Emory Brown

Accepting Josh Gilligan – ‘I Like When People Start Looking for That Next Layer’


There is a simplicity to what John Gilligan does, but it is comes with a raw sense of empathy that only a true artist, and a truly grounded person, can put forth. That is highlighted and explored and discovered and soon-to-be enjoyed on Party of One, the new LP out today. It’s a scene, a moment captured in time with emotion and melody. You hear and see a modern singer-songwriter sitting atop a barstool at a coffee shop strumming his acoustic guitar to the tune of somehow familiar, yet completely original, indie pop song. They are in front of a crowd of locals and newbies, catching the ear of each and every one of them, and connecting to their personal lives without directly interacting. It’s that earnest, that immersive, and that relatable… and it is something we knew we had to talk about with the creator.

I know that there has been quite a lot going on in the world, but there are quite a few people who have found joy and excitement in the release of Party of One. Is it safe to assume you feel the same?

Yeah, I’m definitely excited, and, like you said, I’m holding space for all of the things going on in the world, which is very important to stay connected to. It also feels like a good time to do what we feel like we’re made to do, so it feels wrong to stop in a moment like this. I’m glad to be getting these songs out there.

“Ceiling” came out earlier this month to advance this record, and it’s a great song. I’m curious about what your process is in determining what songs become singles, because this one makes for a great single, but it also feels like it could have been discovered as a deep cut and had a full life that way.

That’s a good question – one that I probably haven’t thought super deeply about. I guess it’s mainly gut feeling of which ones I am liking. Then there’s probably a bit of an obvious consideration of how sometimes more upbeat songs will get playlist love and stuff like that.  I consider that stuff, but I don’t really let it fully dictate the process. It’s usually trying to tell a bit of a story, so the first single was “Tightrope,” which felt kind of like the style overall and the thumbprint of the record to me. It felt good to lead with that one. I just think that maybe looking at the broader concepts of the record helped and thinking about what we got a shot with, which was three or four singles represented that best.

“Ceiling” is one of the tunes that is maybe a little more about moving forward, so that felt kind of a good one to close out the singles on. That one stuck out to me first.

Of course. I love that you mentioned the idea of a gut feeling, because I think in this day and age with streaming services and playlisting, a lot of listeners will pick out a certain song, have their own gut feeling and immediate connection with it, and gravitate towards it maybe more than others because of such.

Totally. I love that about streaming, too; sometimes the tunes that people will not even pay attention to are the ones that the artists are like, “These are the singles,” and then a different song will take on its own life. I think that’s a really, really fun part of it. I always look forward to being surprised when a favorite band of mine puts out a record, like, what are those deeper cuts that end up becoming fan favorites?

I think that “500 Questions,” once everyone hears it, might become one of those fan favorites, and maybe they will surpass some singles, even though the singles are already adored.

I do like that one. I think, if anything, I kind of already want to make another record [Laughs]. I just want to keep getting more out!

For “500 Questions,” I’m glad you mentioned that one. Out of the whole record, conceptually, I go pretty deep into what I was feeling the most while I was writing the record – just a lot of doubt and a lot of questioning, and obviously that’s the title of the song, but it’s not just doubt for the sake of pessimism, but like doubt after long seasons of confidence and positivity when you feel like, “Oh, I’m probably not going to feel this way again.” Then you just get bombarded with a season of your life, and it’s like this grounding moment, and there’s not necessarily a one-size-fits-all for the answer that we each need. That was like the peak of that feeling – when that song came through. Hopefully that’s a potent enough emotion and that song can meet people if they’re feeling that same way.

You posted about your song “Anything” on Instagram and said that you hoped that the people hearing it would feel a little less alone. What I gathered from the song was that no matter how ‘alone’ you might be, you’ve still got the music, you’re still relating to someone else out there, and you’re in the same boat with that person or those people – rooted and related in those feelings that are shared in this song and in your music.

Thanks so much. I think you brought up a thing that, when we initially were getting some early press and stuff on the song, it felt really dark. A lot of the ways that people were perceiving it, or even the way that I was explaining it, maybe could be perceived as dark, but it is about the loneliness being accepted. As a whole, this record is about accepting being alone and the acceptance of anything as a way to get through it and begin to be content with it. Honestly, after I kind of regulated during a weirder season of life, being alone was a really comforting thing. With realizing that what I needed was already there, I think I noticed that I always had kind of outsourced happiness to, like, being in groups of people and quantifying how well I was doing by how much time I was spending in other places, and not really a lot of space in my own mind. I was not really confronting that. One guy replied back to something and said, “I’m still gonna feel alone,” and I was like, “Well, duh. We’re always gonna feel alone, but I think the acceptance of that is the beginning of accepting yourself.” You can’t really invite anybody into your life if you’re not even comfortable with yourself, so it was a good realization, and I think you just kind of like brought my attention back to that. That is one of the more important themes of the record. Yes, it’s a record about solitude, but I don’t want that to come across as a devastating thing. It’s not victimized on this record, it’s kind of a good thing.

