Josh Smith – He got his wish.

September 18, 2020, was my first encounter with Josh Smith. He was and continues to play acoustic with Van Wilks. I next saw him with Van at Iron Wolf Ranch and Distillery. When I mentioned to Lisa North that Van was playing lighter than I had ever heard him at that time, she told me that they were background. I had never heard of a musician, playing live, being background before.

On May 21, 2021, I finally got to chat with Josh but only briefly. “I’ll give you a thousand dollars if you take a photograph of me with Lisa Tingle,” he told me. I recall an amount much more substantial but the thousand dollars will do. Josh, extortion payments are almost over.

November 20, 2021, is the date that stands out the most for me, I wrote in my second book, The Rolling Stones were, at that moment, playing at the Germania Amphitheater. I cared less. I had a delicious cup of coffee, a piece of pumpkin cheesecake and was listening to some of the most beautiful acoustic music I had ever heard to date. It was Josh Smith, solo. It is an experience featured in the main hall of the music museum of my mind. This memory is priceless. Now, I am proud to let Josh tell his story.

1). Who is Josh Smith? 

I am one of the luckiest guitar players in town. I did not live here growing up (well briefly for about a year when I was four, but the Austin music scene is hard baked into my DNA thanks to my Dad and my biggest influence/mentor/idol Van Wilks. He has been an integral part of the Austin scene since the early 70’s. My Dad and Van were in a High School band together. He was also on the road crew for many of the tours after that. I was able to tag along as a little tyke with him to Fools/Van Wilks shows as far back as I can remember. Places like the Armadillo, Opry House, Erwin Center, Mother Earth, Tarrant County Convention Center and on and on.  Many times, I was able to sit on the side of the stage when Van would open for artists like ZZ Top, Heart, or when the band was headlining. I got to be right there in the thick of it all and it was awesome!!

Going to the band’s practice room at the ARC Rehearsal Complex was like going to Disneyworld for me. You could do things like that back then if with your parents. I was always obsessed, enamored, and drawn to it. If I knew my Dad was heading out of town to a show, well, he damn sure better be taking me and he did!!  While many kids were drawing pictures of army men, or football helmets I was drawing mock ups of big stage set ups with Marshall stacks, drum risers and stage lights.

As a kid I was at first a drummer. Phil Ballinger, drummer to Van, was also a hero for me. He was an enormous influence and was an integral part of my passion for playing.  I cried like a baby when he left the band when I was about 10 years old. He would let me play his drums at soundcheck or right before the show and he’d let me ‘Roadie” at the end of the night. He would give me old beat-up cymbals, sticks and hardware for my kit. I can’t even quantify how much that meant to me back then and it was the coolest thing ever.

I think most people in that situation would be “get this snot nosed little kid out of here!” but that was never the case. They always made me feel like a part of the band, a mascot so to speak.  There were lots of times when Van would call me up on stage with my little plastic toy guitar that I would carry everywhere. I would “join the band” for a tune or two or he would hang his Les Paul around my neck and hit the echoplex tape at the end of the set. How cool is that?  As I became a teenager, they would call me up for real to join the band on the drums. For me that was like playing Madison Square Garden.  Some of my most cherished memories for sure.

Although Soccer was a massive part of my youth, music was always right at the top as well. I decided to switch from drums to guitar when I was about fifteen. I took to it fairly quickly.  My Dad showed me a few chords and I was off and running. I lived in the small town of Brownwood and lessons were hard to come by so I taught myself and learned everything I could by ear. No formal training, no internet, no YouTube back then so you really had to dig, scratch and claw to learn what you wanted to learn. I know that helped in my development.

The mistakes we make when learning are every much as important as anything else. Today you can go find out how to play just about anything online right away. So that space in between where you are trying to learn something on your own without any “cheat sheet” really helped shape how I learned and played. It was a very organic process that might be missing some today IMHO.  Don’t get me wrong though.  I think YouTube is one of the coolest things out there. You can bet if we had it back then we sure would have used it. I sure use it a lot today.

During all this time I had always dreamed of moving here (Austin) one day just to be a part of the scene and be involved in whatever way possible. During my youth I was very passionate about playing Soccer and played in college for a few years so guitar was kind of off to the side at times, but Austin was always in the back of my mind, tugging at me. My third year in college I hit the wall on playing soccer and burned out. I had played since I was four. I wanted something different. I did a complete 180 turnaround.

A chance opportunity at a show at the Austin Music Hall in 1995 changed my life. My Dad and I had come to see a show. A mutual friend heard I was desperately hoping to move here someday. His name was Jim Jennings. He offered me a job on the spot and 2 weeks later I was finally here. I was over the moon; couldn’t believe I had finally moved here. I figured I’d be a roadie and jumped headfirst into it. Maybe, eventually I would find some other players, and work on my own band.

Never in a million years would I have predicted what happened next. I found myself sitting in with Van at an acoustic show which was a tad unusual back then as it was mostly a big loud power trio, not acoustic. I guess I did something right as that began to happen more frequently. As far as I was concerned, I had made it. How many people get to wind up joining a band with their biggest influence? Before I knew it, we had our own acoustic duo and began to play all over Texas. My biggest dream had come true. Now 28 years and hundreds of shows later, we are still doing it with no plans to stop. No idea what ever happened to Jim Jennings, but I sure won’t ever forget what he did for me.

