Unless this is the first time you’ve trekked through the hallowed grounds of TMN, you’ve no doubt ran into at least a song or two from L.A. based producer Josh Legg and his solo remix project turned nationally touring live act Goldroom. He, and the rest of Goldroom’s live iteration just recently wrapped an expansive, 30 date live co-headlining tour with fellow TMN regulars Autograf, and before quite a memorable show in Boulder, CO, we had a chance to catch up with Josh on the heels of Goldroom’s debut long-player West of the West, and ended up having one of the more in-depth conversations regarding music we’ve had in some time. Enjoy our interview with Goldroom below.
The Music Ninja (TMN): Alright… Matthew Bloss of The Music Ninja here with Josh Legg, the mastermind behind the Goldroom acclaim. First off, thanks so much for taking the time before your show to sit down with us. Firstly, you just recently released your first full length LP under the Goldroom name, West of the West, which we’ve had the chance to listen to a couple times and I really, really enjoyed it. After talking to friends around the music industry who know you, and from following your social media accounts, this was something that has been years in the making. Can you speak a little more to that? How long has West of the West, been coming together, and how does it feel now that it’s finally out?
Josh Legg (JL): Yeah, I mean there was a moment in time, probably in 2013, right after we started to tour with the live band for the first time, that it was just really clear that at some point if things went the right way that at some point I was going to need to put a record out. And I’ve always lived my life, sort of through albums of other people’s. So, I started thinking about it right then… I was thinking about the first Goldroom record as early as January of 2013, so I’ve kind of been writing for it for three years now. But, I don’t know, it’s weird… You were saying earlier, that you guys have been paying attention for along time. But, if I walk into a radio station or something like that, I’m going to talk about it (West of the West) like it’s my first statement, but in a lot of ways it feels like my sophomore record because the Embrace EP took me all around the world twice, and I got to play Coachella this year, and I released that independently… and that EP did all of this. It’s a seven song EP, and for a lot of purposes it worked as my debut full-length record, so this is actually closer to my sophomore record from sort of a traditional perspective. But, I wasn’t thinking about that EP in the same way that I was thinking about West of the West. I wasn’t thinking like, “Hey, would I be proud of this if I died?” But, I have been thinking about that with this record. I wanted this record to be so good that, when I die, I’m going to be like “I have this at least. At least I did this, and I’m proud of it.” hahaha. And, I don’t know, as things went a long, I started to feel more and more strongly about certain things about the way producers in my world were making records. And I was getting more and more discouraged with the fact that it was just this endless cycle of people throwing acapellas to each other, and getting random features and finsing out that the artists, that you think that you love didn’t even write the song that you loved. And, I want a glimpse into people’s hearts I guess. And so, the only thing that I promised with this record is that for better or for worse, it would really be me.
Read the rest of our interview with Josh Legg after the jump!
