Joke Right

Joe Kreydt is one of those kids people hang around to have fun goofing off. He can be seen walking around, with that lighter-colored streak in his dark brown hair, yelling random things, or recording news for the ‘OOJ Show’ he and his friend put on as a video blog. Joe isn’t the typical eighteen-year-old boy that doesn’t give a damn about the world around him, although people may think that when they see him skateboarding at a local bank. He has a truly caring nature, and would give anything to help someone. He tends to put food in a shelter in the side of a building where homeless people sleep in Erie, PA, the city where he currently attends Gannon University. Anyone else might walk by and be scared to go near the open door, but not him; he’d rather help them. When asked how often he purchases food for the poor, he replied, “Not as often as I should.” Those are only some of the ways he seems to occupy his time; as for expressing himself, Joe likes to write and play music. He calls himself ‘Joke Right’. Joe first picked up a real guitar in the spring of his seventh grade year. He had a “kid’s drum set and a kid’s guitar” that his parents got him when he was around four years old, but “[he] never really learned to play either.” After taking lessons for a year and a few months on his Squier FAT STRAT (a brand and type of guitar), he joined his first of three bands. Commenting on his desire to join a band, he said, “I was really into bands like Switchfoot and Blink 182. I always wanted to write and play songs like them, but you can’t really do that without a band.” Joe had been “writing cheesy songs with just lyrics all [his] life,” and was ready to put some with music. His first song with guitar and lyrics was “Hoboes Are People Too;” I guess ‘hoboes’ have always been important to him. Practicing a “couple times a week” with his band they started to get interested in shows. He didn’t do shows a lot, but he had done a few and enjoyed them. “I get various feelings when I am on stage, like I get nervous and excited and I’m the center of attention. No matter what I do, it’s awesome in the crowd’s eyes,” he adds. He recalls a show with his second band (called “Something Serious?”) where he went out in the crowd to get people to dance. “I had just joined a week before the show. They played twenty-two songs at the show and I only knew ten of them,” he said. “During the ones I didn’t know, I went out into the crowd and got everybody to dance and do crazy things. It was really fun.” Also, he took voice lessons for three months. He said, “They were good, but I was busy and lazy.” Taking them during the beginning of his senior year of high school, he had a lot of stuff going on: work, cross country, SAT’s, classes, college applications, friends, and a new girlfriend. But he didn’t wish he would have kept taking them. “I don’t think I would have gotten any better at singing. Plus, being good doesn’t always mean being the best. Look at Bob Dylan or Eels. They’ve got horrible vocals, but the lyrics are good.” A year after voice lessons, he is in college. His response to how often he plays: “Gosh, like every second.” Among all the other things he does in college, Joe has joined the Gannon Jazz Band. They practice every Monday, and he says, “Jazz Band is fun, but even when it’s not fun, it really challenges my guitar playing and makes me a better guitarist overall.” It’s just a way to keep him involved in learning. The more he is challenged, the better he can become, and, hopefully, it will pay off in the long run. Of the five notebooks Joe has filled with songs, anyone could tell he spends his spare time writing. “I’ve written about eight in the past month,” he says about how many songs he’s come up with lately. “I usually have something, an issue or an emotion, that I need to talk about or get out, so I go by that.” Commenting on how he writes them: “Some forced songs turn out really well, but I think the best ones come straight from the heart.” It seems to be natural talent that helps him write his songs, since, as mentioned earlier, he has been writing all his life. His inspiration comes from the world around him, like “relationships and politics and the issues in the world. And Jesus.” Sometimes he gets his inspiration from a video of a band; guess it’s just one of those things where you see something and you want to do it too. Most people encounter situations like that. So his past is behind him, and he’s been looking toward the future years. He hopes “to be able to make a living off of [his] music because that’s what [he] love[s] doing.” If he gets famous, he can influence people and that’s what he loves: helping people. He doesn’t really know what he’ll do if he doesn’t make it in music. It is such a competitive career. He can always fall back on his college degree in Communications, after he graduates, of course. “No matter what I do, I wanna be helping people. But my plan has to work, because art like music that helps people cannot be wasted. Even if I touch one person, I’ll be happy,” he says. Music is very important to him. “It makes me feel good,” he comments. Joe said a lot of artists have been “losers like him” before they got famous. He feels he can “relate to them in a special way.” So as he goes back to goofing off with his friends to have a good time (or goes to record news for another ‘OOJ Show’ or buys food for the homeless or does some skate tricks at the local bank), he definitely has more than fun on his mind. He has his future to look forward to; something that he works toward every day when he picks up his guitar. But that’s just it: the future. So right now, Joe just writes and plays music to express himself, and he calls himself ‘Joke Right’.
--Kim Shaffer
Special Thanks to Kimberly Shaffer for the video and the profile!