On 2 November 2008, the New York Times Magazine headlined “Questions for James K. Galbraith: The Populist,” which was an “Interview by Deborah Solomon” of the prominent liberal economist and son of John Kenneth Galbraith. She asked him, “There are at least 15,000 professional economists in this country, and you’re saying only two or three of them foresaw the mortgage crisis” which had brought on the second Great Depression?

He answered: “Ten or twelve would be closer than two or three.”

She very appropriately followed up immediately with “What does this say about the field of economics, which claims to be a science?”

He didn’t answer by straight-out saying that economics isn’t any more of a science than physics was before Galileo, or than biology was before Darwin. He didn’t proceed to explain that the very idea of a Nobel Prize in Economics was based upon a lie which alleged that economics was the first field to become scientific within all of the “social sciences,” when, in fact, there weren’t yet any social sciences, none yet at all. But he came close to admitting these things, when he said: “It’s an enormous blot on the reputation of the profession. There are thousands of economists. Most of them teach. And most of them teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless.” His term “useless” was a euphemism for false. His term “blot” was a euphemism for “nullification.”

On 9 January 2009, economist Jeff Madrick headlined at The Daily Beast, “How the Entire Economics Profession Failed,” and he opened:

At the annual meeting of American Economists, most everyone refused to admit their failures to prepare or warn about the second worst crisis of the century.

I could find no shame in the halls of the San Francisco Hilton, the location at the annual meeting of American economists. Mainstream economists from major universities dominate the meetings, and some of them are the anointed cream of the crop, including former Clinton, Bush and even Reagan advisers.

There was no session on the schedule about how the vast majority of economists should deal with their failure to anticipate or even seriously warn about the possibility that the second worst economic crisis of the last hundred years was imminent.

I heard no calls to reform educational curricula because of a crisis so threatening and surprising that it undermines, at least if the academicians were honest, the key assumptions of the economic theory currently being taught. …

I found no one fundamentally changing his or her mind about the value of economics, economists, or their work.”

He observed a scandalous profession of quacks who are satisfied to remain quacks. The public possesses faith in them because it possesses faith in the “invisible hand” of God, and everyone is taught to believe in that from the crib. In no way is it science.

In a science, when facts prove that the theory is false, the theory gets replaced, it’s no longer taught. In a scholarly field, however, that’s not so — proven-false theory continues being taught. In economics, the proven-false theory continued being taught, and still continues today to be taught. This demonstrates that economics is still a religion or some other type of philosophy, not yet any sort of science.

Mankind is still coming out of the Dark Ages. The Bible is still being viewed as history, not as myth (which it is), not as some sort of religious or even political propaganda. It makes a difference — a huge difference: the difference between truth and falsehood.

The Dutch economist Dirk J. Bezemer, at Groningen University, posted on 16 June 2009 a soon-classic paper, “‘No One Saw This Coming’: Understanding Financial Crisis Through Accounting Models,” in which he surveyed the work of 12 economists who did see it (the economic collapse of 2008) coming; and he found there that they had all used accounting or “Flow of Funds” models, instead of the standard microeconomic theory. (In other words: they accounted for, instead of ignored, debts.) From 2005 through 2007, these accounting-based economists had published specific and accurate predictions of what would happen: Dean Baker, Wynne Godley, Fred Harrison, Michael Hudson, Eric Janszen, Stephen (“Steve”) Keen, Jakob B. Madsen, Jens K. Sorensen, Kurt Richebaecher, Nouriel Roubini, Peter Schiff, and Robert Shiller.

