It’s not yet 24 hours since the Browns lost in Pittsburgh to the hated Steelers — a game that saw beloved Cleveland running back Nick Chubb suffer a gruesome-looking, season-ending knee injury — and neither singer-songwriter Joshua Radin or the person on the other end of the phone have come to grips with it all.
“It’s our hometown, you know?” says Radin, calling from Alexandria, Virginia, a stop on a fall tour that on Sept. 26 will see him play the Music Box Supper Club in Cleveland.
“It is what it is. You just come to expect it after a while.”
Radin, whose music has several albums to his credit and who has seen his gentle, heartfelt songs be used in myriad movies and TV shows, grew up in Shaker Heights — before going on to college at Northwestern University outside Chicago and setting in the Los Angeles area — and says Northeast Ohio is a big part of who he is.
“It shaped me as a human being,” he says. “I think the better artists are the ones who figure out who they are as humans.”
It took him a while to figure out exactly what kind of artist he would be. He grew up painting and wanted to do that for a living, he says, before eventual stints as a children’s art teacher and an aspiring screenwriter.
“I didn’t start playing music until I was 30, so it’s not like I come back … and I’ve got this big home audience that kind of watched me develop,” Radin says. “It took me a long time (and) different mediums to figure out which was the best way for me to express myself honestly, and when I picked up a guitar, I started writing songs. That was about 18, 19 years ago, and I’ve been doing it ever since.”
In 2021, Radin released “The Ghost and the Wall,” an album recorded early on in the pandemic when he needed a way to channel his energy while stuck in his Southern California home.
“It was a serious lockdown — everyone took it very seriously,” he says. “None of my friends would even come by — it was all Zoom — and I spent 63 days without seeing a human being in person.
“I can’t complain that much. I had a lovely home and a backyard and, you know, it was, like, the loveliest jail ever, but it’s still lonely.”
He found a collaborator in producer Jonathan Wilson (Father John Misty, Dawes), who, Radin says, has a studio in his home and plays multiple instruments. Digital files were exchanged, and songs were computer-cobbled together.
“It was a very interesting experience and a strange process I never thought I would have ever tried,” he says, “but … that’s the thing about any kind of art: It goes back to cavemen painting on walls — you do with what you got.”
At the same time, he found himself becoming “even more of a consumer during the lockdown period, looking on Amazon all the time and buying all these things that I didn’t necessarily need. And then I was so bored and getting excited by things showing up at my door like it’s Christmas.”
He needed a change, and now, while he still has a hometown, Radin is a man without a home base.
“It’s been about a year and a half — I sold my house in California and I gave away a lot of my stuff. And I’ve just been traveling full-nomad for the last year and a half with a suitcase and a guitar.”
He adds later in the conversation, “I just want to experience things and write about my experiences and meet people and sit in cafes. One of the reasons I spend so much time in Europe is I’m a big cafe-culture type of person. I love it — you know, people watch and have a glass and jot down whatever I’m thinking.”
He wrote songs all over the world.
“And if I finished a song that I really liked and wanted to record it, I found a studio and some musicians to record with. It’s just been so nice. I feel so youthful, you know?”
The result is this year’s “though the world will tell me so,” released as one album on vinyl and digitally as two EPs — after individual song drops.
“I’m finding it’s getting more difficult to release full LPs, that the younger audience tend not to have the attention span that they used to, so I decided to put out a new song every six weeks throughout the year.”
Again, Radin may be best known for his songs being placed in films and shows — more than 200 have, starting with the NBC comedy series “Scrubs” using his “Winter” prominently in a 2004 episode.
What is it about his work that so lends itself to this?
“I think because I write honestly, and they’re basically all journal entries, my songs,” he says. “I try to make myself as vulnerable as possible when I write.
“Also, I think growing up as a painter and (writing) visually … might have lent my songs more to visual media.”
It’s no coincidence “Scrubs” used his work, as his best friend since college is actor and filmmaker Zach Braff was one of its stars at the time.
“Aside from my mom, dad and sister, he’s probably been the biggest proponent of my music — like a friend — and just kept encouraging me,” Radin says.
Once he was more established, Radin earned a fan and friend in actor-turned-talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, and he performed his song “Today” at her wedding to actress Portia de Rossi. He says he isn’t able to connect with her all that often but appreciates what her support has meant for his career.
His philanthropic endeavors have included work with the organizations Little Kids Rock and North Shore Animal League America.
“When it comes to charitable work,” he says, “I love giving my time to underprivileged kids or underprivileged animals. I feel like you’ve got to make a choice at some point — there are so many cool charities and so many worthy causes.”
The happy nomad has a day off before the Music Box show, so he plans to come into town early to spend time with family — time that will include hitting some restaurants with his sister who often sends him photos of creations from Cleveland’s culinary scene.
“Like, this is not how it was when I was growing up,” he says.
As for the show, fans can expect a set representing his whole career.
“I’m such a music fan myself, and growing up in Cleveland and then in college in Chicago and then living in New York, all I did was go to concerts,” Radin says. “As a fan, it was always such a bummer when I’d go see a band or an artist and they would just play their entire new album, and I was like, ‘But I’ve been a fan for such a long time (and want to hear older songs).” It’s such an eye-roll moment.”
And while he’s played solo for portions of shows in the past, these shows are just him and a guitar.
“I’ve never done … a whole hour and a half of just standing up there,” he says. “(There is) no one to fall back on — no other guitar player, piano player, drummer. I wanted to face this fear. And so far, the response from the audience has been incredible.
“I was thinking, insecurely, I couldn’t’ (maintain) the attention of an audience that long with an acoustic guitar and songs and stories,” he continues. “A lot of fans after the show have said it’s their favorite way to see me.”
He’s played the Music Box before, he says, and while he also loved playing the Beachland Ballroom, on the city’s East Side, the former is his mom’s favorite venue, so his hands were tied.
She’s another reason fans may want to make time for the show.
“They might get to take home some of my mom’s homemade mac ’n’ cheese — if I don’t eat it all. It is legendary.”
Joshua Radin
Where: Music Box Supper Club, 1148 Main Ave., Cleveland
When: 7:30 p.m. Sept. 26.
Tickets: $40 in advance, $50 day of show.
Info: 216-242-1250 or MusicBoxCle.com.
