Justin Farren

‘Pretty Free’ is a pure delight from start to finish and sounds like a real labour of love. There isn’t a duff track on the album which ranges in style from folk to talking blues a la Guthrie (Woody and Arlo) to delightful ballads all of which mesh wonderfully together in an album that deserves repeat listening and a big audience. - American UK

Pretty Free [Bad Service Badger, 2020]
The fourth album by a solo-acoustic Sacramento road dog whose first three are almost as precise and articulate but less compelling and detailed begins with a startled compare-and-contrast glance at his old Costco membership card and dims only occasionally thereafter. Most of his songs register as autobiographical, reflecting on elders gone, misadventures relived, and the married-with-children life; all are performed with palpable care and quiet pizzazz. Now 38, Farren will never be famous. But he's clearly earned the regional fanbase he continues to service in the ancient yellow truck we meet in "Two Wheel Drive and Japanese," which takes place when he was 16 and stupid. A- - Robert Christgau

Justin Farren is his own man. He’s not perfect as a man nor is he perfect as a musician. His playing is not technically sound, and his songwriting is not overly polished. There are rough edges in both that will easily make the most meticulous of players and singers cringe. Yet therein lies the beauty because Farren’s music is his life and as we all know, life is far from perfect.

With a penchant for writing uniquely personal yet highly relatable songs, Farren’s clever use of lyrics tells detailed stories yet allows the listener to feel as though it’s an experience they have lived through themselves. Such is the case in his latest song “A Little Less Time” where even a setting inside Costco on a Friday night and the image on his membership card is so deeply personal and yet so widely shared.

“This song came out all at once, in about an hour,” recalls Farren. “In fact, I ad-libbed a few of the lines to make a quick iPhone video of it for some friends and those improvised lines stayed in the song. I had been working on mixing a friend’s album and was using Tracy Chapman’s album “New Beginning” as an audio reference. Her “stop and go” style of delivering lines must have seeped into my subconscious because I can hear her all over this song.”

He’s not wrong. With a sound that harkens back to “Fast Car,” stylistically “A Little Less Time” could pass for a sequel to Chapman’s monster hit of 1988 and that’s not a bad thing. With Farren’s minimalist approach to the music, the sparse filling does its job in highlighting the lyrics. As you might imagine, that is not only a welcome result but the entire design Farren had in mind.

“I love the symbolism of the electric guitar just ticking away the time steadily, relentlessly. And I love the way the dynamics are sort of askew, with the biggest part of the song set right in the middle and numerous smaller dynamic builds occur all around it. I wanted the whole recording to feel a little bit like the course of a life. Predictable, but somehow unpredictable at the same time. A little random, but sweet.”

Part of a bigger project, “A Little Less Time” is included on Farren’s upcoming album Pretty Free. While the songs on the album are new to us, Farren has not only lived with them for quite some time, many of them have won awards in various songwriting competitions around the country. In fact, just last year Farren was crowned the winner of the annual Songwriter Serenade competition in Moravia, Texas. - American Songwriter

Show of The Week!

If you are in LA be sure to check out Justin Farren performing at Genghis Cohen at 9pm.

When it comes to his songs, Justin Farren is nothing short of a master craftsman. Compared to Dan Bern, Greg Brown, Chris Smither, and Jack Johnson. Justin paints lyrical pictures that are firmly rooted in the reality of day-to-day life. His delivery is humorous, thoughtful and engaging. His guitar playing is lively, intricate, and seemingly boundless.

Justin has played numerous shows on California’s west coast and has been honored to open for national artists including Bret Dennen, Hot Buttered Rum, Matt Costa, Jackie Greene, Bhi Bhiman and Amber Rubarth. He was voted “Best Lyricist” in 2010 by Sacramento Magazine and and “Best Musician” in 2009 and 2010 by the Sacramento News and Review. Justin’s song “Midnight at The Fair” was voted the “2012 SONG OF THE YEAR” at The West Coast Songwriters, State-Wide Grad Playoff Event at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, and he was a 2012 Regional Finalist in the Newsong Mountain Stage Competition, one of the premier showcases of emerging performing songwriters in North America.
- HITS Daily Double

Introversion arguably produces the best artists. Those who can spend hours holed up in isolation working on a project often emerge with a gem. Land them at a party or social gathering, however, and they’re quickly making a beeline to the nearest bathroom or unoccupied space.

