Joseph of Mercury

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You can listen to Joseph here.

You can follow Joseph here.

Where are you from? Toronto, “Born & Raised”. Still here, love to travel, but this is my home, it’s clearer & clearer every time I return.

What do you do? I’m a musician & songwriter / performer & recording artist.

Do you consider yourself a freshman, sophomore or senior in your field? Right now I feel like a freshman, like I’m at the beginning of something…& I think that’s always an important feeling to cultivate, success & knowledge are temporary & relative, I try to focus on, & be confident in, my process & potential, I find that’s all there is… & you can always get better.

What needs to happen before you can "graduate" / take your music and brand to the next step? I’ve been in the wings for a long time, & about a month or so back I finally started bringing things into the light again . It was such a catharsis, & now It truly feels like it’s all just a matter of time, so the plan is to just keep doing that, & to keep giving it time.

Who are three people whose thought process you'd like to learn more about? Nile Rogers, Vinod Khosla, Skrillex.

What's your strategy for creative block? Pivot, come at it from a different angle, take some time for silence, raise your heart rate, swim in your previous work, not to recreate it but to remind yourself that you did it before and you can probably do it again. Bringing yourself back over & over to the idea that, failing isn’t its own isolated thing, it’s simply a means to succeed.

If your life was a movie what would be on the soundtrack? For the most part something baroque, & orchestral, suddenly everything is so dramatic & beautiful…Or… If i’m in a different kind of mood, maybe something warm & groovy, that 70’s “I’m laying in the sunshine” feeling… In any case, I’ve always been more drawn to instrumental music, it gives my mind room to write… 

Is there one person or opportunity you can attribute a large amount of your success to? If it is has to be one, I would say my friend & collaborator AG… I was quite literally knocked off course by life, & without him, I don’t know how I would have made it through these past few years, he really did help me find my way back to the forward path again. So yeah, thanks AG

Where can we find you on a Friday night? The studio, or just a room somewhere lost behind headphones, sitting for hours in an artificial echo chamber, trying to describe something to myself, over a slowly forming melody, over a hypnotizing rhythm, things that I will more fully understand later. Or… The club… I love the club.