Come On Kid: An Interview with Josiah Leming

While most twenty-one year olds are contemplating dropping out of college, singer-songwriter, Josiah Leming, has it all together, or at least anything that really matters.  I met with the young musician the start of Halloween weekend, before his performance at Berklee’s Café 939 to promote his debut album Come On Kid.  While the streets swarmed with oversized bananas and the unnatural pairing of lingerie and rabbit ears, Leming was unfazed by the college atmosphere he passed up.  ‘€œI feel like I’m getting things a lot of people don’t ever get.  Maybe I’ve traded [college] for certain things but I don’t think about [that].’€  In fact, Josiah had given up more than just a college experience, but the majority of his teenage years.

At the age of sixteen, Leming was thrown into the popular television whirlwind known as American Idol’s Season 7.  Despite not making it past Hollywood week he’s spent the last three years trying to escape the shadow that has been cast upon him.  ‘€œI can be nothing but grateful for my time on the show because it’s the reason why I’m here,’€ explains Josiah, ‘€œI have a lot of bitterness but it’s a fifteen-year-old to their parent bitterness: you always resent the thing that made you.’€  Despite his start on American Idol, Leming stands worlds apart from the fairly cookie-cutter image which commonly spews out of the television show.  In actuality, he is so much more than the story American Idol had spun.

Since its original airing in 2008, Josiah has spent the past three years doing the only thing he knows: creating music.  Under Warner Bros. Records, Leming’s debut album, Come On Kid, combines the energy of a full band and the intimacy of a live performance.  Heartfelt and poetic, his lyrics mask his age while radiating a level of emotion a master recording is rarely able to accomplish. ‘€œIf I could just convey what I’m feeling in a very raw way and a very accessible way, I feel like that’s the only goal,’€ explained Josiah, ‘€œI’m such a baby at this. It’s taken a long time to really hone in on who I am as an artist in the studio but it’s music and I feel like things aren’t supposed to be easy if they’re right.’€

Sitting across from Josiah, everything about him was contagious.  His energy radiated and his genuine passion for music was undeniable.  ‘€œI love music with a thousand hearts,’€ beamed Leming, ‘€œmusic, for me, has always been an emotional valve.  When I feel like I want to explode and there’s nothing that can release all those energies inside of me I feel like it’s the one thing that can do that.’€  It seems that music is not merely a part of his life, but the basis of Josiah’s entire existence.  If not proven through his actual words, the art of his performances paints it effortlessly.

On stage, instead of creating a sense of hesitation, his youth lights a fire underneath him.  It’s a sort of innocence where you still think the world is wonderful and when Josiah’s performing, it really is.  ‘€˜Playing’ would not be the accurate word to describe what Josiah does to his keyboard.  Instead, perhaps, ‘€˜attacking’ is appropriate to explain his uncontrollable shaking as he struggles to remain pinned to his chair, the music moving him both emotionally and physically.  ‘€œIt all goes back to being that valve,’€ explains Josiah, ‘€œI feel like all twenty-three hours of the day are just me building up to get back on stage. I feel like it’s my responsibility to not let up.’€

Finishing up his five week US tour with Tyler Hilton, Josiah Leming seems to be doing anything but letting up.  His talent, energy and most importantly, deep love for what he does will be sure to carry him to success.