1. The First Song I Wrote
Super embarrassing – I copped a lot of slack during high school for it… it was callled ‘Ladybird’. I wrote it about a girl who I made up some fairytale-like fantasy about when I was around 15. I’m having a good laugh about it now though.
2. The Last Song I Released
‘Listening’, released about a month ago now. I recorded this song with Jan Skubiszewski (John Butler Trio, The Cat Empire, Illy). It’s a track from my upcoming EP to be out mid this year. It was inspired by being grateful and realising how lucky I have been to have the parents and upbringing that I have had. It’s like an “I owe it to you, Mum and Dad” scenario. This was probably the most experimental piece on the EP in regards to instrumentation and production.
3. Songwriting Secrets
There’s no real proper way that I write. Songs come naturally in times of emotion. I cannot write about made-up scenarios – everything I write is real and comes from a deeper part of me. I can struggle with words, so writing songs sometimes helps me portray a message to someone or a situation.
4. The Song That Makes Me Proud
‘Patience’ is a song of mine that I’m proud of. It’s reached a larger audience than I could imagine, and set up some amazing opportunities overseas for me. Every now and then I hear it on the radio, or a TV show, or in a shopping centre. I see the song as a bit of a milestone of my early career so far.
5. The Song That Changed My Life
‘Ocean’ by John Butler was probably the biggest influence that got me inspired to make music. I would have been 12 years old; soon after I got a guitar and would practise for hours every night until I could play it. I would then play it at every second assembly at school (sorry CCS). The most recent would be ‘Let It Happen’ by Tame Impala. Lyrically it is something I relate to more than any song I’ve heard in the past five years, and the perfection of production and instrumentation behind the words is mesmerising and is easy for me to get lost in almost a meditative state.
Josh Cashman plays Brighton Up Bar on Thursday May 4, with support from River Blue.
