Of all the songs he has written that have been inspired by his world travels, Radin was surprisingly able to pick one that draws the most on his experiences.
There’s a song on there called ‘Running from the Dawn.’ It’s a bit more upbeat and it’s one of those songs I was thinking about. I’m here in Stockholm at the moment. I have a lot of friends here. It’s sort of become a second home for me. I’ve been coming here for about 13 years to play music; to work on music, and just to hang out as well,” he said. “I wrote that song here and recorded it with some great Swedish musicians that I’ve loved for a long time. It’s about when I was home in LA I would be going to bed so early, waking up early, not socializing so much. And over here in Stockholm, it’s a bit different for me. It’s a different world. My lifestyle’s a bit different. I’m more social I know a lot of people here in the city and I can just walk outside my apartment and bump into people without making plans if I feel like being social. Sometimes there are some late nights, which normally I don’t do, but here I know a lot of people that like to hang out later in the evening.”
It takes courage to live the life that Radin lives. Many people talk to the talk about moving out of the country (especially during our previous presidency) and even more idealize the life that Joshua is living. He’s actually doing it!
“I think I’ve always been like this. It’s sort of something my parents instilled in me, especially my mom. Both my parents always believed in me and gave me a certain confidence,” he credits his folks.” I would tell them that I’m changing majors in college or telling them. I want to do this or that. And, they’d always be like, ‘We trust you. You’ll figure it out.’ I think that was invaluable. It’s the same with my music. When I turned 13 years old and got a guitar and taught myself to play, most people in my life were like, ‘You’re going to be a musician now?’ But my parents were like, ‘Great! That sounds amazing!'”
When asked for advice for anybody who wants to see the world in the same way he is, Radin has some pointers.
Stay as curious as possible. That’s kind of cliche. I think the most important advice I would give is when you’re traveling and you’re outside home, it’s sort of like nothing’s ever going to go exactly the way you plan and the best thing to do is take a deep breath and laugh about it,” he said. “I think a lot of people when they travel if the flight’s delayed or the train breaks down or things like that, little annoyances that most of the time you would just become annoyed. I think that’s all part of the experience and the more things that happen like that to me and have happened like that to me, the more I’ve realized how important it is to have that attitude of like, ‘Well, it’s travel. It is what it is.’ Take it all with a grain of salt.”
Radin has relied on less traditional methods on the business end of things to achieve his success. He hasn’t had much luck with the FM gatekeepers; instead, he relies on word of mouth, the buzz surrounding his live shows, and song placements in television and film. This path, although the road less traveled, still allowed Radin to make a living doing what he loves.
“I’m very lucky to have a great manager. She’s been with me since the beginning and she’s pretty good at that.I find that when I start thinking about that sort of thing that the business of music and when people interview me and ask me about the business of music and anything other than the actual creative side, I tend to not have the greatest answers because I don’t really know,” he said honestly. “When I tend to think about the business, and this has happened to me before in the past, it starts tainting a bit of what I love to do and didn’t get in this for. I didn’t buy a guitar to start writing songs to try to make money. It’s not bad to make money, obviously. I’m not allergic to it.
“My real goal is connection because I think growing up I always felt a bit alienated and I think expression and artistic pursuits are how I’ve always been able to connect with people,” he continued. “When I write a song that’s very meaningful and personal to me and I make myself as vulnerable as possible, if someone writes me or someone tells me at a show how much that affected them and they went through something similar, then I don’t feel alienated as much. I don’t feel alone. And I think that’s what good art does. It sort of brings people together and it makes people realize that we’re all pretty similar when it comes.”
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