Justin Farren is an exemplary introvert. If he’s not out backpacking or camping, then he is keeping busy on a project—fixing up his yellow truck, woodworking or writing an album in his garage. For this local singer/songwriter, touring means treading outside his comfort zone.

You might not know it if you saw him perform, but it is nothing short of a challenge.

He was in fact on tour as he was explaining this over the phone, camping with some friends in Bellingham, Wash., and prepping for a show that same night.

Touring, he concludes, is good for him. Given any other circumstance, “I’d want to just go hide,” he says. But after a show, he has no choice but to open up and talk to people.

After three or four more shows along the North Coast, he returns to the Sacramento area for his April 6 CD release show at the CSA Event Center, celebrating the release of his album Another Bluebird Day. Then he’ll continue down to Southern California to promote the album.

This is Farren’s third album. With the exception of his friends Brian Rogers on drums and Emily Kollars singing backup vocals, the album is all Farren, from the guitar, bass, keyboard and shakers to the samples of him pounding aluminum cans. This project sums up his last six months, which were spent recording and mixing the entire thing in his garage-turned-studio at his house.

There is nothing obscure about Farren’s songs. Over immaculate finger picking and slide guitar, he sings with lighthearted honesty about life’s tougher blows, compacted into three to four minute folk pop, storytime songs.

“It has these kind of heartbreaking ideas, and I think that the whole album hopefully places these in a light of appreciation,” he says. “Stand in those moments where it would be easy to be depressed, and just appreciate that you got to have those experiences.”

Farren grew up in Elk Grove when it was nothing more than fields, long before it overdosed on suburban steroids. There are no known musicians in his family, though he says there’s talk of a bad-ass accordionist amongst his ancestry. But somewhere along the way, Farren taught himself how to play music, and he’s been at it ever since.

Within the last five or six years, he’s even been able to make a living off it. He’s opened for the likes of Hot Buttered Rum, Matt Costa and Jackie Greene. He was voted “Best Lyricist” in 2010 by Sacramento Magazine and “Best Musician” in 2009 and 2010 by the Sacramento News and Review.

Farren released his last album, Songs from Spare Rooms, in 2008. Those songs were all written in the two years he surfed couches while his house was being built. (It’s worth mentioning that Farren and his now-fiancée built their house in Oak Park from scratch, inspired by a trip they made to Alaska in 2004.)

“We thought, well, let’s just build a house and not think too much about it,” he says.

It’s where the two currently reside, with three dogs, two of which are lovingly named Pickle Breath and Mr. Pig. Indeed, they have been sources of inspiration. Pickle Breath inspired the song on the album, “Sometimes I Like to Kill Things Too.” Go on to Farren’s music page on Facebook, and you will see several flattering photos of Mr. Pig (who, by the way, needs a new happy home).

“Mr. Pig, the one in all the pictures, is maybe the nicest dog I’ve ever known,” Farren says with utmost sincerity. “So I can’t take him to the SPCA, I have to find him a home.”

Other than Mr. Pig, here is an excerpt of more interesting things that came up in the conversation.

So we were talking about your place in Oak Park, how long ago did you build that?
We started in 2005. It took a couple years, we moved in in late 2007.

What prompted you to do that?
The summer before, in 2004, my girlfriend and I went and worked in Alaska in a really tiny little town called McCarthy, just as something to do. We drove up and we worked in this little town, and a lot of the people up there build their own homes. Over the five or six months that we were there, we were talking to a lot of the locals and kind of getting inspired, like that might be some cool thing to do. We decided we wanted to try it when we got home.

