“Cordula Grün” singer Josh sings about his illness

With “Cordula Green” Josh was able to. Land a huge hit in 2018 and celebrate your breakthrough. The Viennese pop musician recently made public his treatment for burnout and depression. “I had a serious illness, now it’s normal like everyone else: sometimes I feel good, sometimes not so good,” says the 37-year-old. “But I’m actually a funny person.”

Josh. has made a name for itself with humorous songs, and on the third album you can now also hear a thoughtful singer. No surprise for the musician himself: “Even before ‘Cordula Grün’, I made quieter music, then I kept throwing in funny songs that were very successful.” The first album “Of Girls and Colors” (2019) would have contained a “very supporting song” with “Melodie los”. “That’s why I didn’t see any change. But based on the reactions, it’s clear to me that it seems that way from the outside,” he said Josh.

80s sound

Even if “repair” is the stylistic common thread of Josh. As the song goes on, you’ll find some sounds he hasn’t heard before that are reminiscent of the eighties. The singer and songwriter emphasizes that this wasn’t planned: “I was looking for sounds that I haven’t used 40,000 times yet. And it was also incredibly fun to get a few old synthesizers and guitar amplifiers.” His producer Florian Koch is a huge Toto fan, he says Josh., who himself had “no great affinity” for this sound. “We then tried out different things and always resorted to eighties sounds like that – the result is a bit of a coincidence,” smiles the musician.

“Cordula Grün” was followed by another hit

When asked about the pressure to succeed after “Cordula Green”, says Josh., he would have felt this when working on the second album “Teilzeitromantik” (2021): “I thought to myself at the time that you can never repeat something like that in terms of success – and that you will feel it extremely when on the second album there’s no super hit on it.” But then the single “Expresso & Tschianti”, which reached double platinum in Austria, wiped these thoughts away. Postscript: “Something nice has happened for me because people now don’t just listen to the two hit singles. One hit isn’t enough for people to pay 20 or 30 euros for admission to a concert. But now they come because they have my entire catalogue “I like it. That’s why I’m so happy right now.”

Burnout: “I was in a clinic”

The single “I belong repaired” deals with the musician’s illness. “It would have been bad as a songwriter to miss that time,” he says. He also speaks openly about it: “I got to know the disease, was in a clinic and noticed that in some places there wasn’t enough budget for things like that.” As a celebrity, he wants to bring more attention to the issue. “It’s stupid in our society if you don’t get help early enough and then you can’t work for a year or you even lose your job because you just can’t do it anymore.”

Serious lyrics and happy melodies

The serious lyrics packed Josh. albeit in quite happy melodies. Quite consciously, he says: “If you describe a topic like burnout and depression and also make music with a minor key, at some point it will become inaudible. That wouldn’t be me either.”

The songs of Josh. can often be heard on the radio, across almost all stations. He has no fear of regional programs: “At the beginning I thought to myself, I don’t want my music to be on Radio Burgenland because there will be a hit before and after. But that’s nonsense,” emphasizes the songwriter. “If there are people who like to hear both, why not? If these people also come to the concerts, hear live electric guitars and relatively rock drums, like that and then go back to Helene Fischer, that’s it for me perfectly fine.”