Josh Pyke is a man whose passion is music. He keeps a guitar by his bed in case of any nocturnal inspiration, plus he enjoys playing guitar lying down.  Josh is a man who lives, breathes, even dreams, music. For the Sydney troubadour, whose music has reached the public’s ears under many different guises, he’s finally achieving success not hiding behind any pseudonym. 

After the popularity of Middle of the Hill, the first single released under his own name, Josh is now on the verge of releasing his first full-length album Memories & Dust, and admits he’s feeling somewhat nervous. ”I feel confident about the material and everything, but I am nervous because pretty much the success of this record is what will dictate whether or not this is something I’ll be doing for the next couple of years of my life,” explains Josh as we’re sheltering from the Sydney rain in Leichhardt’s Bar Italia. ”There’s definitely expectation but luckily I’d written most of the songs before things really had taken off with [Feeding the Wolves] anyway. So in terms of the actual songwriting, I wasn’t writing from the point of view of thinking that this time there’s going to be a lot of people listening to it.  I was still just writing songs in my bedroom.”

Listening to Memories & Dust, not only does it resonate Josh’s passion, but you can hear an audible realisation of what’s going on inside his head. A prolific songwriter, Josh espouses his love for the recording process, explaining that “you have these songs that you’re playing at home and I hear all the stuff in my head and it’ll literally keep me awake at night wanting to get this shit out of my system”. Timpani, percussion, string arrangements and even the odd handclap accompany Josh’s soulful voice and beautiful acoustic guitar on a record that is steeped in personal reflection and nostalgia. The title track of the album sees Josh paying tribute to friends who have passed away, whilst closing track Monkey With a Drum came from one of Josh’s dreams where the music served as a soundtrack to a flight above Sydney Harbour in a sea plane. 

Lyrically, Josh has come a long way from his first song: a 12 bar blues shuffle entitled My Baby Don’t Love Me Anymore, written when his age matched the number of bars in the song. Nowadays, the poetic songsmith uses metaphors to give his songs ambiguity, so the listener can imbue their own sense of meaning upon them. ”The bottom line is it doesn’t really matter what [the songs are] about to me,” explains Josh, “it’s more about what people take from them.” 

Capitalising on his success, Josh is bound for England in the days following our conversation. It will be the third time in four months that Josh will be heading to the Mother country, and it’s a place that he’s hoping to call home, at least for a small period of time, towards the end of this year. It will also be his first headlining tour of the UK, something which he is extremely excited about.  In April we’ll get to see Josh in action as he takes off round the country to flog his wares and promote Memories & Dust. Having started his musical career in the more rock-oriented acts Phloem and An Empty Flight, Josh admits that he misses the days of pub-rock glory. ”I really do miss rocking out with the electric guitar,” he says. ”I think one day I’ll do An Empty Flight record, but I certainly don’t have time in the next couple of years [laughs].”

Josh Pyke’s launches Memories & Dust at The Kirk on March 6