Virtual Listening Party: Mark Joseph
A song-by-song exploration of Mark Joseph’s ‘Vegas Motel’
Mark Joseph’s Vegas Motel album artwork, 2021.
When this album came into our inbox, as I usually do, I barely skimmed the email before listening—I like to get my raw initial reaction to music before I read more about the artist. The name of the album, Vegas Motel, and the twangy country feel of the first song of the same name, had me thinking Mark Joseph was probably a Southwestern artist—maybe from Texas?
The next two tracks were distinct from that first song but not enough to dispel the impression that Joseph was probably a traditional Texas honky-tonker. But the fourth song completely defied my expectations. From there on out, this eight-song album was a surprising adventure, more broad-reaching than almost any album I’d ever heard, yet somehow, it didn’t feel disjointed. I knew I needed to learn more about Joseph and this album.
First off, Mark Joseph’s based in Minnesota, not Texas! Besides his solo work, he’s a full-time member of The Big Wu, Momentary Lapse of Floyd and various other projects. (Vegas Motel was engineered and mixed by Alex Proctor of Dead Man Winter and produced by J.T. Bates, an incredibly versatile local drummer, so it’s a solidly Midwestern album.) “This was the first time JT’s produced for me but he’s a great musician and wonderful person, a confidante,” Joseph says. “I can’t express how much I enjoyed working with him.”
Joseph confirmed what I’d heard, that this album was made up of deeply personal stories: “Every song is about somebody I know or learned about. Half were written as gifts for people.” Like many songwriters, he tended to write from his own perspective in the past. “This is a new evolution for me as a songwriter—telling compelling stories about people you don’t hear about every day.” As to the diversity of sound, Joseph says, “I maybe didn’t fully realize how diverse it’d be, but I was intentionally writing every song to sound different.”
What follows is what I like to call a virtual listening party: I note my own impressions of each song, then ask Joseph to share his thoughts about this strange and wonderful album. There’s an incredible story behind each song; click the titles to listen along as you read them!
Carol Roth: From the opening notes, I knew I was going to love this album. I’m a sucker for pedal steel and this song is absolutely saturated with it. Joseph’s voice is as versatile as his instrumentation, and here he’s got a pleasing Randy Travis-esque nasal twang going on. On the surface this seems like a straight up honkytonk ballad with a classic story of a heartbroken barfly, but every so often there’s an unusual twist into a minor key that makes it fresh and original—and a little spooky.
Mark Joseph: I had that one in the bag for a long time—I wrote it about five years ago. I was really excited about it but didn’t quite know where to go with it yet. I over-wrote it, so when I prepared for this record I stripped it down.
I’m the character, a little bit, and it’s named after a Vegas Motel in North Dakota I’ve been to, that was…haunting. In other parts it’s inspired by the movie The Shining. I was always fascinated by the part where Jack’s talking to the bartender who’s not there. Also, I grew up in a bar—my dad was a bartender. I’ve seen people create their own realities while they drink themselves to death. That Shining scene resonates with me because I see that in the guy. He’s a recovering alcoholic, by himself, conflicted by his relationship with his kid, possibly psychotic.
I’m a huge fan of old school country music—I listened to a lot of Merle Haggard, George Strait and Willie Nelson growing up. That classic country sound is a good vessel for telling that sort of heartbroken drunken fantasy trip I’ve seen a lot of people do. And I’ve been there too.
CR: Fiddle takes over from the pedal steel in the starring role of another classic-sounding country song. As the title suggests, it celebrates a blue-collar guy who loves his life and provides for his family.
MJ: I wrote this one about a friend of mine out in Eau Claire; his wife asked me to put it together as a Christmas present. He and his wife were working 9-5 jobs, saving, doing what you’re supposed to do. Then they woke up and realized they weren’t living a life they were inspired by. They wanted to change their lives and do something meaningful that helps the environment, and their neighbors, so they started a community curbside recycling business in Wisconsin. It was hard but they pulled it off.
ZP’s a hero of mine because I see a lot of people not living their true potentials, or living a life they can truly be happy about. To me he’s a real American hero because they’re making it work. He’s living the dream.
I chose the musical style, but tried to make it personalized. I wanted it to be a little bluegrass because I knew they like that.
