Joe Pug

Pug is originally from Greenbelt, Maryland, where he lived in the Old Greenbelt neighborhood. He began performing music at a young age at Greenbelt's New Deal Cafe. Pug attended Eleanor Roosevelt High School. While in high school, Pug, according to a Washingtonian interview, "played in cover bands and at New Year's Eve parties to make money" but "never seriously considered a career in music." One such band was Guys with Ties, an R&B and blues cover band which Pug co-founded and played saxophone for. He participated in the Roosevelt drama department, performing in Woody Allen's "Don't Drink the Water" among other plays. He also performed improv comedy in his high school, a craft which he continued throughout his time at college. Pug graduated from high school in 2002 and enrolled at University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, where he studied playwriting. Pug later told Kentucky.com that studying theater had helped his future music career: == Origins ==

In 2005, on the night before his senior year fall classes were to start, Pug dropped out of college and drove directly to Chicago, having thought (as he mentioned later to The Daily Tar Heel): "I had a moment where I realized life is short and I knew where I wanted to be and I should just get there." That week, he took a job as a carpenter and moved into an apartment in Logan Square. Pug has described his two-day trip from Chapel Hill in his Ford Ranger and his first week in Chicago as "the most magical experience of my entire life". Pug soon began playing music again at open-mike nights at a local bar. When asked why he began pursuing folk music instead of other musical genres or the playwriting he studied at college, Pug responded: Developing on ideas and themes he was originally attempting to express in a play he was writing called "Austin Fish," Pug began writing the songs that would later become his first EP, Nation of Heat. The songs were recorded at a local Chicago studio, where a friend snuck him in to record during late night slots that other musicians had cancelled. In 2009, after Pug self-released Nation of Heat, he began shipping fans 2-song sampler CDs to pass along to their friends. The unconventional promotional strategy was a success, resulting in Pug sending out over 15,000 samplers and Nation of Heat selling over 20,000 copies. As Pug later recalled on his website: The EP was a critical success, drawing comparisons to the work of Bob Dylan and Josh Ritter. "Hymn #101," Nation of Heat's opening song, drew special attention, being spotlighted on NPR's Second Stage music blog. After seeing Pug play as his opener, Rhett Miller passed Pug's music onto Steve Earle, with whom he shared a manager. Earle subsequently tapped Pug, at age 23, to open for his Townes Van Zandt tribute tour. == Lightning Rod Records and Messenger ==

The Earle tour and the crowds generated by Nation of Heat piqued the attention of Lightning Rod Records, the Nashville independent label behind folk and Americana acts such as Jason Isbell, James McMurtry, Amanda Shires, and High Cotton. In 2010, Lightning Rod signed Pug and released his debut full-length album, Messenger. On Messenger, a full backing band supplemented Pug's guitar, vocals and harmonica, a change featured most notably on an electric version of Nation of Heat's "Speak Plainly, Diana." Reviewers, like Steve Kolowich at the Washington City Paper, noted that, with Messenger, in contrast to Nation of Heat, Pug turns from declarative and extroverted to reflective and introspective: The album met critical acclaim, with Paste Magazine rating it 9.1/10, adding: “unless your surname is Dylan, Waits, Ritter or Prine, you could face-palm yourself to death trying to pen songs half as inspired as the 10 tracks on Joe Pug's debut full-length." == Austin and The Great Despiser ==

In 2011, Pug moved to Austin, Texas, lured by the Texas songwriting tradition that produced the likes of, in Pug's listing, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, David Halley and Billy Joe Shaver. Pug later described the move as follows: He frequently makes reference to the influence of Texas' songwriting legacy in interviews, telling KDHX "there's been a lot of songwriters I wasn't familiar with before I moved to Texas but now really think are influential in my writing." In his touring throughout 2011 and 2012, Pug began paying tribute to Austin musician Harvey "Tex" Thomas Young by playing "Deep Dark Wells," his cover of Thomas' "Start Again," which Thomas originally wrote as a poem to his jailed brother. Pug toured with Strand of Oaks in April and May 2011. The two acts promoted the tour by releasing covers of each other's songs: Pug for Strand of Oaks' "End in Flames" and Strand of Oaks for Pug's "Hymn #101." Pug's April 29, 2011, performance during this tour at Lincoln Hall in Chicago, Illinois was recorded live and released as Live at Lincoln Hall. As soon as Messenger was released, Pug immediately began writing the songs that would become his second full-length album. To help create thicker "arrangements that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the lyrics," The Great Despiser was released in April 2012. The A.V. Club described The Great Despiser as an album of literate regret, comparable to the work of John Prine, Josh Ritter, and Richard Buckner. The album's title track, "Hymn #76," which Paste Magazine described as "a fable of life and the reoccurring themes attached to growing older and moving on," is a continuation of the narrative in Nation of Heat's "Hymn #35" and "Hymn #101." == Break, Windfall, and Later Works ==