He should have added several others. Paul Krugman, wrote a NYT column on 12 August 2005 headlined “Safe as Houses” and he said “Houses aren’t safe at all” and that they would likely decline in price. On 25 August 2006, he bannered “Housing Gets Ugly” and concluded “It’s hard to see how we can avoid a serious slowdown.” Bezemer should also have included Merrill Lynch’s Chief North American Economist, David A. Rosenberg, whose The Market Economist article “Rosie’s Housing Call August 2004” on 6 August 2004 already concluded, “The housing sector has entered a ‘bubble’ phase,” and who presented a series of graphs showing it. Bezemer should also have included Satyajit Das, about whom TheStreet had headlined on 21 September 21 2007, “The Credit Crisis Could Be Just Beginning.” He should certainly have included Ann Pettifor, whose 2003 The Real World Economic Outlook, and her masterpiece the 2006 The Coming First World Debt Crisis, predicted exactly what happened and why. Her next book, the 2009 The Production of Money: How to Break the Power of Bankers, was almost a masterpiece, but it failed to present any alternative to the existing microeconomic theory — as if microeconomic theory isn’t a necessary part of economic theory. Another great economist he should have mentioned was Charles Hugh Smith, who had been accurately predicting since at least 2005 the sequence of events that culminated in the 2008 collapse. And Bezemer should especially have listed the BIS’s chief economist, William White, regarding whom Germany’s Spiegel headlined on 8 July 2009, “Global Banking Economist Warned of Coming Crisis.” (It is about but doesn’t mention nor link to https://www.bis.org/publ/work147.pdf.) White had been at war against the policies of America’s Fed chief Alan Greenspan ever since 1998, and especially since 2003, but the world’s aristocrats muzzled White’s view and promoted Greenspan’s instead. (The economics profession have always been propagandists for the super-rich.) Bezemer should also have listed Charles R. Morris, who in 2007 told his publisher Peter Osnos that the crash would start in Summer 2008, which was basically correct. Moreover, James K. Galbraith had written for years saying that a demand-led depression would result, such as in his American Prospect “How the Economists Got It Wrong,” 30 November 2002; and “Bankers Versus Base,” 15 April 2004, and culminating finally in his 2008 The Predator State, which blamed the aristocracy in the strongest possible terms for the maelstrom to come. Bezemer should also have listed Barry Ritholtz, who, in his “Recession Predictor,” on 18 August 2005, noted the optimistic view of establishment economists and then said, “I disagree … due to Psychology of consumers.” He noted “consumer debt, not as a percentage of GDP, but relative to net asset wealth,” and also declining “median personal income,” as pointing toward a crash from this mounting debt-overload. Then, on 31 May 2006, he headlined “Recent Housing Data: Charts & Analysis,” and opened: “It has long been our view that Real Estate is the prime driver of this economy, and its eventual cooling will be a major crimp in GDP, durable goods, and consumer spending.” Bezemer should also have listed both Paul Kasriel and Asha Bangalore at Northern Trust. Kasriel headlined on 22 May 2007, “US Economy May Wake Up Without Consumers’ Prodding?” and said it wouldn’t happen – and consumers were too much in debt. Then on 8 August 2007, he bannered: “US Economic Growth in Domestic Final Demand,” and said that “the housing recession is … spreading to other parts of the economy.” On 25 May 2006, Bangalore headlined “Housing Market Is Cooling Down, No Doubts About It.” and that was one of two Asha Bangalore articles which were central to Ritholtz’s 31 May 2006 article showing that all of the main indicators pointed to a plunge in house-prices that had started in March 2005; so, by May 2006, it was already clear from the relevant data, that a huge economic crash was comning soon. Another whom Bezemer should have listed was L. Randall Wray, whose 2005 Levy Economics Institute article, “The Ownership Society: Social Security Is Only the Beginning” asserted that it was being published “at the peak of what appears to be a real estate bubble.” Bezemer should also have listed Paul B. Farrell, columnist at marketwatch.com, who saw practically all the correct signs, in his 26 June 2005 “Global Megabubble? You Decide. Real Estate Is Only Tip of Iceberg; or Is It?”; and his 17 July 2005 “Best Strategies to Beat the Megabubble: Real Estate Bubble Could Trigger Global Economic Meltdown”; and his 9 January 2006 “Meltdown in 2006? Cast Your Vote”; and 15 May 2006 “Party Time (Until Real Estate Collapses)”; and his 21 August 2006 “Tipping Point Pops Bubble, Triggers Bear: Ten Warnings the Economy, Markets Have Pushed into Danger Zone”; and his 30 July 2007 “You Pick: Which of 20 Tipping Points Ignites Long Bear Market?” Farrell’s commentaries also highlighted the same reform-recommendations that most of the others did, such as Baker, Keen, Pettifor, Galbraith, Ritholtz, and Wray; such as break up the mega-banks, and stiffen regulation of financial institutions. However, the vast majority of academically respected economists disagreed with all of this and were wildly wrong in their predictions, and in their analyses. The Nobel Committee should have withdrawn their previous awards in economics to still-practicing economists (except to Krugman who did win a Nobel) and re-assigned them to these 25 economists, who showed that they had really deserved it.

And there was another: economicpredictions.org tracked four economists who predicted correctly the 2008 crash: Dean Baker, Nouriel Roubini, Peter Schiff, and Med Jones, the latter of whom had actually the best overall record regarding the predictions that were tracked there.

