JOEY NEBULOUS

ON DAYDREAMING, DANIEL DAY LEWIS, AND THEIR NEW ALBUM

Joey Nebulous is the musical project born from the imagination of Chicago artist Joseph Farago. After spending a few years tinkering with the sounds and aesthetics of the band, they released their second full-length project Give Yourself a Kiss for Me this fall. I sat down with Joseph at Star Lounge Coffee Bar in Ukrainian Village to talk about the process of making the album and where he sees Joey Nebulous heading next.

Why don’t we start with the name Joey Nebulous. Where does that come from?
I feel a little embarrassed about it – I didn’t know it was so related to Frankie Cosmos and some people have made that connection that it’s eerily similar. That was not my intention! I wanted something that was like an alternate persona. I thought it was cute, I usually go by Joseph and no one ever called me Joey until I started this. So I thought I would shorten my name and then I just wanted an adjective that went with it…I just came with nebulous and I thought it was sweet, especially if you don’t think about it like in the galactic sense but more as something indistinct or indescribable.

So you are the face of this project, but it’s not just you. Who else is in the group?
It’s had a lot of different iterations. I started it in college, so it started with all my college friends and then we all spread out. So now it’s Margaret McCarthy who plays keys – I know her from school but we only became friends when she moved here. Wilson – we went to rival high schools and we didn’t know each other until we started playing music – he plays bass. And then Logan..they play drums.

How long have you been recording as Joey Nebulous?
I started my junior year of college, so this is the fourth year. But it’s the first year it’s really felt like a fully-formed band, which is sick.

Your music is distinctive for the falsetto vocal style – how did you develop that or what about that style of singing appealed to you?
I think one half of it was that whenever I would sing without falsetto, I couldn’t distinguish a melody and I thought “Why would someone want to hear my voice?” But also I’m a huge R&B fan - I had a 90s R&B radio show in college - and I was so inspired by Maxwell and D’Angelo and I obviously can’t sing like them but I was so inspired by those high notes. So I was practicing the Mariah Carey method of trying to sing higher and higher notes each time. I like being able to manipulate my voice and make it sound different than what people would expect.

I don’t know if it’s the falsetto but some of the songs on this record seem like they have a childlike POV. Is that something I’m reading into it or is that intentional?
I started Joey as something I wanted to do to make simplistic songs because a lot of times queer people aren’t allowed the daydreaming that people do when they’re a teenager. I saw myself getting into college and thinking “I have crushes, I have dreams for the future with people” and things I didn’t feel comfortable sharing with friends and family when I was a teen. A lot of times queer people are robbed of that. It’s like “These are funny cute things I think about on a day to day basis.” I want a safe space for queer people where they can daydream.

How do you feel like you’ve grown as an artist since starting Joey Nebulous?
I have more of an ear for arrangements. I think more about how things are produced and arranged. The songwriting may have evolved too, but mostly it’s an ear for extra elements and auxiliary percussion and every part fitting in – I feel really strong in my ability to lead a band now which is exciting for me.

Other than what you said about daydreaming is there any other theme or message with the album, especially relating to the title Give Yourself a Kiss for Me?
I was thinking about naming it Gay People Live Forever which I thought was so funny. But Nick - the person on the cover with me - was like nah, so I pocketed that to use later. The title is just…it’s a love letter to queers and being kind to yourself and letting yourself have random mundane dreams and daydreams. There’s stuff about a random DILF at the coffee shop or crushing on the weather guy…I wanted to create room for stuff that cishet people may take for granted, but stuff that I’ve struggled with as a queer person. The title is just a sweet little mantra, I guess.

The second song is called “New Joey”. What is that song about?
”New Joey” is about handling mental health shit. It’s about being out of school, trying to figure out what I was going to do with myself, how to maintain a healthy brain, reflecting on things that happened in college that I wasn’t happy about…it’s about taking yourself a step at a time. There’s a lyric about making eggs…prepping meals, simplistic stuff like that. That’s the new attitude, focusing on mental health. It’s not like I’m a completely different figure than I was previously, but it’s a new outlook and new way to make sure I’m taking steps one at a time and being good to myself. I’m going to therapy, taking medication and taking care of myself which is a huge contrast from being the scum of the Earth in college, drinking all the time and eating like shit.

