Josh Funk

Chico, Calif. (PRWEB) September 14, 2010

Josh Funk, an independent and self-produced artist, today announced the release of his fourth original album, “Everything In Temporary”, a concept album that deals with the feelings of lost love through the perspective of a comatose man lying in his deathbed. This newest release is a stark contrast to Funk’s earlier emo-pop albums as he parts ways with his former works and explores the depths of his darker self, showing a truly integral side of him fans have yet to see before.

“Everything In Temporary” is an entire album dedicated to portraying the last thoughts of a man trapped in his body, slowly creeping towards the brink of his own death. In the song Breathe, he imagines that he discovers his lover shot, dying on the floor, and then runs after her killer only to be slain as he seeks vengeance. The Stars describes a dreaming man’s search for the woman he loves as the world reaches its own demise and comes crashing down all around him. Funk sings about standing at the edge of the ocean in The Sea, imagining what it is going to be like as he walks through the cold waters to his death, letting the waves upon waves take him under. Finally, in Whispers In Ears, he can hear the prayers of his family and friends as they wish for God to take him home.

“I realized one day that no matter how important you are, and no matter what you do, you will one day be forgotten and that everything is in a temporary status. I instantly started crafting this story and writing these songs after that," said Funk. "I wasn’t even sure if I would release this album because it was so different from previous culminations, but these songs convey my own integrity and represent me more sincerely than anything I’ve done before."

A music video for Breathe, the first single from “Everything In Temporary”, can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO6h7rN6UC8

To hear samples or purchase “Everything In Temporary” from iTunes, please visit: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/everything-in-temporary/id389644329

About Josh Funk
Josh Funk is a multi-talented, self-taught, and independent musical artist hailing from the city of Chico in the depths of Northern California. Funk’s musical credits include four albums—The Outlet Disadvantage (2000), A Jukebox Envy (2004) , The Face You Show Your Enemies (2007) , and Everything In Temporary (2010) —as well as awards from Unisong International Songwriting Contest. Funk has also been featured on the Swinghouse Records compilation of up and coming artists, and the soundtracks for illusionist Wayne Houchin’s DVD releases Stigmata, Indecent, and Control. For more information on Josh Funk, please visit: www.joshfunk.com. - PR WEB

A Jukebox Envy, the latest EP from singer/songwriter Josh Funk, is one of those rare works that is able to give you more than a one-dimensional look into the life of its creator. The album has a definite cohesive style that sits somewhere between Weezer and Elliott Smith, but the feel of the music changes dramatically from track to track, leaving you with a very intimate and rounded picture of the person who created it. "Studying Your Smile" and "My Supermodel" stand out as particularly amazing songs, but you need to hear them all to really understand Josh Funk. His music speaks for itself as a voice on the outside of pop looking in, one step ahead of everything else, but familiar at the same time.

{synthesis.net} - Synthesis

Local singer-songwriter makes his next big move with a new record

By Barbara Manning

Josh Funk has an affinity for creative self-promotion. Last year, while working at the local Kmart, Funk managed to talk his boss into letting him play in the store's jewelry and watch department. He maintains his professional Web site himself, and his MySpace page has received thousands of hits. He's played in front of thousands of people at Beale Air Force base for a Boy Scouts event and played at his high school graduation celebration, which Funk described as "surreal."

Now, almost 25, the singer-songwriter is ready to celebrate the release of his third full-length solo record, The Face You Show Your Enemies, Feb. 24. Although Funk is currently studying studio and electronic art at Chico State and working full time, he still manages to maintain a musical career that continues to expand. Regularly selling his songs via downloads on iTunes, gaining fans worldwide and organizing the packaging and distribution of his albums, he manages to do it all from the tidy little apartment he shares with his fiancée, Jenny.

The new album features some "really excellent musicians that are living in L.A. now." Working at home on his Pro Tools setup, recording basic tracks to a click track, and sending the music to Los Angeles for drums and bass has been a convenient way to record for Funk.

"It is so nice collaborating with other people," Funk says. "I got a lot of feedback over the two years while working on this album. This album is a mix of rock anthems and quirky, mellow songs."

Funk's music is a direct reflection of his own experiences, or how he imagines they could be. His lyrics focus on relationships, breakups and friendships, although he admits that his current stable relationship poses a challenge to his songwriting.

The song "Silhouettes," off the new album, takes a bit of a different approach, exploring what life after death might be like. "It's about floating to heaven as if you were a paper cutout," Funk explains. "Once you get there you're waiting in line, surrounded by all these people--rabbis and priests and everyone--talking about what it's going to be like, just waiting in line like you do in Disneyland. I don't describe all of that in my song, but when I sing it, that's what I picture."

