Josef Salvat
The Australian singer-songwriter has just dropped the most relatable album of 2020.
The Australian singer-songwriter on his sophomore album, Modern Anxiety, and how we can tackle addiction within the LGBTQ+ community.
“I t’s important that people continue to put music out. It’s vital actually,” says Josef Salvat. We’re chatting with the Aussie superstar over Zoom (because that’s the new normal now) about his second studio album, Modern Anxiety, his first full-length project in four years. “I think if you want a big massive campaign and award show appearances, it’s right to delay your album. But that’s not my world, that’s not what I want.” While other artists have chosen to postpone their music due to the coronavirus, it wasn’t an option for Josef, especially with an album so aptly titled Modern Anxiety. The album - which was recorded before the pandemic - reflects on Josef’s experiences over the past four years, in which he moved to Berlin on a journey towards self-discovery and became a confidant to a friend struling with addiction, as well the crippling anxiety caused by our current digital age. We spent an hour with Josef (and his poodle, Monty) discussing his sensational sophomore album, why addiction is more prevalent within the queer community and how he came to the realisation that it’s “fucking great” to be Josef Salvat.
Modern Anxiety was an apt title before lockdown. Do you think it’s taken on a whole new meaning now?
When I wrote it, I was in my own lockdown. I didn’t leave my own flat for two or three months in Berlin, and it was summer. It was worse because I had the impression that everybody was out, doing stuff with their friends and it was so depressing and lonely. But I was in such a state in my head, particularly with a bad relationship break-up. I’d been beaten for years and all of this random shit happened and completely robbed me of all my joy, and I didn’t know why I was in Berlin anymore and I didn’t know what I was doing with my life. I was drinking every afternoon from like two, I didn’t see anybody. I was in lockdown, I was in a situation just like this, so it’s very interesting that the song came out of this time. It was written to the period, and the claustrophobia that you have in your own head, which I feel like a lot of people are experiencing. When I speak to Olivier in Paris, the guy I’m seeing, he’s in his tiny little flat, their lockdown is way more intense than ours here, on his own with his dog. That’s a really claustrophobic space to be psychologically.
How would you compare your lockdown in Berlin with the COVID-19 lockdown?
That was just a journey, a moment that I had to pass through. I’ve been speaking to a lot of my friends who have dealt with real anxiety or bouts of proper depression, and while I definitely grapple with anxiety that can be paralyzing, I have over the past four years, I wouldn't lay claim to having the intensity of problems that the friends I’m talking about experience. They’ve been living with it for ten years, and it’s a daily battle, and they’re doing amazing in quarantine because all of the triers for their anxiety have been removed. The idea of FOMO, having to work, a lot of the songwriters aren’t doing sessions as there’s no pressure to do sessions. No one is dating, a lot of that has been removed, the idea of ‘I’ve got to find a partner, find a mate’ is all gone, and they can be themselves. And they’re having an amazing time. It’s the people who function quite well with normal life, whatever that is, who are struling more, but it’s interesting that my friends with anxiety are doing great. I actually have a lot to do, so I’m okay. I’ve got my dog, it’s sunny, I’ve got my garden and it’s fucking gorgeous.
What would you say is the most personal song on the album for you?
I guess Modern Anxiety, which gave me the title of the album. At the time I wrote that, it was the most visceral and the most literal in terms of what I was doing with my day. There’s no abstraction or metaphor in that song, this is what it is. So, in a way, that is the most directly related to my experience. Human and Melt, I think are pretty personal ones, just in terms of plumbing emotions that I felt uncomfortable with, and both in relation to other people and where I was locating myself. One was that, ‘I literally want to drown in you’ which is Melt, me being like ‘I want to be a part of you’ which is pretty unhealthy. And Human is about knowing that a relationship is unhealthy and toxic for you, but not being able to do anything about it. You know who you are, you know who you were, but you don’t know how you’ve become who you currently are at this point, and this person is just absolutely grinding you down, and you can see it happening, but you’re a slave to love. So those two are probably the trickiest emotionally.
The Paper Moons video tackles addiction within the queer community, specifically with sex and drugs. Did you draw on your own personal experiences with this song?
I had a friend who was battling... there’s chemsex and then there’s problematic chemsex. Over the last four years, I’ve become pretty anti-drugs across the board. I think they ruin careers, they destroy creativity and relationships, and