Album Notes

"Give Love," the first album from the Josh Dion Band, rocks. But it also does so much more than that. This is something else. This is an album that comes from musicians in their early twenties that covers so much ground musically and thematically, it lands on your doorstep as a complete, welcome surprise. It's full of surprises, detours, treats and ear candy that make you wonder how such a fully formed piece of aural conception could come from a producer so inexperienced in the studio. For instance, after a few listenings, maybe with headphones or earbuds, you may notice things like the background vocals in "Make Her My Girl," singing "Do, do, do, do, do do do do" punctuate it with "Don't, don't, don't." There's many more fun moments like that to be found here.


Bass player Will Lee offers this appraisal, "Josh is the hottest new drummer there is. His excitement level, mixed with his ability to keep the groove going, makes him a bright star in the musical universe. As a performer, I dare to say he's practically the Keith Moon of today. Oh wait - there's more - he sings!"

Rounding out the sound that is the Josh Dion Band is bass player Brian Killeen, a former bandmate in the NYC funk band ulu. Most of the guitar work on “Give Love” belongs to 24 year old Dan Hindman, co-writer of "Birdwalker." The main keyboard duties are the province of Pat Firth, who co-wrote "Movin' On." The backing vocals feature the talents of a number of people, but Sarah Versprille, who continues as a member of the band, and Justin Wade are the main backing voices.

This is an indie recording to the core. Josh Dion was given an opportunity to make a record without being bothered with expectations of airplay, target demographics or the industry in general. The result is a fully formed funky meditation on life, love, personal freedom, commitment and responsibility in the world. But you might just like it because it grooves you like nothing you've heard lately.

Drummers who become the lead singer have only a few prominent role models in the pop world. Sure, there's a handful of names that people can name, but only a handful. Josh's inspiration for his future is a name that you don't hear very much in this context: Maurice White. Josh's love for Seventies funk led him to "Earth, Wind and Fire which became my all time favorite group because of their fusion of all different styles of music." Josh enthuses. "All the singers are drummers. Maurice White was originally a session drummer for Chess Records and played with the Ramsey Lewis Trio. Their lyrics are positive and spiritual so it connected me with all these different parts of my life that I had been through. It wasn't just 'sex, drugs and rock and roll', it was 'life is great, love is the answer and we're badass funky dudes.'"