Is “Cheerleader Mom” about your mom?
Kinda. I feel like I just get really random inspiration and I’m somebody who likes to adlib and go nuts and say whatever. Me and Nick - when they were in the band  - we were just shooting the shit and saying nutty things and they said “Hey mom, don’t forget your pom poms!” Which is not on the record but we say it when we perform it live. And I just heard them say it, I wrote it down and went home and wrote that song. initially it was just inspired by this funny phrase but it is kind of a love letter to my mom. She’s such a good mom and I think the lyrics hold true. Another thing is me and my friend have this joke about the specific type of mom who loves their gay kid so much and puts the Pride Flag in their cover photo on Facebook and everything.

Does she listen to your music?
Yeah. I played her “New Joey” and she thought it was so fun! I was like “This is actually about my depression.”

The song “I Wanna Be On Tour”  – was that written before you went on tour this past summer?
Yeah way before. We were on tour this summer and also this past April with Remember Sports which was the best tour I’ve ever been on.

So it lived up to the song?
I was starting to bring Joey into the scene last year and all my friends were all organizing tours and I was like “Damn. What am I doing with my life?” I was really envious. But I think the good thing was that I took those emotions, put them into the art and manifested it. It was some kind of foreshadowing because we got asked to go on this really big tour and we got to play for three-hundred people in New York which is crazy for me. I’m glad I wrote that song and put that out there into the world because it worked! 2020 is gonna be about manifesting more things like that.

What was your favorite tour stop and why?
The first tour I ever went on was when I was twenty. It was the first time Joey Nebulous went on the road and I knew nothing. We went to Harrisonburg, Virginia where James Madison University is. We played at this place Crayola, an old house venue from the 90s, and half the basement was flooded and I saw a dirty thing of marshmallows floating in the water and it just looked like your stereotypical DIY venue. It was so fun. I also loved playing Philadelphia because I think all the bands there are so cool and the label that put out Give Yourself a Kiss for Me (Sleeper Records) is based there.

What is your favorite Daniel Day Lewis movie and was there a specific role that inspired that song on the album?
I hope he hears it someday. I love talking about celebrities and why else would I do music other than to get famous and date celebrities? We played in Buffalo and someone came up to me after like “I need to tell you that Daniel Day Lewis is married and I know so much about him and blah blah blah”. I was like, “Don’t shatter this illusion for me!” Anyway, I love There Will Be Blood but I was not inspired by a role of his, I was inspired by seeing him at the Emmys or Golden Globes or something, and he was all dressed up and cleaned up. I was like “That’s Daniel Day Lewis, he’s fifty, he’s so hot, I wanna look like that someday.” It’s the age old queer question of “Do I wanna be them, or do I wanna fuck them?” Maybe I wanna do both?

How do you see the Joey Nebulous project elevating in the future?
Well, this record took so long and it’s only sixteen minutes. I wanna double the track list. I’m shooting for 20 tracks. I wanna put something out where you don’t blink and miss the whole album. I’m excited for the future and hoping Give Yourself a Kiss for Me spreads so we can have new opportunities when the next record comes along.

“Pride Month” reads to me as an anti-Pride anthem in a way, is that how you see it?
No, I love Pride! But it’s kinda how people feel about New Year’s or their birthday where it’s hyped up and you wanna do all these fun things but it never really lives up. That song was written during a specific point last year where I was struggling with depression and it sucks when there’s a mental split between wanting to go out and have fun but also having a hard time mentally. I was thinking about that lyric “I wanna be where the people are” from The Little Mermaid. It is a Pride anthem to me, because it’s kind of saying just existing as a queer person is a way of celebrating Pride. It’s cool to go out and run around and get fucked up – and I love doing that – but it’s cool to not want to or not be able to do that too. Everyone’s doing enough, you don’t have to be hard on yourself about that.