Joshua Sheppard is an emerging music artist from Canada. His brand-new single 'Rolling Thunder' hones in on the foundation of his love for music and creative ambitions.
Based on an event he had when he was younger, Joshua Sheppard penned this song. He went to the studio to cut the track. Firstly, he recorded it with vocals and an acoustic guitar, before changing the production to add other crucial musical components to the tune.
We sat down with Joshua Sheppard to discuss his music and much more. Here's what he had to say:
Hey Joshua Sheppard, welcome to FLEX! How are you?
I’m doing good, and very excited about making the rounds for all these interviews. Makes me feel super legit haha. I’ve got a new song out, and a couple more in the works, so things are looking good!
Congratulations on your new single 'Rolling Thunder'-what inspired this particular track?
Thank you, it’s always a blast to share the finished product with the public! The track is a fun way of tackling a pretty important topic. I think a lot of people in my generation are struggling with time, and how fast it goes right now. It seems like yesterday we were kids in a fantasy land, now we get caught up in the craziness of the world today and all live in this mundane gray haze. Rolling Thunder is a song that looks through the old nostalgia goggles but in a positive way. My message is about the idea that a lot of the things that we may believe are gone from our pasts are still around, those simple things that make life special can still be found under all the stress and anxiety in today’s society. For me, it was by escaping the storm of life, in the literal rainstorms, something I’ve always been drawn to since I was little. In simple words, you can’t live in the past with a negative attitude for the future, but you can still live for today, and live with purpose, and yet cherish your dearest memories.
And do you have to be in a certain mood to write? Absolutely, I’m not one of those people who can just allocate time to their craft, and sit down and say “hey I’m gonna write a song now”. No, for me, it comes in waves, I really have to feel a certain emotion, and then the words just seem to form on their own. The one thing that’s pretty consistent is my thoughts and words usually come to me during the dead of night… which unfortunately also destroys my sleep schedule. How was the recording and writing process? It’s always pretty good, 'Rolling Thunder' was my fourth go at releasing a song, so it gets a lot smoother each time. Usually, it’s the production side of things that always takes longer, but I’ve gotten better and better each time at nailing down what I want in a shorter period. Just running some numbers, and writing a song usually takes me an hour or so, recording about three hours, and then production seems to have a habit of lasting a month or more. I've gotten a lot faster at that now, my last trip to the studio I recorded three songs in four hours.
For viewers who don't know Joshua Sheppard, how would you describe your sound? When I say this I’m not trying to sound gimmicky, but I would say I have a pretty unique sound, I don’t quite fit under one singular label, my stuff is all sorts of amalgamations and variations of pop music, largely catering to a more acoustic and natural sound, but with different elements to spice things up. I’ll say this, if you want the radio-friendly kind of pop sound, but with more intimate and meaningful lyrics and messages compared to the generally repetitive mainstream artists, I think you’ll take a liking to me. And what are some of those activities that you engage yourself in when you aren't writing or recording in the studio? I’m a person who doesn’t really stick to one thing mastering it all the way, so outside of my music I have a lot of interests. I’m big into combat sports, I have a black belt in Kung Fu, I box, and I practice a lot of MMA, of course, UFC events take up a lot of Saturdays for me as well. I also love to bridge many of my interests in some forms. I'm a big history buff, and I enjoy a lot of artsy things, so I build a lot of models of different ships from sailboats to modern warships. I can’t say for certain I’m a man of many talents, but I am a man of many interests.