When writing a music article for The Pulse, authors tend to describe their subjects as ‘Chattanooga musician’ or ‘Chattanooga songwriter’. In the case of Joshua Cruce, that may be a bit presumptuous.
While road-tripping across the country he stopped to play some local open mics and never left. Now it’s been a few months, and at least for now, he plans to stick around. This is a victory for local music fans who appreciate lyrically driven, folk-adjacent songwriters with a good sense of humor.
“I think it’s been too long that humor wasn’t taken seriously in music,” Cruce said. “If a song made you laugh, it was considered a novelty. But there are some really good musicians who are humorists.” He cites John Craigie, Bo Burnham, and Kendrick Lamar as songwriters who have inspired him by blending humor with pathos.
Cruce has a new song called Kill California that manages to be funny without being silly. “Everywhere I go people have something to complain about, and it’s usually somebody else moving there,” he explained. Whether it’s Californians or Texans or Floridians, Cruce finds that shtick to be tiresome.
“It gets old hearing people complain about how things used to be. I guess it’s kind of an anti-country song because that’s such a common theme in country music – that things aren’t what they used to be.”
Cruce has witnessed plenty of change in his hometown. He’s originally from the extremely cool city of Austin, but seems pretty ambivalent about it. He’s also spent time in Colorado, Arizona and Utah.
“I’ve done a lot of traveling,” he laughed. “I’ve gotten into a pattern of packing everything up and driving around until I find a place that feels great, or I run out of money and desperately need to work.”
After one night in Nashville, he decided to hit the road and get to Chattanooga in time for the Tremont Tavern’s weekly open mic. That went well, so he stuck around for the Cherry Street Tavern’s open mic.
Flash forward four months, and Jousha Cruce is now working as a tour guide at Ruby Falls and performing regularly around town. In fact, he hopes to move into a new apartment soon.
So it may be too soon to identify Joshua Cruce as a ‘Chattanooga songwriter.’ But at least for now, he's a songwriter who is living in Chattanooga. And he’s worth checking out. Who knows, if he finds the audience he deserves, he may stick around a little longer.
You can hear Joshua Cruce perform some of his darkly funny original songs this Thursday April 4th at the Woodshop. He’ll perform alongside two other funny local songwriters, Donnie Marsh and Alex Volz. Doors open at 7, music starts at 8. There is no cover charge.