Meet Patrick Joseph | Producer, Composer, Songwriter, Recording Artist.

We had the good fortune of connecting with Patrick Joseph and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Patrick, why did you pursue a creative career?
When I was growing up, I was never that great in school. I got by – mainly on common sense – but chalk it up to either an attention disability, a lack of interest, or just plain laziness, I was just never that engaged. I found myself as a child when my parents had me taking piano lessons. That quickly became the identity of my youth: the music kid. This carried me much through my teens – playing drums in bands, guitar in bands, bass in bands. Jumping around a lot and sharpening my skills. It was the only thing that ever gave me a solid sense of purpose or value in the world. Music came easy to me, and I enjoyed it.

At this time, making quality-sounding recordings on your own was still a difficult task for any band or artist on their own. You had to know someone, go to someone’s basement or attic, usually some strange hermit of a person on the outskirts of town, or a technologically-inclined nerd of a kid who had some sort of basic home recording setup. I became that kid. This was before the current days of bedroom producers, before Garageband came pre-installed on every Apple computer. I had a 4-track Tascam tape recorder in my attic that I learned how to use pretty well. That became an 8-track Fostex digital recorder, then a 16-track Roland, then a 24-track Roland. I got pretty good at recording friends’ bands, and friends’ of friends, and so on, all the way to the point where when it came time to go to college, I decided to take some classes in audio recording, because it was an alleged crossover between a passion (music) and a practicality (recording). Something I could maybe get a job doing within the field of the main thing I enjoyed doing: playing music.

Fast-forward a few years and I found myself in Los Angeles. My journey towards becoming a music producer, composer, and songwriter in Los Angeles was a long one, but suffice it to say, I originally moved out here to be a singer-songwriter, an identity I still hold to this day. I had some nice success at it, played festivals all around the country, toured a lot with a band, had songs on the radio and in film and television shows. At a certain point, the indie touring life takes its toll and you start looking for ways to broaden your horizons. So I began putting it all together: Using my recording experience and knowledge in conjunction with my performing, songwriting, singing, and multi-instrumentalism, and when you combine all of those ingredients, you get who I am today – I am a music producer, composer, and songwriter who releases original music as a recording artist, produces the music for other recording artists, and writes and composes for film, television, and commercials.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
These days more than ever, it’s extremely challenging to stand out in this field. Whereas music production and recording used to be more of a scarcity – at least in terms of quality and affordability – nowadays, everyone with a laptop is equipped with a copy of Garageband. And Logic – one of the leading software programs for recording – is only a few hundred dollars downloadable in Apple’s app store. On top of that, the internet – between YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Google, and whatever other social media platforms or search engines out there – is a goldmine for DIY knowledge on how to get the latest and greatest sounds out of your music. A 12-year-old kid can make a whole record on their iPhone nowadays, and it doesn’t sound that bad. Inevitably, this has informed the genres of today that are popular and easy to create quickly and affordably. Billie Eilish and her producer/brother swept the Grammys a few years back recording an album mostly on cheap equipment in their bedroom. The necessity for grandiose recording studios, hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of recording equipment, and entire staffs of skilled professionals working on records is greatly diminishing, and you’re seeing the gradual transformation of an entire industry and art form down to something anyone can do from a device in their pocket. And this isn’t even factoring in the implications of the incoming age of AI-generated music.

So, how does one stand out these days? How does one succeed in music? Well, regardless of how accessible quick quality is nowadays for music production, and regardless of whether robots really will be replacing us all in terms of content-creation, I believe that the human element will always exist. A skilled, experienced, inspired human will always have value in the workplace. I have a very unique combination of skills, experience, and talent that I put to use every day. When I produce music artists or bands, I know what they’re looking for because I’ve been there too as an artist. I know how to communicate, I know the feelings they’re feeling and the sounds they’re searching for and the dreams they’re chasing. I can empathize with it all. I can turn some verbal direction into the exact guitar tone someone is searching for. I can help a singer in the studio get that performance that emotes the song they’re singing because I’ve been that singer, too.

When I’m called to tackle an assignment for a specific piece of music custom-made for a TV commercial or a particular scene in a movie or a show, I’ve been under the gun many times to deliver that deadline without losing sight of the emotion that the director or music supervisor are looking to print to picture.

We’re all unique, and we all bring different things to the table. I’ve had such a wide array of experience in virtually every avenue of the performance side of music as well as the production side, and sometimes being a jack of all trades does turn out to be a good thing. I’ve always sold myself as a “one-stop shop” in terms of production, recording, songwriting – you name it. I’m capable of doing everything within the walls of my own room by myself, because over the years, it’s just been a necessity.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
LA is an enormous city. One of my favorite music producers, Jon Brion once put it nicely roughly saying something along the lines as, “LA is big and has a little something for everyone in it. If you don’t like LA, you probably won’t have a good time anywhere else, either.”

This question entirely depends on the person, of course. But, being a music professional myself, I would be inclined to take them to my favorite music spots. If there was an LA Philharmonic show at the Hollywood Bowl, I would take them to that. It’s something I don’t do all of the time myself, but the Bowl is such an iconic venue, and the Phil is an experience. I’d take them to a music show at one of my favorite venues, Largo at the Coronet. It’s a quaint theater venue in West Hollywood that has a resident cast of eclectic musicians, some of the best in the world. They also have brilliant comedy there. You won’t see talent anywhere else in the city – let alone the country – quite like there. It’s a curated community of some of the finest, and I have some of my fondest music memories there.

I’d have to take them to The Hotel Cafe in Hollywood, as well. It’s become my home base for performance, and the best songwriter’s club in the entire country. Any given night you can see some phenomenal singing and songwriting talent there. Just raw, undiscovered voices singing timeless original music, often times only accompanying themselves, and it makes you in awe about how much undiscovered talent there is in this world. And if you hang out late enough at night, you might be lucky enough to catch a celebrity performer testing out some new material in a secret show.

Outside of music, I’d probably give them the LA taco truck experience. Eating some messy tacos on a paper plate from a truck on a street corner at 1am, and they’re usually the best tacos you’ve ever had in your life. That experience is very uniquely LA. And, oh yeah, that gigantic ocean we have right to the west of us. I’d have to take them for a stroll down the Strand, a quick pit-stop at a bar or two, and on the sand just in time to watch the sun go down. Doesn’t sound so bad, does it?

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
It would be unjust to mention any of my successes as a music professional without acknowledging the love, support, and encouragement from my parents. I was one of the lucky ones – a lot of artists in this world are artists because they come from families where perhaps they didn’t feel enough love or support, and in a sense a lot of their success stems from defiance and rebellion against that. I never had to fight that side of the uphill battle towards success, and I’m forever grateful for it. My parents were my two biggest fans. Neither of them were professional musicians, just middle class music-lovers raising a family in Pittsburgh, PA, and they wanted to see all of their kids succeed. It just so happened that my path to success was in the realm of the arts. They encouraged me along the way and helped give me the tools I needed to succeed. My Mom is no longer with us, she passed a few years back to cancer, but she always made me feel like I was doing the right thing with my life. My Dad is still a strong support to this day and I talk to him often about music. He’s always asking me when the next new music is coming out, and I’m always sharing with him the latest project I’m working on. I wouldn’t have a career in music if it wasn’t for them.

Website: www.tallericomusic.com

Instagram: @PatrickJoseph

Twitter: @PatrickJoseph

Facebook: facebook.com/patrickjosephmusic

Image Credits
Larissa Block, Steve Lucero.