Toronto’s Josh Van White Shares New Single, “Change Too Much”
Josh Van White first burst onto the scene with his previous band Modest Apollo’s 2018 album Postsocial. After graduating from university, White left the rock outfit and moved to Toronto where he played around with different genres and sounds, resulting in a few releases under various pseudonyms. Van White finally found his sound with the non-album singles “Let’s Dance” and “See All the People,” leading to his debut solo LP Pacific Transmissions. His last single, “Fortune’s Favourite” saw Van White ease off the electronics and pick up his guitar again with a sound more akin to The Cure or Joy Division.
His latest release, “Change Too Much” sees Van White continue exploring sounds of nostalgia. Taking inspiration from 80s New Wave groups such as Depeche Mode, with the modern sheen of acts like LCD Soundsystem and The Juan Maclean. This new track pairs bright and catchy synth lines with lyrics of reflection and introspection.
Listen to “Change Too Much” below and learn more about Josh via our Five Questions With segment.
Care to introduce yourself to our readers?
My name is Josh Van White; I’m an indie musician from Toronto. Although at the moment I’m living in Wellington, New Zealand. But I still consider myself to be Toronto-based; I’ll be back in a few months and am excited to return to that scene. I’ve put out some stuff under pseudonyms in the past, but have been releasing stuff under my own name since 2022. This will be my second single since my album back in November.
Tell us a bit about your most recent release.
My newest single, “Change Too Much,” came together with the chorus first. Probably a year ago, maybe more, the first couple of lines with the melody just popped into my head one day. It was catchy enough to stay with me for a while and I knew I wanted it to turn into something. A few writing sessions brought it in some different directions, but the lyrics on the verses just didn’t feel right — like they weren’t relatable to me. Then one night the opening line came to me as I was falling asleep. I see my beauty in a photograph It gets foggy in the mirrored glass. I didn’t know if it would be for this song, but I wrote it down for later. The next time I sat down to try to put it together, I opened it with this line and it all came together. The melody, the first few verses, the structure, it all just fell into place. Only a day or two later I had the whole song written. Production-wise, this is a lot more synth-wavey than I’ve done before. My album from back in November, Pacific Transmissions, had some New Wave elements but still sounded very much like early 2000s indie.
With my last single, “Fortune’s Favourite,” I looked to The Cure for influence. I wanted to do this song
similarly, with the guitar being the main instrument, but that didn’t really happen. No matter how many
different ways I tried to record it, the best version always fell into this 80s-synthy vibe. It’s one of those
things where the song really guided me on where to go. Regardless of what I was hoping for, it became
this thing that more resembled Depeche Mode; and that is cool with me.
Where do you tend to pull inspiration from when writing?
For me, it has to come from some kind of feeling. sometimes I wish I could take a page from The Noel Gallagher School of Songwriting where the lyrics make no real sense but sound like they do. But when I sit down to write, I can’t come up with anything substantial unless I have a full thesis sorted out. As much as I try to avoid the whole sad boy indie thing, most of my songs come from a place of anxiety that I exaggerate until the idea comes through in the lyrics.
With “Change Too Much,” the writing came from a place of nostalgia. Seeing pictures of myself when I
looked better (to me at least), and when I was certainly more hopeful about how my music and career
would ultimately go. Yet at that time, I was probably doing the same thing as I am now; looking back
fondly, being too hard on my current situation. And I’ll probably keep doing that until I’m looking back at
where I am now. Writing it into a song definitely helps work out feelings, no matter what they are.
Do you have any upcoming shows you’d like to tell us about?
None right now. The toughest part about writing and recording stuff all on your own is that there isn’t a
band I can just take to the stage. Especially when the songs have more going on than a standard fourpiece could play. “Change Too Much” alone would need three synths, a bass, drums, and a guitar to make it sound close to the recording. I would love to be able to play it live, but it will be a task to put together.
Being in another country where I don’t know many musicians doesn’t help either. Once I get back to Toronto, I’ll be putting more effort into getting something together.
What’s your goal for 2023?
The two big ones are put out another single, and get at least one live show in. As for the single, I have
one in the works that I finished writing the other day, so it’s just down to arranging and recording and all that fun stuff. The city I currently live in has a great music scene, but it’s not the easiest to crack into. Hopefully this new single will be enough to get me in somewhere; even if it is just a stripped-back set that I can do on my own.