Conversations with Joel Martin

Today we’d like to introduce you to Joel Martin

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
With my mom playing banjo and guitar in our home as I was growing up, I became obsessed with music early on and was addicted to rock radio by the time I was 4.
I started playing guitar before I turned 12 and within a year was absolutely sure I would do it for life.
I was in original bands in LA starting at 14. By the time I was 17, I was teaching and doing solo gigs at restaurants. I started playing guitar in a freelance capacity when I was 19. As the years rolled on, I played guitar touring and recording with major and indie label acts. I’ve done shows in front of 30k people, played a sold out Wembley Arena and many favorites in America like The Wiltern and The Fillmore. I performed on national television several times including The Tonight Show.
I fell in love with the pedal steel guitar in my late 20’s and committed myself fully at 36. I have done many records including Stone Sour’s Billboard #1 record Hydrograd. I also hosted a monthly show in both LA & San Diego for 5 years called Joel Martin’s Pedal Steel Party where I featured favorite regional singer-songwriters.
As the Covid pandemic loomed, I began livestreaming the week the lockdowns began. I developed 4 weekly shows over 78 weeks on Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and Twitch. These ended up featuring elaborate custom digital 3d art, constantly challenged by LEARNING CURVES and growing pains!
During this time I learned over 900 songs, many Grateful Dead or Dead-Family.
When the world opened up more, the LA music scene and venues had a hard time. I don’t know that they’ve recovered. With venues struggling to stay open and paying artist less, it was harder for bandleaders to pay hired add-ons like steel.
I decided to venture out in the world and play Grateful Dead music as a guitarist and singer.
Since 12/2022 I’ve performed over 240 shows in 9 states. I am about to celebrate 2 years of making my living doing this!
I am the performer, driver, booking agent, tour manager, technician, artist and social media department.
My history also includes scoring 3 feature films, many short films and having music featured in network television shows and steel guitar performances in Rihanna’s négligée ad campaign! I won Best Original Song at the HMMAs.
I currently lead the Grateful Dead tribute band Grateful To The Core.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There is no comfort zone. It’s almost always been a struggle financially. All the great successes have been followed by work droughts.
A lot of my activities like going with steel, livestreaming and doing the Dead touring have been reactions to my living status at the time!
Gotta go with the flow!

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I believe all the experiences I’ve had through my life have put me in an exceptional position to do the kind of shows I’m performing in the Grateful Dead realm.
The abilities I’ve worked at my whole life make it possible for me to sing, play and learn a vast amount of material and play it in a rare and different manner.
I’ve assembled all this equipment over the years that I have what it takes to fill up my car and do these shows.
In the years I was forced to get another job, it was usually creative in streaming media and technology so I have a good working knowledge of putting digital art and video together. I can harness social media and get my events out there.
I’ve performed several special events by favorite well known Deadheads and count many in the inner world of the Dead as fans and supporters.
I also took up doing all my own art for my projects. I used to draw as a child but let that slip away when I started playing guitar. But now, needing to create images for my shows and not being able to afford proper artists pushed me to learn how to do it myself and it’s one of the more unique and enjoyable aspects of this process. Every piece of art you see on my social medias as of 10/2022 is my own creation!
It’s a wonderful honor to perform the Grateful Dead Family songbook. It’s a world full of powerful beauty, and when I connect with people that understand that, it’s very special.

Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
Los Angeles is my home. I am a native. I grew up in El Segundo and I’ve lived all over: the west side, San Gabriel Valley and been a resident of Sherman Oaks for 20 years.
I love that there are so many creative, free-thinkinkers in our city. Often the best of the best come to LA from all over the world to pursue their dreams. That kind of potential is very exciting.
However the cost of living is so high it currently makes any artist pursuits very difficult. Sometimes I feel it’s stifling here. So many great venues have shut down. Places where bands are forced to play are not or barely set up to have live music. People are so busy living their own lives, very few people get excited about going out for music.
It’s a dangerous, vicious circle. Venues can’t pay musicians what they need if people don’t go out for shows, so good musicians have to get out of music to support themselves so the scene is mostly amateurs lacking in real talent so people don’t want to go out and see that etc etc. These circumstances combined with cultural situations like school systems taking away art and music programs lead us down a dark path in cultivating new artists.
But humans will always need to express themselves and create so perhaps this pressure will craft the fine diamonds.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://joelmartinmusic.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tronmoog
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoelMartinIPlayPedalSteel/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@GratefulZone
• Other: https://joelmartinmusic.bandcamp.com/

Image Credits
Mark Trapper Lichtenberger
Todd Sanders
Stevo Rood
Louis Benainous
Joel Martin