I also played lead guitar in the Lisa Tingle’s band for a couple of years and man did we have a blast playing together. What a powerhouse!! What a beautiful soul she is.  We share a sense of humor that few would understand. Always laughing but always kicking ass too! She is amazing!  I’ve been so lucky, met so many wonderful people and been a part of some shows/events/experiences that if you told me when I was younger that I would be involved in such things, I would have laughed at you. The real beauty of it is, I am first and foremost a Dad. I have 3 beautiful children that are the lights of my life. My situation with Van is set up perfectly for me so I don’t have to go out on the road for long stretches at a time and miss out on the little things with them. He has always made sure that I can do both things without too much conflict, however they are almost all grown now. Who knows, maybe it’s never too late to hit the road!!

2). Tell me about your projects.

Right now, the only major project for Van and I is our half live, half studio acoustic record. We’ve had so many people ask why we don’t have something available that represents what we do when we play live shows so we finally thought, hmm that’s a great question? Why don’t we have something like that? So, we filmed and recorded a live show at one of the old Austin legendary landmarks, Threadgill’s North which like many other local venues is no longer here sadly. It’s a labor of love and no real timetable set for its release but we’re getting much closer. Half of it will be part of our set at Threadgill’s’ and the other half will be studio versions of songs we play in our set, plus there will be some amazing guest musicians whose identities I will have to keep under wraps for the moment. 😉 Other than that, I just continue to write at home and try to keep my chops up. 

3). Give me your interpretation of the Austin Music Scene of the past, present, and you hope for the future.

As far as the past, present, and future of the Austin Music Scene is concerned, I can say. “Boy, it has changed a lot.” Not always for the better. So many of the old venues that were the heartbeat of the “Live Music Capitol of the World” have been torn down and are gone forever. This can be a pretty touchy subject and there sure are a lot of strong opinions. When I was growing up you had The Cosmic Cowboy scene tangling up with the local blues guys, rock bands, and punk bands all finding common ground, making sure there was a place for all which is what helped shape the scene that made the city famous.

In the 80’s you had SRV which, OMG, how does it ever get any better than that? Now I didn’t live here then but, as I mentioned, was around a lot during that era. It was a magical time even from afar. When I moved here in the 90’s you could go out 7 days a week and hear bands like the Ian Moore Band, Vallejo, Eric Johnson, Van Wilks, Breedlove, Pushmonkey, Sunflower, Podunk, Billy White Trio, Gary Clark Jr, Black Pearl, Storyville, Little Sister, and the list goes on and on. It was an incredible time.

At that time, you had real radio stations pushing local music. KLBJ, Jeff Carrol, The Morning Show with Dudley and Bob, Johnny Walker, Loris Lowe, Peg Zarse, KGSR, Jody Denberg and plenty more, all champions of the local scene and were all such a big part of what made it special. Now it’s a different scene today but it’s all still out there. It may be a little harder to find in some ways, and in other ways may not be.

I have been very fortunate to experience it in all the different eras. Nowadays, it can be a little disheartening to compete with 20 flat screens blaring while trying to get an audience’s attention or see cell phones in everyone’s hand while you are playing. The price of progress maybe? But time stops for no one, and rust never sleeps! 

4). A.I. and music, your thoughts.

I won’t pretend I have a real first-person hands-on look at AI in today’s climate. I guess my first thought is it makes me uncomfortable for the most part. Some good may come from it but with my limited knowledge on the subject I will just say this. It seems that it is getting easier and easier for just about anyone to become a “musician” with the technology that is currently available. Some of the stuff you encounter online can be lacking in soul and personality which to me can only come from hours and hours of blood, sweat, and tears while learning your craft.

You also see endless guitar wizards all over the internet that can do things that are incredible while sitting in a room by themselves but how does it work when you are in a room with 3 other people? I have seen where you throw a band into the mix and the player gets lost. The guy or girl can play circles around you all day long until you throw a full band into the mix.  You don’t even have to learn your instrument all that well to make a “record” and put something out online.

Double edge sword, I guess? Now I may have strayed a little off topic here, but you get the idea. I taught guitar lessons for about 10 years and there are still plenty of folks that want to put in the time and effort to learn how to play.  I suppose some of the AI stuff can maybe help people accomplish some of that but again I don’t have much experience/knowledge on the subject but there is absolutely no substitute for locking yourself up in your bedroom for hours and trying to learn how to play, or getting in a room with your buddies and making noise. Hopefully we don’t get too far away from that because that is where the real magic happens!

5). What is the question you are never asked?

The question I am never asked? Hmm great “question? ” Maybe that is the question I am never asked? LOL but to get back on track here, oddly enough in all of the interviews I have ever done or things of that nature I have never really been asked the one question most people ask of guitar players. Who are your biggest influences? Funny right? I don’t think there would be too many surprises on that list but maybe a few. The obvious ones. Jimmy Page, SRV, Neil Young, Billy Gibbons, Hendrix, EVH. I could go on and on. What may surprise some is I was a huge George Lynch, Warren DeMartini, John Sykes, Adrian Smith fan in High School and was then and will always be a hard rocker. People assume I am purely a blues guy because that is what we lean towards when we play live but I was a headbanger growing up. I love Eric Johnson, Doyle Bramhall II, Eric Gales, Ian Moore, Joe Bonamassa, Tommy Emmanuel, Paul Gilbert, and my current favorite right now is Richie Kotzen and anything he touches. Not only his playing but his voice just slays me but ultimately for me the biggest one of all.  See question number 1!