Joe

RnB superstar Joe Thomas talks to TSK about his album "New Man" and going independent..

DJV: You’re listening to the sounds of The Soul Kitchen. Neo-Soul,Intelligent Hip-Hop, and Real RnB and I’m very happy to be joined by a real RnB man right now. Singer, songwriter, producer and basically RnB royalty Joe is here, how you doing man?

Joe: Doing great, good to be here

We’re gonna to be talking life, career and albums old and new, as well as playing some Joe records of course, so RnB royalty is that fair?

It’s good to hear you say that, it feels good.

You’ve been in this game for over 15 years now, how things must have changed for you?

Certainly in a much brighter way. I gotta say 15 years on a major label to now go independent is one hell of a move and a challenge for an artist in my situation so it feels good, I love it better than being on a major label.

We’ll talk about that independence soon; let’s take you way back. You come for a Gospel background yeah?

Absolutely, well both my parents are ministers and yeah, we sang a lot of gospel songs

Ok tell me about the early years, your frame of mind when making those first two albums and eventually signing to Jive

You know for me it was a real nice starter I guess you could say. Having my first album in 1993 on Mercury Records for a new artist at 18 years old I guess I was ultimately excited. Being one of the first teenagers - there’s a lot of teenagers now that come along in the industry. To sort of come up in that era, well you know we had a lot of serious musicians and bands and to even sustain that from then to now - I gotta credit that first album, cos everybody started watching and listening; paying attention to me after that first record.

That “I’m In Love” New Jack Swing feel got you started! Let’s talk about “All The Things”; although very obvious, that must be the record you look back on and say ‘that really started my journey’?

Certainly. The biggest record of my early career was “All The Things”. It broke a lot of records as far as the RnB chart so yeah. I mean it’s the biggest record to start with that catapulted everything else after that

Like with “Don’t Wanna Be A Player”, you always seemed to be helped by those songs being on soundtracks, that just seemed to happen on a lot in your early career, also the “Stutter” Remix). Do you think it helped you along?

I think it did with the association of the movie everything worked. I think with “All The Things” the record got more play than some of the movie, even though the movie was very funny, the record did more for me than the movie did for some of the actors and actresses in the film.

I was thinking about an older Joe record to play, and my mind jumped straight to the "Better Days" album and "Let's Stay Home Tonight". It’s probably my favourite song so I’m being a little self indulgent with it, tell us about those ‘mid-career’ albums if you like and that track in particular.

“Let’s Stay Home” is one of my favourite records. It’s got a great tempo; I’ve always been a fan of Marvin Gaye so it had that Marvin Gaye feel to it. So I like the classy records. It sort of takes you back to those classy days. Writing songs that I enjoy and I’ve been influenced by the old school artists, so that’s why the feel of the records will remind you of some of the old school record of the past.

And those mid career albums... Was it a natural progression for you, were you pushed in a certain direction from the label or was it just whatever came out came out at the time?

It’s basically whatever came out. Every album I’ve done for the most part I only did like the records that everybody heard. I mean I didn’t do like 20 or 30 records. Only later on in my career I started doing multiple records and said I’ll pick and choose from here. On the first album we wrote 12 songs and put all 12 on the album, same scenario for the second, third and forth, so everything that I wrote and produced went on the projects. So I think that’s when it came down to being a real artist; everything worked and there was a purpose to every song, it made sense, it was a project the end of the day

Alright we’ll be back on the other side with all things new. In the mean time here’s one of countless classic Joe tracks this is “Let’s Stay Home Tonight”

[[ V plays Joe “Let's Stay Home Tonight” ]]

Wow, still love that track. Joe and "Let's Stay Home Tonight" and Joe is here with me now. Before we touch on the newer stuff; last year you put out an album that was really highly regarded by everyone that grabbed it but it just seemed it didn’t reach enough ears. What's the story there?

You know when you’re on a major label, there a lot of requirements that they have. They have so many different priorities, and when you have these priorities you lose track of focussing on certain artists you know and that’s part of the process of why I wanted to go more independent. Being more of a priority that’s basically what it all about, making sure you taking care of the things you feel are important, and they didn’t on that particular album

Yeah, maybe they didn’t! Man that was full of great songs, I mean coming from a DJ perspective, as I’m a club DJ. It had “Get To Know Me” on there, “Where You At?”, “If I Was Your Man”, “Just Relax” was such great work the whole thing, as I say from a DJ perspective, for me that’s your best album I would say, there so many jams of there I could actually play in clubs

That’s the thing. I understand that here in Europe that tempo record are very important, and I love having both sides of it, it’s nice to have a romantic ballad, but then it’s also good to get the crowd hype with a nice tempo record you know, its hearing both sides of the game,

With the album tracks like “Where You At?” were ballads per say, but club ballads.

Yeah there you go, exactly, it’s great that you explained it that way cos that’s sort of the purpose of what I do. I can’t just be some trendy artist you know on a record, coming with a swagger like Hip-Hop I have to be Joe on the record at the same time, so that’s where you get the balance with this up-tempo record.

Shortly after that dropped we saw you at two colossal gigs with Brian McKnight and Boyz II Men. What an amazing couple of nights that must have been for you?

Yeah, it was fun. They're personal friends as well, it’s good to work with someone you are cool with and have respect for, and Brian as we know is very talented musician as well as vocally and a songwriter... and Boyz II Men have had huge records so it’s nice to be a part of all that ‘cos I came up during an era watching Boyz II Men sell 14 million records and couple of times out and its phenomenal to be touring with them and doing shows.

Largely I suppose your careers are very similar, early 90’s late 80sthrough to present day still making good music, Do you ever sit back and talk to these guys and say man, we been in this for a minute?

