Check Out Joel Martin’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Joel Martin.

Hi Joel, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Over the last 30 years I’ve been a bandleader, a freelance guitarist and pedal steel player, an educator, producer and made music for movies and television. Currently I lead the Grateful Dead tribute band Grateful To The Core and I perform solo shows all over the West Coast.
I am available for live shows and recording (in-person and remote sessions) on pedal steel guitar !

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The layers of opportunities for musicians gets thinner every year. I feel like I came up in the beginning of the new dark ages. In the 80s when I was a young musician in LA, it seemed that if you were good and could really play, then it would be impossible not to make money – original bands were getting signed out of LA to mayor labels AND it was the rise of independent labels. There was session work, cover bands etc. Within a few years people were really trying to get into licensing and making serious money. Over the last 20 years I’ve seen a lot of these avenues dry up and disappear.

EVERYONE seems to have a deep connection to music yet music is so undervalued and appreciated. We’re all familiar with the difficulties artists have of making money from original recordings because of streaming, but check this out!
I play a lot of acoustic solo shows and I pretty much have to get out of LA to earn money doing that, The simple idea of having a guitarists play and sing songs at a restaurant is almost impossible to find in LA, Hollywood or the Valley. Yet its a big thing in so many other places!
Of course now at this time in the summer of 2026, gas prices are astronomical. I have to drive out of town to do a $150 gig but it costs $105 to fill up my tank! YIKES! Thats $40 more than it was a year and a half ago!
And since 2022, when I started relying on solo performances to be my major form of income, a huge percentage of venues I’ve played at have closed or stopped hosting or paying for music.

Being a freelancer is tough because in this economy the artists that would normally hire you for records or tours also aren’t making a ton of money so the gigs are fewer and farther between.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My mom used to play guitar and banjo in the house when I was growing up. She loves all kinds of music and would play Beatles, Doc Watson and Led Zeppelin records and even Russian folk songs on 45s.
I kinda poked around at music a little bit with all the instruments in the house but REALLY devoted myself to guitar when I was 11. I dropped out of high school to go to Grove School Of Music when I was 15 and have been working away since!

When I was in my late 20’s I became aware of pedal steel. It’s evocative nature called to me the call was impossible to ignore. Because of finances and confusion, it took me a while to dive in and finally after I turned 36 I put together my first rig and got to work!
I’ve played on Stone Sour’s #1 Billboard record Hydrograd and many wonderful records by people all over the world. I put together an excellent home studio and do tracks remotely for people all the time!

Running parallel to this period of dedication to pedal steel, I started to discover music by the Grateful Dead. I always appreciated them from afar, but all of a sudden I was getting overwhelmed! I started aiming my pedal steel work at the local jam bands and was getting hired by several and doings lots of sit-ins. I was in a jamgrass band called The Alpine Camp that was opening shows for touring artists like Midnight North and Ghost Light. We were also playing festivals all over California and doing small CA tours.

In the early aughts I was doing a lot of scoring for a friend that was making short films and feature films. Some of these recordings ended up in a producers library and the music has been used in many reality tv shows.
One of my clips went viral in a meme from Dance Moms. The producer had not filled out the forms properly and ASCAP failed to recognize my identity so I missed out on thousands of dollars they refuse to pay due to a statute of limitations.

Then the pandemic came. I had the bizarre fortune of being thrust into doing a live stream in what ended up being the first weekend of the lockdowns, The reception was so powerful, I couldn’t say no to more and I ended up growing it to up to 4 shows per week for 78 weeks. These shows became elaborate with custom art digital backgrounds I would create. It was a SERIOUS learning curve, I started with just my iphone set to “LIVE” and ended up running OBS Streaming Software and a room full of instruments running through protools with up to 3 cameras.

But when the world opened up a little bit, the live stream audience went away and there was no money in music in LA.
The gift of this pandemic experience for me was that at 48, I did the most work on developing my limited vocal abilities and had learned and played about 900 individual songs!
Thanks to a chance encounter, I played a solo Grateful Dead show in the Bay Area and was hooked by the experience. When you play Grateful Dead music for people that REALLY understand the GD music, there is an incredible connection.

Since Dec 22 to the present, solo shows have been my main income, supplemented by remote pedal steel sessions.

In 2021 I started the Grateful Dead tribute band Grateful To The Core. It took a while to dial in the lineup but for over 2 years we have had what I would call our essential, classic lineup. It’s a powerful and agile group that really captures the magic of the Dead at their best, We regularly play all over California, have been to New Mexico & Oregon and are about to debut in Seattle!

In May 2025 my dad suffered a serious of strokes and then passed away that September. I am limited in my touring abilities now as I have to care for my mom several days a week.

I am excited about developing many projects in town! Keep an eye out for new original music in many shapes and forms!

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
The luck is in the people that you meet multiplied by the effort you put out. Everything that has happened to me has happened because I went out and put myself in a place to meet people and make connections. THEN the magic started. Almost all the important people in my life, best-friends, everyone – I met at a gig.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://joelmartinmusic.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tronmoog/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iplaypedalsteel/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@GratefulZone