September 20 ------ The trauma, the sadness, the pain—Josh Cullen could have chosen to just keep them all to himself. That way, he wouldn’t have to subject himself to the agony of revisiting them. But as difficult as it was to comb through his childhood memories and career hardships, he felt that putting them in an album could lead to newfound lessons, or at the very least, help him make sense of the pieces of his past that slip through the cracks every so often.
From those old wounds arose “Lost & Found” (Sony Music Philippines), Josh’s debut solo album that charts his journey toward redemption and inner truth amid the sense of loss that had long pervaded his life. “I’m super satisfied that people will finally get to hear my stories. The reason I mustered the courage to share them is because I want people to believe in themselves, too. For me, this was a big move,” the singer-songwriter and SB19 member told the Inquirer in a one-on-one interview. The angst and frustration is immediately palpable in the opening track, “1999,” whose guttural, staccato-like chorus had Josh sounding like he was singing through gritted teeth. The track sets the tone for the rest of the album. While better known as a rapper in SB19, “Lost & Found” marks Josh’s reconnection to his rock, emo and pop-punk roots.
The 30-year-old knew that confronting the past would be the hardest part of the creative process. In fact, he thought he would only be able to come up with one song. But before he knew it, he had unwittingly opened the floodgates. “When I remember the trauma, the experiences, the struggles … the songs started to come out naturally. And while I was doing the music and lyrics, I thought, ‘OK, so this is what the process is like,’” Josh related. “Writing came easy, but facing my emotions at the beginning was anything but.”
Source: inquirer.net
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