Well on my side I reflect every once in a while - not too much. You see I like to keep it moving more forward and tackle new things, I don’t like to reflect too much on the past, I never did in my whole career look back on the past, just always what’s the next step. What’s the next stage and how do I get better? So yeah I mean I think they may do the same, we talk but we just talk about what’s going on right now.

I remember Algebra was performing at the concert too, I believe it was her birthday. Recently heard her newest stuff and we really like it on The Soul Kitchen, how’s it all going for her?

It’s going great. As you know she’s an incredible songwriter, incredible artist and I’m very proud to know her and to have worked with her touring and so forth, and she is the next one, she really is that next one. If you searching... hey man, what’s up with the sound? What’s up this new thing? What’s up with the Soul? She’s bringing it to you and she’s also a musician so not a lot of people going to that you know.

We love her new record “Purpose”, came out earlier this year and everyone’s feeling it on the show.

So you’re here in the UK, performing and promoting a brand new album... Tell us a little bit about the new material

The new album has about 3 or 4 different producers, one being Bryan Michael Cox who did about 4 record on it and a friend of mine, Phatts from Atlanta, Georgia did an few records also D’Mile who did Emergency room, and my young friend Shaun Daniels who also writes and produces. Then you have Stereotypes who did the title track "New Man" and "Why Just Be Friends", it's sort of a European style production team but they are from Cleveland Ohio.

I wanna play a track from that right now, I’ve listening to the whole thing myself, I’ve got my personal favourites, but I would prefer if you just one form the album..

Wow... let’s go with ‘Man In Your Life’, that’s a pretty popular record. Also we coming out with features, which on man in your life, we’re putting Nas on it and we have a few features with Busta Rhymes. P Diddy, Trey Songs, Mario and we have The Game so it’s gonna be a nice little feature we gonna release in another month from now.

If you would kindly introduce that track for us right now.

Ladies and gentlemen this is Joe, my new album is in stores right now, it’s called ‘New Man’ and you can hear this song right now, it’s called ‘Man In Your Life’, so you all go get a copy and check this record out.

[[ V plays Joe “Man In Your Life” ]]

That was Joe Thomas and “Man In Your Life”, any reason for this full name basis hat we’ve got now? Why do we know you as Joe Thomas Now?

A lot of people really wanted to know what it was, so now hear it is. And also just more clarity with the last name just running with the best of them; Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson so just more clarity to it.

So new man, new label, a new way of working and thinking. Has it changed a lot for you?

Yeah I’m much more of a business minded person the freedom to create to a whole nother level. I recorded two albums in 3 months once I left Jive, so I think just having a new found respect for a new position and taking on new challenges its opening up my creative flow now..

In essence it’s more work for you now I take it?

It’s more work but its constructive work. It feels good to know that your work is leading up to a grand finale for lack of words. It’s great work, its building a catalogue its owning your catalogue owning my own publishing and it’s just being free to really do whatever the hell I want to

I see a lot of words in press about this being a really honest project, what do you mean by that?

Honesty is what’s lacking in a lot of the music right now. People being true to who they are; having integrity, having respect for the music - all of the above. I think I take it very seriously when it come to the music side and music world. I cherish it, so I know what the end result is something that I’m working towards. A lot of the younger artist don’t really look at being real with who they are, being honest about their music and approaching at with a tremendous amount of respect so if they could get that then they would have longevity in their careers.

I think with the young artists a lot of the public don’t necessarily believe that they believe what they’re singing about in their records

That’s another thing. You gotta have passion to what you do, in anything in life. Whether you wanna be a stunt car driver or whatever it is, you gotta be passionate about what you do and that’s where the honesty comes in. How close to this do you feel? That’s interpretation you know

Talk to me about tracks 12 thru 16 on the album, depending on if you have the album with the bonus tracks on it, 12 thru 16 are 5 snippets if you like, little one-minute tracks; great songs but you’ve just teased?

That’s for a new album. The five songs at the end of this album are five snippets from an album called “Joe’s Signature” where I wrote, produced, performed and composed the whole record and it’s taking it back to my style of production. Where early on you had records like “I Wanna Know”, “All The Things” and even on the last album there’s a song called “Life Of The Party”. It sort of has this feel on this album so it’s taking it back to the essence of my style. It’s a brand new record not a greatest hits and its 14 brand new songs.

We really like the sound of those 5 as well; you’ve been very sneaky and clever by leaving them right at the end

It’s just a teaser just a taste of what the next album sounds like cos you know when you’ve got albums coming out so close in time, most people may assume that its gonna sound like this one I already got. But it’s a completely different feel of album, it’s had a lot of live production, I brought in strings, horns, real bands you know

When’s that droppin’?

We’re looking at June to release the album; we had a date set for February 14th but the success of this album and the momentum that’s moving so fast, we gotta get to another single first, so we had to push it back a little.

So what’s next for you? You’re performing out here, some video shoots and promotion, what else is going on?

Yeah we did an album release party last night which was a great turn out - thanks to everyone that came through. Also we’re back in town for a couple of private events and functions here in the UK. But we’re just on tour. We’ve been promoting since October 1st; from here we go to Japan, we’ll be in Asia for about 3 weeks so it’s a promotional tour with this album. Next year were gonna start with the actual tour and we’ll be back here next year.

OK Cool, Before we play “Why Just Be Friends”, “New Man” is out right now, form the usual outlets, and downloadable too.

That’s right; we got it on iTunes too!

You can hear snippets on the MySpace too right?

Yeah its myspace.com/officialjoemusic

Cool, before we depart let’s finish up on “Why Just Be Friends”. Thank you for coming to see us today and make sure the next time you’re in London you come and see us at The Soul Kitchen

Most certainly, it’s been my pleasure.

[[ V plays Joe “Why Just Be Friends” ]]