Josh T. Pearson
BIOGRAPHY
It’s been ten years since Josh T. Pearson, as the singer of Lift to Experience, last released an album, the highly critically-acclaimed The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads. The band disbanded soon after the release of the double album, with Pearson virtually disappearing from the music scene.
Little is known about his time in the wilderness, but he claims he was living illegally in Berlin for much of that time, playing gigs to earn enough money for one meal a day and transport to the next venue. He toured supporting 65daysofstatic in 2007, then in 2009 he then moved to Paris to become a regular performer at creperie West Country Girl. The only solo studio-recorded output from Pearson in the time between his two albums was a recording of Hank Williams’ track ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’, featured on a split single with Dirty Three. He also provided guitar and backing vocals on Bat for Lashes’ ‘Trophy’ and ‘Seal Jubilee’ from 2006’s Fur and Gold.
While his work with Lift to Experience was predominantly fuzzed-up post rock, his solo material has regressed into heartbreaking one man and a guitar country ballads. While the quality of the new material is clear for anyone to hear, Pearson frets that any fans he has carried over from his work with Lift to Experience will have been “dug into the ground” by his change in direction.
The reason for Pearson not following up his work with Lift to Experience for so long was because, in his own words, he had made one of the albums of the decade, and didn’t want to create something that was lesser to it. This pessimism and melancholy is evident in his solo work, and has more than made it onto his new (technically debut) solo album, Last of the Country Gentlemen. Where his record with Lift to Experience was centered around his love for his home state of Texas and God, this album revolves around lost loves, most explicitly in the scathingly-titled ‘Honeymoon is Great, Wish You Were Her’. The stabs of black humour like this throughout the album stop it from becoming an hour long depression-fest, with live shows even seeing Pearson stop mid-song to tell a joke or two.
Last of the Country Gentlemen will be released later this month via Mute, and looks set to match the critical acclaim of The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads. Last month we were lucky enough to catch him ahead of a completely sold out performance at The Slaughtered Lamb in London, where he recorded three tracks ‘specially for us. He returns to these shores at the end of March for a short UK tour, culminating in yet another sold out show in London.
Links
Tour Dates
24th March - Queens Social Club, Sheffield
25th March - Stereo, Glasgow
26th March - The Workman’s Club, Dublin
27th March - The Deaf Institute, Manchester
29th March - Brighton Ballroom, Brighton
30th March - Bodega Social, Nottingham
1st April - Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London