CR: Another everyman song about a simple patriotic guy living his best life, this song stayed in the throwback country vein but took on a more rock-tinged party sound—a bit reminiscent of 90s-era Alan Jackson perhaps. Electric guitar takes the instrumental lead this time with meaty, high-energy riffs.
MJ: That’s about another self-made guy—he owns two shops and a bar—who’s a big supporter of mine. He and his partner kept me working through the pandemic—they booked me for a lot of backyard parties. At certain points I was living week to week, so the support of people like Nate really helped me a lot. He’s also a very charitable person. He runs a nonprofit for people who can’t afford to fix their cars. He helps people get back on their feet—or at least get to work.
He’s a well-loved individual who works hard and takes care of a lot of people. This song was a Christmas gift from his girlfriend to him. I ended up playing at Nate’s garage on New Year's Eve (which was the eve of his birthday)—and that’s where I played the song for him for the first time, right above the car pit. It was an amazing and really moving experience.
CR: The first strong departure on the album from throwback country, this track opens with acoustic guitar arpeggios, long notes from an upright bass and a jazzy cymbal-focused drum, eventually joined by a choral background and flute. The contemporary melody and rhythm eschew the verse-chorus-verse format, and echoey effects hearken back to 70s-era Simon & Garfunkel at times. Near the end, the track unexpectedly takes a kind of 70s Southern rock turn, with funky electric guitars and heavier drums, then closes with one last dreamy trill from the flute. These elements should not go together as well as they do—the overall effect is hypnotic, like you’re being carried along on a boat that gets blown this way and that on the waves.
MJ: I wrote this on behalf of a big fan of mine for her dad. Don’s story is profound. His daughter adores him because he went above and beyond to do special things for her after he and her mom divorced. He’d worked as a pipe welder all his life and was about ready to retire last holiday season, when he found out that he had serious cancer.
So he was doing chemo during the pandemic, and he got COVID. He was in the hospital by himself over Christmas and his daughter actually reached out to me on Christmas Eve. I was at my Christmas thing with my kids and wife. I’d only met her dad once, but their situation hit me really hard, so I went after it. I worked for hours and hours Christmas Eve and morning and knocked it out. I sent it as a voice memo, and they played it for him Christmas Day in the hospital.
The chord choices and picking patterns are inspired partly by David Crosby. It’s a very melody-driven concept. I wanted to write a song with melody woven into a chord structure, weaving in and out, riding on that chord. I knew I’d need a lot of words and verses to tell Don’s story, so I wanted a non-typical song structure—a platform where I could really tell the story.
I wanted the music itself to be interesting but give space for the lyrics—it’s atmospheric and airy. It starts low and continuously builds to crescendo, into a big guitar blowout. JT wasn’t in the studio—he’d gone to get coffee or something—and I told the engineer, “We gotta do the ending now.” When it hits, it hits! We started recording these guitars, layering them on—I must’ve done like 10 guitar tracks. Alex called JT at some point and was like “You gotta get back here, he’s doing something crazy!”
I knew we needed a big ending. I wanted it to be inspiring to Don. He recovered from COVID, his cancer’s in remission, and I got to play his song for him in real life this past summer. I wanted it to feel like he’d won the marathon—you beat cancer, beat the odds!
CR: The sole instrumental track on the album, this song starts with a beautifully flat-picked acoustic guitar, joined by a fiddle line. The stringed instruments provide their own percussive rhythm, building and gaining momentum throughout the piece, as the guitar and fiddle talk to one another. The overall effect is lively but also somehow relaxing.
MJ: This was super fun. I wrote it for Ryan Young, the fiddle player on it. I didn’t know that until closer to recording, when I realized it’d be perfect for Ryan. I talked to JT and he said, let’s just do guitar and fiddle. Ryan took that thing and ran with it. He’s such a profound talent on fiddle—I couldn’t be more happy with his performance on that. It sounds the way it does because he went all out on it. It’s a little bit on the lines of modern bluegrass: Sam Bush, New Grass Revival type sounds. I also like classic fiddle playing licks, like Del McCoury mountain music. That’s part of my history and roots as well.
CR: This love song opens with a church-y organ flair that immediately establishes its old school R&B rhythm and feel, which includes horns and backup singers and a slow, soulful guitar solo that lingers luxuriously on certain notes. Joseph changes up his vocal delivery to match the song’s style. The chorus repeats over and over, swelling and building to an ecstatic climax of voices and instruments.