I read that you consider yourself a little bit of an introvert, so I was wondering if touring was a challenge.
Oh yeah, it’s a huge challenge. It always has been and I think it always will be… The more tours I go on, the higher my threshold gets. I am able to comfortably sleep on a stranger’s couch and wake up and make them breakfast, and have a morning conversation with someone that I don’t know. Fifteen years ago that would have been mortifying and terribly difficult for me to even imagine doing. - Submerge Magazine

Introversion arguably produces the best artists. Those who can spend hours holed up in isolation working on a project often emerge with a gem. Land them at a party or social gathering, however, and they’re quickly making a beeline to the nearest bathroom or unoccupied space.

Justin Farren is an exemplary introvert. If he’s not out backpacking or camping, then he is keeping busy on a project—fixing up his yellow truck, woodworking or writing an album in his garage. For this local singer/songwriter, touring means treading outside his comfort zone.

You might not know it if you saw him perform, but it is nothing short of a challenge.

He was in fact on tour as he was explaining this over the phone, camping with some friends in Bellingham, Wash., and prepping for a show that same night.

Touring, he concludes, is good for him. Given any other circumstance, “I’d want to just go hide,” he says. But after a show, he has no choice but to open up and talk to people.

After three or four more shows along the North Coast, he returns to the Sacramento area for his April 6 CD release show at the CSA Event Center, celebrating the release of his album Another Bluebird Day. Then he’ll continue down to Southern California to promote the album.

This is Farren’s third album. With the exception of his friends Brian Rogers on drums and Emily Kollars singing backup vocals, the album is all Farren, from the guitar, bass, keyboard and shakers to the samples of him pounding aluminum cans. This project sums up his last six months, which were spent recording and mixing the entire thing in his garage-turned-studio at his house.

There is nothing obscure about Farren’s songs. Over immaculate finger picking and slide guitar, he sings with lighthearted honesty about life’s tougher blows, compacted into three to four minute folk pop, storytime songs.

“It has these kind of heartbreaking ideas, and I think that the whole album hopefully places these in a light of appreciation,” he says. “Stand in those moments where it would be easy to be depressed, and just appreciate that you got to have those experiences.”

Farren grew up in Elk Grove when it was nothing more than fields, long before it overdosed on suburban steroids. There are no known musicians in his family, though he says there’s talk of a bad-ass accordionist amongst his ancestry. But somewhere along the way, Farren taught himself how to play music, and he’s been at it ever since.

Within the last five or six years, he’s even been able to make a living off it. He’s opened for the likes of Hot Buttered Rum, Matt Costa and Jackie Greene. He was voted “Best Lyricist” in 2010 by Sacramento Magazine and “Best Musician” in 2009 and 2010 by the Sacramento News and Review.

Farren released his last album, Songs from Spare Rooms, in 2008. Those songs were all written in the two years he surfed couches while his house was being built. (It’s worth mentioning that Farren and his now-fiancée built their house in Oak Park from scratch, inspired by a trip they made to Alaska in 2004.)

“We thought, well, let’s just build a house and not think too much about it,” he says.

It’s where the two currently reside, with three dogs, two of which are lovingly named Pickle Breath and Mr. Pig. Indeed, they have been sources of inspiration. Pickle Breath inspired the song on the album, “Sometimes I Like to Kill Things Too.” Go on to Farren’s music page on Facebook, and you will see several flattering photos of Mr. Pig (who, by the way, needs a new happy home).

“Mr. Pig, the one in all the pictures, is maybe the nicest dog I’ve ever known,” Farren says with utmost sincerity. “So I can’t take him to the SPCA, I have to find him a home.”

Other than Mr. Pig, here is an excerpt of more interesting things that came up in the conversation.

So we were talking about your place in Oak Park, how long ago did you build that?
We started in 2005. It took a couple years, we moved in in late 2007.

