.
After meeting a homeless guy you learned people judge each other too quickly. Tell us about the song you wrote after that strange encounter…
That was one of the first songs I wrote after moving here. I was getting in my car one day and was across the street from one of the new light rail stations in Denver. As I was getting in, this guy came up and said “excuse me” and began telling me a story about how he was trying to get somewhere and needed a ride and whatnot. Just sort of by instinct, I politely told him “no” and opened the door to get in. As I was getting in he said “just one last thing, ‘no’ is the most commonly used word and the easiest to say.” As I drove off, that just kind of stuck with me and as I was on the way to a writing session, it just sort of evolved from there. I don’t really play that song too much, but the interaction had such a powerful effect on me. I had to get it into a song. The song is called, “Strange Alibis.”
You got your first guitar when you were 12. Did you have to do chores around the house for that?
Actually, my first guitar was a ‘mini’ acoustic Fender student version that my dad gave me for Christmas. My dad had always played acoustic or bass guitar and I guess he got tired of me always wanting to play his, so he finally broke down and bought me one! Since then, the guitar has pretty much been like another appendage to me. If I could, I’d probably just carry one around all the time.
The first band you were in was called the “Hefe’s Hermanos,” who the hell is Hefe?
That’s a great question. So this band was made up of 3 other guys my age (9th grade…I think), and one of the guys’ older brothers. I’m sure we kicked around a bunch of names and I think the older brother came up with Hefe’s Hermanos. I think it was supposed to be ‘Jefe’ (for boss…like ‘The Boss’s Brothers’), but we did the whole creative spelling thing so you could use the initials ‘HH’. Our first original song was also called, “No Me Gusta,” and pretty much consisted of lyrics that I penned after Spanish class or something. We had a guy who played sax in the band, so we stuck this really cool James Bond 007 breakdown right in the middle – complete with me dancing around with maracas. Somewhere there’s a video floating around of that first performance…I really hope that never surfaces anywhere!
In middle school did you ever hang your celebrity crush up in your locker?
Ha! I don’t think I did. I’m trying to even remember who my celebrity crush would’ve been. I could probably remember crushes in my grade or something easier than celebs. I was the king of crushes, though; all the way up through high school. I always had some girl that I always seemed to like more than she liked me. That’s probably why I learned to play guitar.
So what’s next for the great Josh Queen?
Big plans for 2008 are to get back into the studio and finally start working on the new album. Things have been great around Colorado for playing live. I can see the crowds growing at the shows and more and more folks are starting to catch on. My focus is always to keep building momentum and picking up new fans. A very good friend of mine came up with what you could call my motto/mission statement a few years back. It’s a simple one word slogan: VELOCITY. Velocity to us is always moving forward irrespective of speed. Meaning, it’s not how fast you get there, it’s the persistence in always continuing to move toward your goal. So I just try to keep goals in my head and work on the little things at hand. I’ve learned to not get so overwhelmed with where you wanna be that you forget to enjoy where you’re at.