After a heavy touring schedule in 2013, Pug considered quitting music. As he later told Denver's Westword that "hitting the road can make you go broke really quick" and that he "had expectations that were all out of whack." About the period, he wrote: However, in 2014, Pug took a break from touring, recommitting to, in his own words, "behaving like a human being again": He soon realized that he had the ability to give it all up, later telling American Songwriter: "I don't feel like I would sacrifice everything for music. Life is bigger than that." Coming out that turning point, he became engaged to fellow musician Jamie Zanelotti of The Hems and began writing again, penning what would eventually become his next album. Later that year, he began recording at producer Duane Lundy's Shangri-La Productions studio in Lexington, Kentucky, aiming to "capture the music just the way we play it, with minimal production." This period of reflection and recommitment culminated in the 2015 release of Windfall, Pug's third album. As a Paste review notes, the optimistic album "steps away from the more traditional Americana for a folk-soul hybrid that places greater emphasis on his vocals." The Lexington Herald-Leader praised the album's two-band approach as presenting an "elegiac, electric vitality" to the "unhurried solemnity" of the songs. Joe Pug released The Flood in Color on July 19, 2019 and The Diving Sun on March 21, 2021. On March 8, 2024, Pug announced the release of Sketch of a Promised Departure. ==Influences==

, who Pug cites as "the biggest influence" for his first EP, Nation of Heat. Pug's lyrics has been noted for their literary techniques and allusions. Pug admits to this influence, citing various novelists, short story writers and poets as inspirations. John Steinbeck is referenced Messenger's "Not So Sure." Pug cited Walt Whitman as the biggest influence on Nation of Heat, calling "Hymn #35" the "palest imitation of 'Leaves of Grass' in recorded history!" He told Rolling Stone that the biggest influence on The Great Despiser was short story writer Raymond Carver, praising him for how "when you return to a piece of his that you read long ago and realize just how much of your own detail was placed in the gaps." Pug has stated that he is attracted to "the narrative of the individual and the individual being the only thing you can be sure is real in yourself," which, he says, drew him to Walt Whitman and John Steinbeck when he was younger, and Raymond Carver and Cormac McCarthy as he has grown older. He described the first John Prine record he received from his dad as a memorable moment in his development as a songwriter: , who Pug opened for in 2009. Pug credits Steve Earle for teaching him "everything," calling his time touring with him a "master class" in performance. He later told PopMatters: With Windfall, Pug cites more contemporary influences, such as Josh Ritter, Ryan Adams, and M. Ward. However, Pug's trademark literary influences are still present: the chorus of "The Measure," which repeats, "all we’ve lost is nothing to what we’ve found" is inspired by a quote by Frederick Buechner's novel Godric. Of the reference, Pug explained: Throughout his career, Joe Pug has performed and recorded covers in tribute to his influences. He performed Harvey "Tex" Thomas Young's "You Can Go Crazy" on Young's More Than We Was album. On ''Dead Man's Town: A Tribute to Born in the U.S.A.'', Pug performed Bruce Springsteen's "Downbound Train", telling Esquire: == The Working Songwriter podcast ==

In 2016, Pug began releasing a podcast entitled "The Working Songwriter", consisting of conversations with artists on "working songwriters talking to one another about life on the road, life in the studio, and life in the writer’s room" " ==Discography==

;Studio Albums • Messenger (2010) • The Great Despiser (2012) • Windfall (2015) • The Flood in Color (2019) • The Diving Sun (2021) • Nation of Heat Revisited (2022) • Sketch of a Promised Departure (2024) ;Studio EPs • Nation of Heat (2009) • In the Meantime (2010) ;Live Albums • Live at Lincoln Hall (2011) • Live at The Old Town School of Folk Music (2025) ==References==