Check Out Josh “Joshoo” Shpak’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Josh “Joshoo” Shpak.

Joshoo, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
In my teens, I was known as a jazz trumpet prodigy. Leaving my suburban hometown in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was traveling and touring across the world before finally accepting a full scholarship at Berklee College of Music. I have always been obsessed with the craft of making music, and Berklee was more fun for me than I could have possibly imagined. Any genre of music that transported me into a different world in the same way that jazz had became a new obsession. I studied film music and jazz in school went to my rock band’s rehearsals in the evening before playing late-night soul/funk sets in the local clubs in Boston and New York.

It was at Berklee that I discovered a love for writing music as well as performing. I earned a degree in film composition while in Boston and started producing music on my computer for fun. When I started touring full-time with my rock band, Ripe, I kept writing this music on my computer from the road. Day after day, city after city, for 4 years after college we toured North America from our grungy 15-passenger Ford van. And we started to do well! The shows went from tiny bars to small venues, from small venues to concert halls. After 4 years of touring (around 100 shows a year) we sold 5000 tickets in our hometown of Boston, and 5000 more in New York in January 2020.

But I had a secret. This constant traveling had taken a serious toll on my mental health. A couple of years before I had fallen in love, and those songs on my laptop started to have lyrics. On a trip to Los Angeles I met up with friends from Berklee who were full-time producers and songwriters, dedicating their entire lives to the craft of writing and creating records in music studios. I became obsessed. These guys had made careers out of writing the songs, rather than performing all the time?? It sounded like a dream to me. When the pandemic and cancelled all live shows for an entire year, I made the extremely difficult decision to leave my band and move to Los Angles, the world capital of popular music.

Since then (Nov 2020) I’ve been living and working in LA as an artist, freelance songwriter/producer/instrumentalist. Though I still make most of my living playing music live (I’ll be doing a stadium tour with Peter Gabriel this year playing trumpet), I spend all of my free time writing songs from my studio in North Hollywood. I’ve had songs of mine on Hulu and big network TV, and have produced for artists large and small. I’m loving my life in LA and wait to see where this city takes me!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Depression and anxiety are very common struggles for touring musicians/artists, separated from loved ones while traveling under rough conditions…and making (often) very little money! After the first couple of years of doing it, some of the glamour has a tendency to morph into something ugly. I am blessed to have mostly toured with close friends, folks who I could rely on for support while going through these hard times. It is a struggle to not resort to substances to numb these feelings, especially when they are so common in the music industry.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Apart from my artist project, Joshoo, I am most known for my skills as a multi-instrumentalist, which I love to use in the making of records that I am a part of. Aside from the trumpet and an assortment of other brass instruments I play keyboards, guitar, bass and a multitude of synthesizers. I’m excited to start playing drums, although I can’t confirm that my downstairs neighbor is thrilled about it.

My credits as a studio musician include Ripe, MAGIC!, Peter Gabriel, Ravenna, Laufey, Role Model, Josh Groban, and many others (as well as some unreleased music that I am REALLY excited about).

How do you define success?
I define success as the ability to support myself while dedicating my time and energy to the projects that I am most passionate about…and knowing that those passions will change! I am honored to have never had a (real) job outside of the music industry, which many folks would call success in itself. I look forward to continuing to expand my understanding of what it means to be an artist in 2023 and how those discoveries will push me forward on my journey.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/its_joshoo/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJHA_fyS9Uepe4SZtHO62jA
• Other: tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@its_joshoo 

Image Credits
Joel Rekiel Nikola Stajic Grace Sims Jazmin