I think that’s something you do well on this record, and I noticed the embracing of those feelings on “Ceiling,” in particular. It really sets the stage for this kind of warmth in being alone and finding that there’s no real hard feelings to it except the ones you want to dwell on, but, alas, you don’t have to. 

Absolutely. I like the word ’embrace’ that you said. I feel like that is what comes after acceptance: embracing something. It’s not just tolerating it, but understanding what the things are that you can actually begin to love about that season of your life.

At the age that you are, and that I think a lot of your listeners are, these mid-twenties, late twenties, and early thirties are when everyone you know is at a different stage of their life – for better or for worse. There could be a sense of loneliness in that, as well, and the decisions you make and path you are on. Still, it’s yours.

Yeah! I guess these ages are presented to you as ages where you should have certain milestones together. Then, if you don’t get there, there’s often not a lot of media out there for understanding things like that; nothing that really praises being in your mid-thirties or whatever and not having a family or something, so I’m hoping it’s a record that can help people that are in a similar spot, or people who are just questioning this season of time and finding it useless.

There’s actually another artist that I’ll shout out – Madi Diaz. She has a lyric where she says, “Nothing is a waste of time,” and it’s on a song called “Kiss the Wall.” The first time I ever heard it, it made me tear up, because that was something I really needed to hear. Yeah, you can be stupid and watch Shark Tank all day and eat candy, and that’s probably a waste of time, but I think the general concept of life is knowing that at the end of a season, you’ll think, “What was all that for?” That might lead you to something beautiful, or the next chapter that you really need.

It’s stabilizing, and comforting, too. That kind of hearkens back to the song that you did with Girlpuppy, “Wake Up.” That was one of the first times when I was listening to your music that I realized that it was so close to home and could be that way for anyone, because it is just so reflective and relatable at the same time. I think you’ve really carried that, harnessed that feeling of being ok, looking at what’s next, and accepting it, all on this record.

Thank you. I am really glad you feel that, because that was a goal, too. […] That’s the emotion you want to go for when you make any of this; if you just want people to connect to it and ultimately apply it back to their own, their own narrative. When you look back at a year, those are the things you carry with you, and that’s what you want to remember, and that’s kind of what that song was about – those 15 to 20 highlights that would fall out when you talk about a year. I do love that song a lot. I’m glad you brought that one up.

Of course. Now, I hear a bit of Beatles influence on this record, and also a little America, and even some boygenius, too. When you were making this record, when you were sitting at home working on these songs and curating this record, were there any artists or songs that you were listening to that may have subtly became an inspiration?

It’s kind of not necessarily what came through in the record, but there were some nineties moments, for sure. Of the things that I was into at the time, I think overall I was drawn to the simplicity of a lot of demos that artists have released, or, like, where there was like a record version of a song, but then there were demos, too. George Harrison did that with All Things Must Pass, we got to hear both on the record, and I like demo of that song better than the real one. My girlfriend showed me that song and I was like, “Whoa, this version is so much better.” I think the mission of my record as a whole was to not overthink it and to limit myself to not a lot of parts. The other tunes I have out I think are groovy and a lot more layered.

There was a lot of listening to Mazzy Star and Tracy Chapman, too. I do a little bit of Mazzy-style tambourine-snare-hit thing, and they are parts that are really simple, but take up a lot of space in your memory. That was kind of the goal, but my listening is all over the place [Laughs]. Alice Phoebe Lou – I was listening to a lot of that for sound inspirations, and I had bought this older analog console that I made the record on called a Trident console. I was loving that at the time and played a lot of records that were done in a similar way – live in the room with tape-heavy saturated sounds, things like that. [Laughs] You kind of caught me on my heels here; my Spotify Wrapped was a total mess!

PARTY OF ONE, THE NEW ALBUM FROM JOSH GILLIGAN, IS OUT TODAY WHEREVER YOU LISTEN TO/PURCHASE/STREAM MUSIC! VISIT JOSH’S WEBSITE HERE!