What prompted you to do that?
The summer before, in 2004, my girlfriend and I went and worked in Alaska in a really tiny little town called McCarthy, just as something to do. We drove up and we worked in this little town, and a lot of the people up there build their own homes. Over the five or six months that we were there, we were talking to a lot of the locals and kind of getting inspired, like that might be some cool thing to do. We decided we wanted to try it when we got home.

I read that you consider yourself a little bit of an introvert, so I was wondering if touring was a challenge.
Oh yeah, it’s a huge challenge. It always has been and I think it always will be… The more tours I go on, the higher my threshold gets. I am able to comfortably sleep on a stranger’s couch and wake up and make them breakfast, and have a morning conversation with someone that I don’t know. Fifteen years ago that would have been mortifying and terribly difficult for me to even imagine doing. - Submerge Magazine

Inspiration comes to local singer-songwriter Justin Farren in little, seemingly meaningless moments. For instance, he once watched a friend go through a nasty breakup and still remembers the incident that summarized the pettiness of the split: The friend’s ex came over to claim all his Nintendo games.

Whether the former girlfriend actually wanted the games or just wanted to hurt the guy, it marked how low things had sunk, and the scene eventually ended up in lyric form: “She broke your heart / and she took your time / and all your Nintendo games.”

“Faith, Hope, Etc.,” which draws on what it was like for Farren to console his friend during that time, is now the opening track on his new album Another Bluebird Day.

The record marks a shift for Farren with a collection that’s decidedly more intimate than earlier works. Here, Farren still employs other musicians, with Brian Rogers on drums and Emily Kollars on backing vocals, but it’s the singer’s guitar and voice that take center stage, highlighting what he does best: sharing bits and pieces of his life.

“The songs I write are the byproduct of my life … the things I love to do or the things that happen. The songs are what come out,” Farren says.

The subject matter varies. “Sometimes I Like to Kill Things Too,” for example, is a whimsical track that Farren wrote one day after catching his dog killing his neighbor’s rabbits. The incident made him wonder if he was all that different than his dog. After all, he too killed (directly or indirectly) living creatures: plants, cows, spiders, etc.

“I feel like here’s a universal truth, that just by existing, you have edged something else out. You’ve probably destroyed something on a daily basis just be being alive. It kind of makes light of that idea,” Farren says.

When it comes to songwriting, Farren says he tries not to exaggerate. While he could easily take the kernels of truth and build off then with fictitious, more dramatic retellings, he chooses not to. Rather, Farren prefers his work remain an authentic expression of his life.

“The origins of most of my songs are these little mundane moments, but if you see the context of the things that led to that particular moment, then all of a sudden, you might see what’s interesting about them,” he says.

One of the most sentimental new songs is “Little Blue Dirtbike,” which recounts the summer Farren spent with his grandfather when he was 5. Farren wrote the song after his grandfather died, and its retelling of moments—such as the time his grandfather taught him how to play pool—exhibit an understated sense of emotion.

“That summer was my main experience with him. It talks about my viewpoint and learning about this man, and that being my only real memory of the guy,” Farren says. Such attention to personal detail, he says, is a way for listeners to know and understand him—not just as a musician.

“I feel like I’m showing enough of myself … that if people resonate with [my music], chances are we can hang out and just be friends,” he says. “If they get the songs, then they get me.”

Farren’s musical leanings started when he was young and discovered folk singers Greg Brown and Chris Smither, admiring both for their literary style of songwriting. Now, he says, he tries to bring that same quality to his work.

“It forces me to really condense the story down to the most pertinent lines in the most refined way,” he says. “I really love trying to find just the perfect words to fit in just the perfect lines that explains the story—that also gives you room to interpret it in your own way as well.” - Sacramento News & Review

Like the wonderful Benjamin Shaw here in the UK, observational singer-songwriter Justin Farren has a world view that is as skewed as it is idiosyncratic as it is unassuming.