The only musical exposure Funk had as a child was listening to oldies stations in the car during family road trips. His mother would point out songs and tell him stories they reminded her of.

"Every time a certain song would come on she would say, 'I remember the first time I heard this! It was at a dance … ' " Funk recalls. " She would associate them with memories and I learned songs from picturing her memories."

Funk fell into playing music in seventh grade after not making the cut for his school's basketball team. "I wanted to be a sports guy so bad. I just didn't have it. I think I cried."

Buying a guitar off of a neighbor for 10 bucks and taking six months of lessons, Funk realized he could figure out how to play songs he heard from records by ear. He quit the lessons and started playing Green Day songs with some friends. They practiced in a garage, preparing to play their first gig at a junior high assembly. But it was still undecided who was going to sing. Each member took a turn at the microphone, trying to sound like Billy Joe Armstrong. Funk won out. And at 12, he was the lead singer of his first band, the Porcelain Tutus.

"This was probably the most pivotal moment for me in my life," Funk admits. "Had I not tried to sing then I would not be doing what I am right now."

From there Funk played in several bands as members came and went. Just as he was starting college he joined Farewell Letter. Throughout his involvement with bands Funk continued a solo career, soon developing a devoted audience and eventually drawing standing-room-only crowds to his regular nights at the now-defunct Chico café The Daily Grind.

After he sent his 2004 release, A Jukebox Envy, to an L.A. recording studio for mastering, the engineer, so impressed by what he had heard, told Funk that he wanted to share the finished CD with managers of acts like Melissa Etheridge and Maroon 5. It was after that when Funk was invited to record at Hollywood's Swing House studio for four days on a track featured on their in-house compilation, which included the Goo Goo Dolls and Concrete Blond.

But Funk's big break came from a friendship he forged with a Chico magician, Wayne Houchin. Funk and Houchin tied for first place in a talent contest in high school--Pleasant Valley--and now Houchin's instructional and highly entertaining "illusion" DVDs sell by the thousands. Houchin requested that his friend's music accompany two of his recent DVDs, which sold so many that servers crashed in the first hour. Now a whole lot more people have been exposed to Funk's sound. But he doesn't mind if his music is described as commercial.

"I - Chico News & Review

Maritza Rodrigez
Staff Writer
August 31, 2005
It soon became standing room only as people entered Has Beans on Friday for a night filled with music and magic. Well, maybe not magic but definitely illusion.

Two local performers partnered up for a wonderful performance. Musician Josh Funk and street magician Wayne Houchin paired up to put on a very different type of show.

"It's different to see magic and music together. Two magicians would be weird and two musicians would be a little too much and it would get boring," Funk said.

The night started with Funk, 23, a Butte College student performing all of his old and new material. His friend, fellow guitar player, and back up singer Jay Darten accompanied Funk on stage. Through out their performance Funk and Darten kept the audiences attention by teasing each other. At one point Funk made a confession about a song he was about to perform, "I always forget the second verse, so if I stop you guys know I forgot the words," Funk said.

Funk added to his acoustic performance with the accompaniment of vocalist and long time friend Amanda Wort. Funk and Wort attended high school together and have performed together many times.

"Josh is really good. We have been doing this since 1999 when we got to sing one night a week at the Daily Grind," said Wort as she sat in the audience singing along to all of Funk's songs.

Funk's music was soothing, mellow, and meaningful until an audience member made a request towards the end of the show. "Play the Bob Saget song," an audience member shouted from the back.

Most of you can recall Bob Saget played the famous TV father Danny Tanner on "Full House."

"For those of you who don't know. I used to be obsessed with Bob Saget and I wrote a song about him a really long time ago," said a slightly embarrassed but willing to perform Funk as he looked up from his guitar.

The crowd laughed and cheered as Funk sang about Bob Saget. The show ended with Funk doing the only cover of the night, "Stray Cat Strut" by the Stray Cats. Funk ended his performance to applause. - CSUC ORION

Local singer and songwriter Josh Funk jokes that he wants to train monkeys after graduating from Chico State. But for now, Funk just entertains people with his music, and, perhaps inadvertantly, with his sense of humor.

Don't let the wisecracks fool you (making fun of his extremely thin physique, Funk refers to himself as "a human stick-figure playing love songs"), his often heartfelt songs portray life's ups, downs and the ironies in between. The 23-year-old Chico native sings, plays the guitar and writes catchy lyrics in manner he describes as reminiscent of Weezer and Elliot Smith. Most of all, it seems he's just having fun making music. "If it's not fun, it's not worth it," Funk says.

