“I was living in New York, in this tiny, little apartment with this girl, and after a few years, the relationship started to go sour. It got pretty bad,” he recalls. “I just couldn’t express myself to her, and I couldn’t express myself through these comedy scripts.


“One day, I wrote a song about it. It just sort of poured out.”


It was a decisive moment. Radin, a trained artist and writer, had taught himself guitar just two years before (“I just sat around in the living room, playing Beatles and Dylan and Nick Drake songs,” he says), but this was his first effort at songwriting. He was successful, to say the least.


Radin played his new song, “Winter,” for his old college friends, singer/songriter Cary Brothers (whose single “Blue Eyes” was a standout on the earthy “Garden State” film soundtrack), and actor-director Zach Braff (star of the TV show “Scrubs,” and writer/director/star of “Garden State.”) They thought he should pursue a career in music.


It was a giant leap, but to Radin — who reports that he had previously only sung in the shower, or the car — it felt right.


“They were the first two people, besides my Mom, who told me that I should be doing this, but I trusted them, because they’re both so talented, and they’re not my Mom,” he laughs.


“They encouraged me to record, and it was barebones recording. We just went into Cary’s bedroom, turned on his computer, and I started to play.”




TV connection




He didn’t know it then, but that low-tech, in-home recording session would eventually would lead to an EP, several TV and movie soundtrack credits (including the soon-to-be-released “The Last Kiss,” starring Braff and Rachel Bilson, and “Catch and Release,” starring Jennifer Garner, to be released later this year) and a major recording contract with Columbia Records, which this month released Radin’s first full CD, “We Were Here.”


Radin will perform songs from this CD at the Chameleon Club Saturday, Aug. 26, where he will open for Anna Nalick, best known for the ubiquitous 2005 hit “Breathe. (2 AM).” Radin’s new career took momentum when Braff gave a recording of “Winter” to Bill Lawrence, the producer of NBC’s “Scrubs.” After an episode featuring the song was aired, Radin says, “I just got flooded with emails from people asking where they could find the music. But I didn’t have any other music.” He knew he had to come up with new material, fast.


Fortunately or unfortunately, that was no problem, because as his personal life grew darker, he had much inspiration to draw from. “The relationship just kept getting worse and worse, and the songs kept coming,” he explains. “What poured out when I wrote music was completely honest. I was just writing exactly what I was going through.”


He combines that emotional honesty with his screenwriter’s sense of storytelling and a hushed, whisper-like delivery, creating a style that is strikingly intimate — understated, and yet intense.


Radin says that he developed his singing style out of necessity, rather than design. “I had this neighbor in New York who would bang on the wall and threaten to call the cops if we made any noise at all. She was brutal!” he says. “I wrote all my songs at night, just kind of sitting in the living room and plucking away at the acoustic guitar and singing along very softly. I guess I just sort of acclimated to the environment.”


And so he sings in conversational tones, accompanied by rippling guitar work, at times accented by the wistful strains of a cello. It’s a gentle, lo-fi sound that has been compared to Paul Simon, Nick Drake and Elliot Smith. Radin says that his album — which was recorded entirely in his bedroom — is a true reflection of his natural musical style.


“I promised myself that when I started doing music, I would not try to commercialize my sound, or change it in some way so that it might sell better. That is the saving grace about these songs. I can’t believe that what just came out — what was honest — is actually selling.”




Channeling the pain




Such openness has its price, however. While he is thankful for his success, he admits that it is challenging to re-experience difficult times in song, and, like all confessional artists who find initial satisfaction in expressing themselves fully, he says that it can be painful to continually mine past heartbreak, months and years after that heartbreak has passed.


“It’s amazing, because this is the first breakup I’ve ever had that I’ve talked about constantly. After every show, and in every interview, I am asked about her, and so, even though I’m over this girl, I’m either talking or singing about her,” he says. “Sometimes when I’m doing interviews, I wonder if [my ex-girlfriend] will read the article. I’m re-living it every day.”


And so, in his two years in the spotlight, Radin says he has learned to protect himself emotionally as he performs. “I think it’s your mind’s natural reaction to grow numb, a bit, when you sing these same songs, night after night. It’s like falling out of a building,” he describes. “You go numb before you hit the ground.”


Still, the feelings he sings about remain intense. Although he relates that his mother has difficulty listening (“She said, ‘I feel so bad for you. This is heartbreaking. How can I hear this?’”), his unabashed emotionality has struck a chord with fans.


“People often approach me after a show to tell me how much the music means to them. Before I started music, I’d never had that kind of response to any art I’d made,” he says. “If you make yourself totally vulnerable and open up, people seem to respond.


“When I first started performing, I just played song after song and never said a word. Now I talk to the people and tell them whatever’s going on in my life. It seems to affect them in a greater way. It’s catharsis every night.” Fortunately for his mother — and his more sensitive fans — his music and anecdotes have recently adopted a more upbeat tone. Two years after the breakup that inspired it all, he reports that he wrote the track “Someone Else’s Life,” for example, after a particularly meaningful first date (reportedly with actor/musician Schuyler Fisk, the daughter of Sissy Spacek, who performs with him on his album).


“After dinner, I went back to my place and pulled out the guitar and I wrote the song in about fifteen minutes. It was crazy,” says Radin, who notes that he usually composes a song in an hour or two. “I’m still with that girl, and the songs are a little happier,” he says with a laugh.


“My mother likes that.”


Tickets for Anna Nalik and Joshua Radin, 7 p.m. Aug. 26, are $13 in advance and $15 the day of the show. Call 299-9684 or log on to www.chameleonclub.net. blog comments powered by Disqus