Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Making Life Easier
Logan goes solo with upbeat new album
Joshua Logan’s music is … bouncy. He might have a grunge past — later tinted with the psych-rock and punk of his Long Beach, Calif., home — but when he tells you the first time music touched his life, it’s immediately clear why his sound is fresh but familiar.
“When I was 5 years old, I got a Bobby McFerrin tape for my birthday with a Casio cassette deck,” says Logan. “The only song on it was ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy.’ And the rest is history.”
That might explain Logan’s musical quest, too.
“When music can make someone’s life a little easier, then it’s good,” he says. “Growing up, music would always transport my mentality to a better place. It was nice to know that people felt the same things I felt. No one wants to be lonely. Everyone wants to relate.”
Logan’s childhood clearly wasn’t an easy one, spent “moving around a lot with a single mother of seven children.” And choosing music as a career wasn’t inspired by that youth.
“I mainly grew up in a small town called Lovington, N.M. The music scene was nonexistent,” he says. It was in Austin, Texas, that he cut his musical teeth, forming a garage rock trio called The Blind Pets in 2007. Critics have called their sound “a sweaty throwback to the glorious barbarism of grunge” and “hungry, brutishly defiant, and willing to fight their way out of any corner.”
But Logan has just released his own solo full-length studio album — self-titled “Chief White Lightning” for his musical alterego. The record’s nine tracks were produced by Battleme frontman Matt Drenik at Get Loud studio in Portland with multiinstrumentalist Jonas Wilson and drummer Paul Pulvirenti playing along.
“I wanted no ego,” Logan says. “It was just four people in a room making a record. There wasn’t a bad idea. If someone said something, everyone listened. Nobody was talking about what it should sound like. We all came from the same school of rock ‘n’ roll, so our tastes were meshing.”
The album was recorded in three days with “no modern gimmicks” or “overproduced tricks,” and critic Ben Wiese says it offers “a nice blend of howling vocals, indie crooning and gritty rock ‘n’ roll riffs, with just a tinge of blues shining across all nine tracks. ‘Bleach Blonde Heritage,’ ‘Free Swim’ and ‘City’s Alive’ all feel like summer singles ready for immediate consumption.”
Since signing a record deal with El Camino Media — coincidentally located in Long Beach — Logan has started to see some serious success. “City’s Alive” was picked up from the album by Canon for a commercial, he’s touring regularly, and he no longer needs a day job.
“Just when I think things are about to fall apart, it’s like the Wright brothers or something,” he told Wiese. “Just when they thought that plane was going to fall apart, it started to fly.”