Local musician Josué Kinter will be delivering dreamy, dark western rock to the crowd at Trunk Space on Saturday, but this isn’t his first rodeo in the Phoenix music scene.
Hailing from Peoria, 29-year-old Kinter was on the scene as early as his high school days. Kinter’s journey has taken him from punk roots with bands like Rum Drinker and HEX WAVE to his newest endeavor of “western goth” tunes that bare an empathetic side to the musician.
“Even though I really love punk music and stuff, writing it for me, always felt kind of forced,” said Kinter. “But this music, this just comes out. The song comes to me, rather than me chasing the song, which is what I was feeling in a lot of the bands I was working with.”
Kinter was the creative mind behind Casa Butthole Record Collective, a Phoenix-based DIY pay-what-you-can record label that helped local acts like Sugar Skull Explosion release its music.
His experience in producing music helped him record most of the album at his home studio with other pieces being recorded at a cabin in Tonto Rim.
Some of the songs on the album are several years old and will finally see the light of day when the full-length album is released through his newest label Bloody Basin on June 21, just in time for the summer solstice.
The first single off the album, “Three Thousand Miles”, will be released this coming Saturday, April 13 to coincide with Kinter’s Trunk Space show. This will also be the first music video to come from the album.
The music video was filmed in one day at Justice Brothers Ranch in Waddell, Arizona. The music video is a moody and abstract piece that captures the swinging emotions of the country rock piece.
When discussing his music and the visuals that accompany it, it becomes apparent how much thought is paid to the details that set the mood and emotions of each track Kinter has worked on. Everything Kinter does for his music is done with the approach of making each of his ideas as unique as possible while remaining genuine to himself.
Jazz musician and friend Alan Acosta plays bass clarinet, flute and saxophone on several tracks for Kinter’s new album.
“He’s a surprisingly empathetic person,” Acosta said of Kinter. “It’s striking to see someone like him, he has a lot of personality.”
Kinter cites Kate Bush, Townes Van Zandt, Neil Young, Nina Simone and Captain Beefheart as key artists of influence for his music, if not for their sound, for their unique musical arrangements and songwriting.
“A lot of music really evokes particular emotions for me and I feel like by listening to it or by playing it, it gives me space to feel those emotions that I might not otherwise have in day to day life,” said Kinter.
“It’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s pretty much my favorite sense to hear something sweet and then it feels all the better when you made something. When you play it is one thing and when you can say you wrote it as well, that’s even better.”
Though he had always been interested in the folk sound, it was always a private project while he was involved in the punk scene.
“I felt like nobody would really be that into it, you know, it’s a lot more serious,” Kinter said.
Baring this much emotion and vulnerability with the upcoming album has been a year-long process that was fueled by the encouragement of his friends and his partner Amy Austin.
“I think that this album and this style of music is really honest and genuine. It comes from a pure place”, said Austin, a visual artist who designed the cover art for the album. “It’s really genuine and I’m glad to see him doing what really comes out naturally. I think it’s really cool and I’m super proud.”
“I would want for his music to be empathized with, to be understood on the level with which he’s coming from,” Acosta said. “Being able to understand someone on those fundamental levels is very important, truthfully, as a musician and as an artist.”
You can catch Josué Kinter with Calvin Johnson and Golden Boots on Saturday, April 13 at The Trunk Space located at 1124 North Third Street. Tickets are $7 online or $10 at the door.
Contact the reporter at imrosale@asu.edu
