Welcome Home Joe, This is Where You Belong
As a teenager, I was immersed in the North Jersey music scene, specifically a fan of pop punk, ska, and the occasional hardcore band. One such staple band inb the scene was Bergenfield NJ’s Welcome Home Travis. They were a couple years behind the wave of NJ pop punkers that hooked me and as such, to me, were second class citizens… a band who wrote good tunes but would never be Humble Beginnings, Lanemeyer, or The Youth Ahead to me.
Then, one day I came home from college for a weekend and caught a show where this guy Joe, from the band, was performing songs reminiscent of early Dashboard Confessional, as Feeling Left Out. I really dug his sound and picked up the 4 song EP, reviewing it for zine I was writing for at the time and eventually using a track or two on some mixtapes for lady friends.
Fast forward at least a decade from my first interaction with Joe Wilson’s musical output and I find myself listening to something altogether different… layered yet simple, mature yet playful, and well… really good.
On his new release, To Build or Burn is new territory for Joe Wilson. Admittedly, I’d lost track with Joe a bit in the in-between, but having spent a bit of time catching up, this is by far his most grown up album to date. In his own words…
Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen have had the most influence on my songwriting. Bob’s storytelling and basic chord structures had a huge influence on my last full length A Day In My Shoes and Bruce’s melodies and full band song structures and vocal melodies heavily influenced To Build or Burn. I’ve been getting into a lot of the legacy artists from the 70s, like Jackson Browne, Bob Seger, Elvis Costello, guys with amazing songs and that are STILL making music over 30 years later.
It’s far to say that these singer-songwriters have surely influenced Joe’s sound… his other favorite bands through the years, like Hot Water Music, Sunny Day Real Estate, NoFX, and Wilco, also have helped to shape his sound into something a bit more modern and resonant to me. Channeling influences like Bruce and Bob through the lens of Fat Mike and friends makes Joe’s music something a little bit different than a Boss ripoff.
I asked Joe what song was his favorite, and like a true artist, he could not choose, but I found it intriguing that he mentioned my favorite track from the album as the one that he thought listeners would dig most… “Severed” is an incredibly written and performed song with great lyrics. As Joe himself put it to me, “I would dig “Severed” just because of the instrumentation, it has harmonica, some interesting guitar work, organ, and a ripping solo.”
The other track that blows me away is the opener, “In the Safety of Sleep”. Not much more to say that a powerful, powerful opener in the tradition of Elvis Costello and Bruce.
What does Joe think of the new album himself?
I’m really proud of this new album. My years with Welcome Home Travis and Feeling Left Out helped shape my songwriting but WHT was more focused on a pop-punk sound and FLO was strictly acoustic. This new solo venture with the band is definitely the most cohesive sounding project I’ve ever done.
As a Jersey kid who grew up in the same scene as Joe and watched some of his development first hand, I’m proud for him too. A great, great album from a man who is no longer a pop punker or an emo kid… move over Jeff Tweedy, there’s a new “it” guy so the indie elite to swoon over.