Funk grew up listening to the Beach Boys, but he's more recently influenced by the likes of emo-superstars The Get Up Kids--in addition to the aforementioned Smith and Weezer--and with his own emotionally delivered vocal stylings and love song themes you would definitely put him in that same slippery emo category.

"Even when I never have to/ can I still sing for you?" Funk sings to an anonymous crush on "I'm So Glad You Could Make It," one of the tunes he's working on for a new recording. As on his previous release--2004's A Jukebox Envy--the emo sound Funk puts on record is a full electric version. For the last couple of years at least (his previous local bands include The Farewell Letter and brief stint in Isabell), Funk's pattern is to produce a polished recording of his high-energy love songs, then take to local cafes and perform solo. The new stuff isn't on disc yet, but you can hear it at upcoming Has Beans and Teaz Me shows. The six-song A Jukebox Envy is available on his Web site (www.joshfunk.com) for $8. Or you can stop by a local cafe and snag it for $5. - Chico News & Review

Synthesis - August, 2004

Josh Funk has been slipping through the cracks of Chico's music scene for the past nine years and considering all of this, his list of accomplishments is amazing. He has performed in such bands as Farewell Letter, Spencer and Isabell, won numerous songwriting and talent contests, and at this point has had his voice heard on most regional and college radio stations.


In late December of 2003 and on a shoestring budget, Funk set out to record a new EP entitled A Jukebox Envy on which he produced and played all of the instruments minus drum tracks provided by friends. Influences like Weezer and Elliot Smith seeped through the music, and Josh opened his soul through lyrics of both skepticism and heartache.


"My Songs are about relationships and dreams, falling in love and falling apart. On my upcoming album the song 'Implode' is about awkward silences between two people, 'Every Five Minutes' is about the girl I was in love with and how when I finally got her, we weren't what we thought we'd be. As for the rest, they deal with everything between bliss and disaster...my life as I've known it so far." - Synthesis

By Brendan McNerney
Synthesis – Feb 19th, 2007

“I have this name that people assume I made up, and it is my real name. Josh Funk is my real name…believe me, I would have picked something much cooler.”

Besides having a name that is just begging to be on stage, and a good sense of humor, Josh Funk is backing up his presense in music with creative, pop-driven songs that can easily be related to and enjoyed by the masses. Born and raised in Chico, Funk has pursued a lifelong love of music, being involved in multiple bands throughout the years, although he has found a calming and more personal escape in creating his own solo music. Now with a third album of his own and a CD release party at Has Beans on February 24th, Josh Funk is jumping headfirst into making a name for himself as a singer/songwriter. Synthesis met up with Funk during his busy schedule to discuss his new album, The Face You Show Your Enemies, as well as his music career in general.

{What made you get away from your previous band-based music and pursue your own endeavor solely as Josh Funk?}

I was doing both of them at the same time, and I was entering songwriting competitions on my own. I used to kind of split them up in my head; the more upbeat, thicker, rock stuff was my band stuff, my softer ballad stuff was my own and I didn’t see them as the same. So I entered them in the competition under my own name and started to see that they were more popular and people were responding to it more and I was getting better feedback from it. I fought it for a long time… but it was just for me.

{Now I know that you have a new nine-song album coming out (The Face You Show Your Enemies), where was recording done on the album?}

I have a partial setup at my house, so I started out most of the tracks where I was set up with a grid and did acoustic guitar, vocals and some electric guitar and then the majority was recorded down in Hollywood and L.A. I was kind of doing a long distance thing, so I was working with a couple of producers, and then a good friend, Ryan Sanders, who actually plays bass for me [and] works at Roland, he recorded and tracked a lot of the album at Roland, the drums and the bass… I did play bass on one song, because I recorded that song at a studio called Swing House in Hollywood and I played everything but drums on it. I put a lot of weird stuff on the album. I actually played a fishing pole at one part; I recorded the reel, because I was trying to get this little cranking at the beginning. So I played a fishing pole, handclaps, shakers, and I made a recorder and played that too.

{So would you say that you are getting into a different genre or exploring different areas of music?}

It’s a little further away from the emo/pop/rock stuff I was doing. Some really big influences are Weezer, and they definetly shine through. A little more quirky and experimental, but I’m still keeping the songs catchy.

