Catching up with Joshua Radin

If you’ve been in a movie theatre or near a television screen in the past few years, then chances are you’ve heard Joshua Radin’s music. The singer/songwriter and L.A. resident, by way of Cleveland, OH, has garnered more than 75 film and television song placements in his five-year recording career. In October of last year, Radin released his third album, The Rock and the Tide, on Mom & Pop Records. On Wednesday, February 9, Radin will return to Workplay with Andrew Allen and Anya Marina opening the 8 p.m. show. Recently, we spoke to Radin by phone on the opening night of his current tour.

JR: I’m in Pittsburgh – it’s night-one of the tour. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

BW: We’re looking forward to having you back in Birmingham soon.

JR: I’m ready to come back there and get some barbeque.

BW: We’re enjoying the new CD. How did the material evolve? Did the songs come to you quickly or had you been working on them for a while?

JR: Some of them came right out and some had been evolving over for the past couple of years. It’s tough to generalize, but I just kind of gathered up a bunch of songs over a couple of years since the last record came out and chose my favorite ones to record.

BW: You must be pleased with the album’s reception.

JR: Yeah, I am. It’s a process – you’ve got to get out there and keep playing the songs. Hopefully, people won’t mind me playing electric guitar (laughs).

BW: Do songs continue to evolve even after you take them into the studio to record them?

JR: There’s always tweaking and I always have to remind myself that you can’t listen to it too much because you’re always going to hear things you’d change. I like the live feel of this record. You go in, record the song in the first or second take, you get little mistakes here and there but it’s part of the vibe.

BW: How do you feel about the musical climate right now? Some artists say the instant accessibility of the Internet is great and some say it causes over-saturation and clutter.

JR: I think you bring up a good point. I don’t think I’d be where I am career-wise if it was the way it was in the ‘70s and the major labels and radio controlled everything. There are so many ways to get your music out now for artists like myself. But it’s a pro and a con because people can steal music so easily that no one buys records anymore. With [radio] programs like Reg’s Coffeehouse going by the wayside and going to the Internet – he was one of the last bastions of real music on the radio. It’s probably a wash – it probably evens out. Even though people aren’t buying the music any more, at least you can license music and pay your bills that way.

BW: You’ve had success getting your songs placed in film and television. Why have film and television been more open-minded and forward-thinking than commercial radio?

JR: When it started to become a trend five or six years ago, they didn’t have the budget to license songs from older artists, so they’d look for newer artists and that’s where we came in.

Tickets to the 18+ show are $16 - $18 day of the show - and can be purchased at www.workplay.com.