Josh Queen

When a chance encounter with a homeless man in a Denver parking lot left singer-songwriter Josh Queen thinking about how quickly people judge one another, a song was in the making.

There comes a time in every songwriter’s life where the stories songs tell move from personal experiences to the things happening in the world around them. For this 28-year old songwriter, leaving the comforts of home in the Southeast was a catalyst for that change. The result is an introspective catalog of songs that examines the every day interactions people share and a reinvigorated passion for connecting with his audience.

Josh’s love for music began at the ripe age of 12 in Aiken, SC, when he picked up his first guitar and taught himself how to play. After graduating from Clemson University, where he formed the band Upstart Jackson, Josh headed to Charlotte, North Carolina. While there, he established himself as one of the Queen City’s most promising musicians, touring the Southeast with his band and recording two EPs, This Is Me Movin’ On and A Life Less Deceiving. “Maybe,” a single from the latter record, won Josh an Honorable Mention in the 2004 Billboard World Song Contest and was included on Alternative Addiction’s Vol. 6 compilation disc.

In 2006, Josh relocated to Denver to chase his dream of being a songwriter. There, he has found his creative home, a new perspective on the world, and himself.

“Sometimes we need to be reminded that life is all about what we give back to each other,” Josh says. “It’s our struggles with those connections in life that make us who we are and shape the world around us.”

Those connections are rife in nearly every one of Josh’s songs, from the heartbreak of a loved one’s illness in “Warm,” the excitement of transformation in “Big Escape,” or the turmoil of a friend’s divorce in “Sideways.” And then, there’s the palpable guilt of “Strange Alibis,” the chronicle of Josh’s missed connection with that homeless man. Throughout, his songs capture the emotion and delicacy that play themselves out in life while the world continues to spin.

And while it spins, Josh writes.