However, being from across the pond, his is a view coloured by his Californian upbringing and consequently we get 70 second songs about awkward palm trees growing out of concrete, glue guns and anxieties over asphalt burns from sex in a parking lot.

And we get a song warning the people who have stolen from him what a pile of junk they’ve got themselves and how to get the best out of his possessions. A song which somehow comes across like a speed-fuelled Loudon Wainwright III duelling with Arol Guthrie.

The album is Songs From Spare Rooms and while it will never sell millions, it is funny, tender, ironic and wonderful and you should buy it. From Amazon on import here or cdbaby here. - madmackerel

It is not often I stumble upon an artist quite like Justin Farren, but perhaps that needs to change. You see, in the world we live in today…one where we need immediate responses and pleasure always at our fingertips…maybe it is time for the succinct storyteller. One that is able to find the positive in any negative daily life situation which may have confronted us at some point, and spin it favorably with a short song.
Well, allow me to introduce to you the immensely talented Justin Farren. His latest release Songs From Spare Rooms is a collection of 16 songs he has written which are packed with tongue in cheek frivolity. Some of these songs are quite short, but they still pack quite a punch.

From the beginning, you can hear the talents flowing in Justin’s ability to tell a story, sing it well, and his bare instrumental arrangements are the perfect accompaniment to truly make each song shine. Many will immediately hear a similarity to early Jason Mraz material, which is certainly not a bad thing at all. Even Justin pokes fun at this in his song Where Did I Leave My Sweater.
This cd is one which will find you singing along …laughing at his lyrics…and sometimes shaking your head in amazement wondering “did he just say what I thought he did?”. Time flies bye while this one is playing…and when it is over you will want more.

So thank you Justin. You have me hooked. Now where can we quench this immediate need for more??? - AmericanaRoots.com

Justin's voice is songbird sweet and full of summer soul. His guitar playing seems to know no limitations. With just his voice and an acoustic guitar the guy could get a whole room dancing. He exudes raw groove... Throughout the cd's 13 songs (and one music video) Justin makes it clear that he is a major talent on the singer/songwriter scene. - alive'n'kickin magazine

Thanks to Jack Johnson, any acoustic artist with a syncopated strum and staccato singing style is considered a copycat. People assume Jack invented the whole baked and bouncy guitar sound. He didn't. Then who did? I don't know, nor do I really care. Neither does Justin Farren, a hip and happy singer/songwriter from Sacramento whose album, Sound of Flight, evokes the sparse and intoxicatingly chill ethos of Jack. Oh well.

Let's just say Jack and Justin are doctors for the same disease. Responding to a generation weary of self-important emo-music, Farren reminds the listener that not every song need be about breaking up. Sorry, Dashboard Confessional. In fact, the content of The Sound of Flight is inane in a pleasant sort of way; Farren chastises our sometimes-uptight world with whimsy, singing about flies (La Cancion De La Mosca), fantasies, tadpoles (The Tadpole Song), and the like. Fun? You bet. This album entertains, and needn't do anything more.

But lolling guitar picking aside, Farren knows his aesthetic well, and exhibits strong melodic sense with an easy, dancing tenor voice reminiscent of Damien Rice and Stephen Bishop. His lyrics abound with bizarre energy and the arbitrary resonance of famed lyricist Paul Simon. Adding a bit of exoticism, most of the titles on The Sound of Flight are in Spanish, except for my favorite, "The Tadpole Song," in which Farren imagines a rich universe of singing, loving, hanging out with friends, and of course, tadpoles.

Justin also has a rather good music video on his site, www.justinfarren.com . The video is for his song "We Don't Work", which isn't on The Sound of Flight, but worth checking out nonetheless. If you want to see Justin Farren live, you have to go to Sacramento, where he lives. I know, I know: Sacramento isn't exactly the place you'd expect Farren's music to thrive--but it does. If you can't see him live (I'm told his live shows are "an intense listening session..."), buy his album. Please. It will make you needlessly happy.
I give it four high-fives - www.ariaglobal.org