Josh Rifkin

Josh Rifkin is one of those rare artists who approaches each new piece of music with nothing to lose and everything to gain. Free of genre constraints or major label pressure, and blessed with a preternatural gift for melody and inventive arrangements, Rifkin works with only one simple goal: to create classic, timeless songs. With his new album, Guest House, the singer/songwriter/producer emerges with an accomplished set of songs that can encompass any style freely and comfortably, including country, soul, and even gospel.
As a young, budding musician, Rifkin was the only kid in his neighborhood who actually liked playing piano – it got him out of doing the dishes. Before long, piano practice wasn’t his only musical outlet; Josh was jamming in the basement with family and friends, and forming his first band, punk outfit The Nude Astronauts, who sang both parodies and originals such as “Abortion Techniques.” While studying film at York University, Rifkin expanded his musical palette with the band Zuzu’s Petals, an indie-rock ensemble in which he picked up the guitar. Even while dabbling with more radical genres such as punk and indie, however, “I listened to a lot of ‘uncool’ music,” he confesses, constantly delving into albums by singer-songwriters such as Elton John and Billie Joel.
Out of college, Rifkin joined rock band Mumblin’ Jim in Toronto. Performing on Fender Rhodes and vocals, Josh led the band, which eventually moved out to San Francisco together. There, they honed their psychedelic jam sound enough to gain a sizable following, even opening for bands such as Cake and The Violet Femmes. “Mumblin’ Jim was a lot like a marriage – but more like a cult,” Josh remembers. The band was discovered by Island Records’ Chris Blackwell – the man who discovered U2 and Bob Marley - and quickly signed to a contract. Under the label’s supervision, they recorded an album at the legendary Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas with Dan “The Automator” Nakamura (Gorillaz, Dr. Octogon). Following the recording, however, internal complications at Island ultimately stalled the release indefinitely until the band bargained out of the contract to put the album out on Berkeley imprint Mod Lang. Soon, complications within the band itself led to its dissolution in 2000, and Rifkin moved to Los Angeles to return to work in the film industry.
Despite the disappointment and lack of band camaraderie that came with Mumblin’ Jim’s demise, Josh continued to write and record songs constantly in between editing films. “After the band broke up, I decided to write without an ego,” says Rifkin, “to just try to write songs that will last.” His efforts bore fruit, with his solo work getting exposure on hit TV shows such as MTV’s Undressed, The WB’s Angel and Felicity and NBC’s Friday Night Lights. His song “World’s Gonna End,” found on independently-released album Late Bloomer, garnered him widespread attention when it was featured in the film Four Brothers.
With no signs of stopping, Rifkin continued to nurture his muse, working on the follow-up to Late Bloomer before the album saw release. “I make music because I love to do it. I feel compelled to do it,” he says, adding that working as his own producer and sometimes label head is “the best way to go about it – you don’t have anyone to answer to.” Inspired by the songs of Bob Dylan, Carole King and Leon Russell and with two solo albums down, Rifkin began work on recording Guest House in 2008. Again, he independently financed every detail himself – even the top-level recording studios and session men, all the while trying to realize the sound of the “changing radio stations inside my head,” as he puts it.
Guest House is indeed the sound of that internal radio, with songs easily passing from genre to genre as Rifkin satisfies his own muse one distinctive song at a time. The title is an appropriate one: not only were the tracks composed in a real-life guest house, but each song acts as a different musical guest in the album’s housing, displaying its own distinctive personality and genre before Rifkin takes the material in a new direction again. Take, for instance, “My Whole Life Through,” an “anti-breakup” song, modeled after the distinctive “Philadelphia Sound,” as well as the work of Prince, complete with strident piano work and a soulful horn backing. With a female chorus behind him, Rifkin croons on the track’s chorus, “I could look and hope to find someone who/could love me like you/my whole life through.”
Then, there’s the more spiritually-themed “When Will I Be Wise,” which contemplates communicating with God, featuring a full-blown gospel choir on backing vocals on the anthemic refrain, “When will I be wise, like mountains and the sea/When will I be wise, like the wind through the trees?” The story behind the track’s recording is yet another one of Rifkin’s insatiable need to fulfill his grandest dreams on record: “The HB Barnum Life Choir sang every Thursday at the studio I was using, and the engineer told me I could use them if I just made a donation – so I got full gospel backing for my song to God.”
Rifkin again sought genuine backing with his use of the doo-wop group behind 50s-flavored number “Kate” – an ensemble which he found through a simple MySpace search. The song involves a never-to-be romance, with the lyrics refraining: “Kate, don’t hate me/Just ‘cause I want you.” Rifkin is always willing to write whenever inspiration hits – the country-tinged “If I Had” was, as he reports, written in a traffic jam in San Francisco.
Ultimately, Rifkin hopes to inspire and subsequently write for other artists – ridding himself of the typical performer’s ego in hopes of creating work that’s truly universal. Continuing to write music at his piano regularly and recording demos into a nearby tape recorder, Rifkin patiently stakes out his own place in the songwriting world with this year’s Guest House. “I have no genre boundaries, no singular vision, so it’s easy for me to continue this way,” he says. “The bottom line is, I just can’t stop making music.”