MJ: This is about my wife Carly. She’s amazing. She’s stood by my side through this crazy musical journey I’m on; it’s a labor of love not just for me but her too. I wanted to pay her a tribute and express how much I appreciate her. I’m gone a lot, and she’s taking care of the kids—we have a 2- and a 4-year old—holding the fort down. The chorus was inspired by this time we took a trip to see the Avett Brothers. It was a special experience, and I remember the light in her eyes shining that night.
Stylewise, I’m a big fan of soul music, soulful and expressive songs that feature the vocals. Van Morrison’s one of my music heroes. My voice is versatile, but with soul stuff I can get really intense. There’s a time and place for that, but JT wanted a tenderness. We kept pulling it back to make it a tender and genuine delivery, not overstated. He produced my vocal big time on this one. The girls singing on it—Jill Michaelson and Steph Divine—they’ve been singing with me for years. Jake Baldwin did the horns. Toby Lee Marshall, a world class organist, did the intro. He was on “Nate’s Garage” as well.
CR: This sweet and earnest serenade for a baby daughter opens with finger-picked acoustic guitar and soft cymbals, lending it a folky feel, kind of like James Taylor or mid-career Paul Simon. Occasionally a little girl’s coo or giggle can be heard under the music.
MJ: This is about a beautiful little girl, a friend's daughter. Her dad’s not in her life and doesn’t seem to want to play a role, so her mother’s raising her on her own. They struggle and have had hard times. She wanted to have me write a song for her daughter’s first birthday. I thought, Mom’s working so hard to make it happen—she’s the real champion here—she deserves a song written from her perspective. I wanted to capture the love her mother had for her and that, no matter what challenges they face, her mom’s gonna be there.
CR: I knew who this was about from the title. Although I didn’t know her personally, I’d heard about Andrea Nelson, aka Stella Blue, a longtime music teacher as well as a huge music supporter and friend to artists in the Twin Cities until her untimely death in her early 50s.
The song is dream-like and otherworldly, opening with a drone of electric bass and slow, cosmic keyboards as soft brushed drums and acoustic guitar come in. I thought I heard Joseph’s voice choke up slightly when he sings, “And now I’m crying as I’m writing down your song, and I know if you were here, you’d sing along.” Toward the end, the dreamy sounds return, with a voicemail recording echoing faintly: “love you, bye.” The instruments continue slow and meditative for another minute, then gradually fade out.
MJ: Stella was maybe my biggest fan I’ve ever had. She really believed in me and supported everything I did. She loved music and supported the Twin Cities scene in ways that were amazing. She was always going to shows, even coordinating buses for people to go to different cities together. She was a schoolteacher who loved kids.
She was also very human and at times a flawed individual with vices and sadness and all the things we all have. She’s just one of those people that there’ll never be another of. And we lost her so unexpectedly: I was performing at First Ave and she passed away that night after she left the show. Soon after, I found myself in the studio working on a song for The Big Wu. But Stella’s song was coming to me throughout all of it and I was writing down the words to her song on the back of an electric bill between takes, plugging my ears so I could hear it coming to me.
I went to a memorial and played it there, and a few days later her family asked me to play it at her funeral. It was really heavy, and that was about five years ago, so it took this long to get to the point where I could record it. I’m so glad I did it with JT because no stone was left unturned. I was really happy to get her voice into the song. You lose somebody, and you might never hear their voice again. We had to decide what’s fitting and what’s appropriate.
Stella’s song was really an emotional and intense experience. I’m proud of what we did; it was a really good tribute. The drone part of it is really beautiful; JT did it in the studio. It was not planned and it makes it very spiritual. It makes me think of a heavenly place, a peaceful place where I like to imagine her. We still miss her to this day.
Mark Joseph. Photo credit: Beth Robert.
If you want to get to know Mark Joseph and his music even better, visit his website to check out his other albums, join his Patreon, keep up on tour dates and more!
Carol Roth is a full-time marketing copywriter and the main music journalist and social media publicist for Adventures in Americana. In addition to studying the guitar and songwriting, Carol’s additional creative side hustle is writing self-proclaimed “trashy” novels under the pseudonym @taberkeley!