{Living in Chico, do you ever have a difficult time getting your music to the masses?}

I’m trying to be as creative as I can about getting my stuff out there. I’m trying to do less of the grunt work, less playing shows for five people, and more of trying to just expose it in the time I do have. So there’s a couple of ways I’m promoting it. Myspace is huge; it’s really helped me out. Also I have songs on a few DVD’s.

{Yeah, I know that you did a compilation a while back.}

Yeah, I was also on a compilation for Swing House Records and I’ve had some people all over the country write me about that. In fact, that’s how I learned I was on it. Some girl from Arizona wrote me and told me, “I really like your song on the Swing House compilation,” and I had to make some phone calls and had forgotten that I had agreed to that like two years before. But I’m going to be recording a live concert DVD with a friend of mine…and release it worldwide soon. - Synthesis

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Not Quite Hollywood Music Spotlight - Josh Funk

I was listening to 106.7 Zrock's fifteen minutes of fame (Weeknights from 9:00pm to 9:15pm) as usual on my way home from work. Up next was a new song by local Artist/Songwriter Josh Funk. The song was called "My Supermodel". Having the uncanny ability to recognize true talent when I hear it, I decided to contact Josh and schedule an interview. The interview went well and I left knowing a lot more about what makes the guy tick. Here's a little of what I learned:

Josh Funk now twenty-one years of age after many years of playing with other groups has decided to go solo. Josh has been making music since he was in the eighth grade. He received his first guitar from a neighbor for ten bucks and he began teaching himself songs off of the radio. Josh has been in quite a few talent competitions. At age fifteen he won second place in a Chico songwriters competition beating out some people who had been writing songs their entire life. His prize was two hours in a recording studio. The complete interview follows:

Did your parents encourage your skills?

They were very encouraging but I honestly think they viewed it as a hobby for a long time. Now it is at the point where they want me to do the normal thing like college but if I made music my main goal they would definitely support my decision.

You've been in several groups . . . Why go solo?

Though I had been playing in bands since I was twelve, I have always found more comfort in expressing myself through songs I wrote by myself and for myself. They are better in the sense that I wasn't trying to please anybody and be anybody. It was just something that I couldn't escape. Im just doing what is natural for myself. It just seems the natural path for me to take at this point in my life. And to be honest I do not have any intention on turning back.

What was the best location you've every played? Why?

I have played many shows over the years so that is hard to pinpoint. I have had some amazing shows that were only for five people, and some horrible shows that I played in front of a thousand. I just feel blessed to have the memories I do. I've played at a Boy Scout jamboree, a Hawaiian themed birthday party above Star Bucks, and many backyard shows. As ridiculous as they sound, they were a lot of fun.

What was the worst location? Why?

I don't have any one bad show that makes me ill to think about. There are just certain types of places I loath playing. Bars and Keggers are usually a waste of time. I've played a lot of Keggers where they just want to hear cover songs and they want to play your instruments. It's no fun playing till 2 in the morning unless the people are actually there to hear the music and have a good time.

Do your music abilities help you get chicks? Especially now that you've gone solo?

In theory yes, but I have been single for a long time now, so apparently it isn't a proven one. I think that Lawyers and Doctors are the ones who really get the ladies. I'm not very good with lying or using a scalpel though.

I noticed there is a slight change in style from the music you played while with The Farewell Letter and what you do now. What triggered this change?

On the surface it seems like there was a big change. What I do now is what I have always done. When you make it a collaborative effort the music becomes something entirely it's own. Had I written all of our songs on my own, they would have sounded along the lines of what I am doing right now.

Your music is very clean, from what I've heard. Have you ever felt the need to throw in an explicit lyric or two?

I have never found the need to. The song "My Super Model" that is on my new CD uses the word "SHIT" in it. I may sound a bit prude for saying this, but it was very hard for me to put it in. unfortunately I couldn't resist. It was just the funniest way to say what I needed to say.

On your up and coming CD "A Jukebox Envy" you played all of the instruments except the drums. How was that experience? Would you do it again?

I loved it. It was so fulfilling and if I were a better drummer I would do all the instruments. I spent about 5 months on 6 songs. Some days I would go into the studio unprepared with no written parts and come up with something that I loved. Other days I would be very prepared. In the end, these songs are my favorite to listen back to. They entirely represent me.

I did some research on Elliot Smith after reading The Story on your web site. After comparing some of his songs with yours I realized his influence is truly strong with you. How would you personally compare your music with his?

He was an amazing songwriter and influence on me. I wish I were half the poet he was. He used amazing metaphors and told stories in such a way that you can say, "I know what he was feeling when he wrote that." The way I write is much more blunt. You can tell that I am a fan though, maybe not on the surf - www.nqhproductions.com