And still others should also be on the list: for example, Joe Weisenthal at Business Insider headlined on 21 November 2012, “The Genius Who Invented Economics Blogging Reveals How He Got Everything Right And What’s Coming Next” and he interviewed Bill McBride, who had started his calculated riskblog in January 2005. So I looked in the archives there at December 2005, and noticed December 28th, “Looking Forward: 2006 Top Economic Stories.” He started there with four trends that he expected everyone to think of, and then listed another five that weren’t so easy, including “Housing Slowdown. In my opinion, the Housing Bubble was the top economic story of 2005, but I expect the slowdown to be a form of Chinese water torture. Sales for both existing and new homes will probably fall next year from the records set in 2005. And median prices will probably increase slightly, with declines in the more ‘heated markets.’” McBride also had predicted that the economic rebound would start in 2009, and he was now, in 2012, predicting a strong 2013. Probably Joe Weisenthal was right in calling McBride a “Genius.”

And also, Mike Whitney at InformationClearinghouse.info and other sites, headlined on 20 November 2006, “Housing Bubble Smack-Down,” and he nailed the credit-boom and Fed easy-money policy as the cause of the housing bubble and the source of an imminent crash.

Furthermore, Ian Welsh headlined on 28 November 2007, “Looking Forward At the Consequences of This Bubble Bursting,” and listed 10 features of the crash to come, of which 7 actually happened.

In addition, Gail Tverberg, an actuary, headlined on 9 January 2008 “Peak Oil and the Financial Markets: A Forecast for 2008,” and provided the most detailed of all the prescient descriptions of the collapse that would happen that year.

Furthermore, Gary Shilling’s January 2007 Insight newsletter listed “12 investment themes” which described perfectly what subsequently happened, starting with “The housing bubble has burst.”

And the individual investing blogger Jesse Colombo started noticing the housing bubble even as early as 6 September 2004, blogging at his stock-market-crash.net “The Housing Bubble” and documenting that it would happen (“Here is the evidence that we are in a massive housing bubble:”) and what the economic impact was going to be. Then on 7 February 2006 he headlined “The Coming Crash!” and said “Based on today’s overvalued housing prices, a 20 percent crash is certainly in the cards.”

Also: Stephanie Pomboy of MacroMavens issued an analysis and appropriate graphs on 7 December 2007, headlined “When Animals Attack” and predicting imminently a huge economic crash.

In alphabetical order, they are: Dean Baker, Asha Bangalore, Jesse Colombo, Satyajit Das, Paul B. Farrell, James K. Galbraith, Wynne Godley, Fred Harrison, Michael Hudson, Eric Janszen, Med Jones, Paul Kasriel, Steve Keen, Paul Krugman, Jakob B. Madsen, Bill McBride, Charles R. Morris, Ann Pettifor, Stehanie Pomboy, Kurt Richebaeker, Barry Ritholtz, David A. Rosenberg, Nouriel Roubini, Peter Schiff, Robert Shiller, Gary Shilling, Charles Hugh Smith, Jens K. Sorensen, Gail Tverberg, Ian Welsh, William White, Mike Whitney, L. Randall Wray.

Thus, at least 33 economists were contenders as having been worth their salt as economic professionals. One can say that only 33 economists predicted the 2008 collapse, or that only 33 economists predicted accurately or reasonably accurately the collapse. However, some of those 33 were’t actually professional economists. So, some of the world’s 33 best economists aren’t even professional economists, as accepted in that rotten profession.

So, the few honest and open-eyed economists (these 33, at least) tried to warn the world. Did the economics profession honor them for their having foretold the 2008 collapse? Did President Barack Obama hire them, and fire the incompetents he had previously hired for his Council of Economic Advisers? Did the Nobel Committee acknowledge that it had given Nobel Economics Prizes to the wrong people, including people such as the conservative Milton Friedman whose works were instrumental in causing the 2008 crash? Also complicit in causing the 2008 crash was the multiple-award-winning liberal economist Lawrence Summers, who largely agreed with Friedman but was nonetheless called a liberal. Evidently, the world was too corrupt for any of these 33 to reach such heights of power or of authority. Like Galbraith had said at the close of his 2002 “How the Economists Got It Wrong“: “Being right doesn’t count for much in this club.” If anything, being right means being excluded from such posts. In an authentically scientific field, the performance of one’s predictions (their accuracy) is the chief (if not SOLE) determinant of one’s reputation and honor amongst the profession, but that’s actually not the way things yet are in any of the social “sciences,” including economics; they’re all just witch-doctory, not yet real science. The fraudulence of these fields is just ghastly. In fact, as Steve Keen scandalously noted in Chapter 7 of his 2001 Debunking Economics: “As this book shows, economics [theory] is replete with logical inconsistencies.” In any science, illogic is the surest sign of non-science, but it is common and accepted in the social ‘sciences’, including economics. The economics profession itself is garbage, a bad joke, instead of any science at all.

These 33 were actually only candidates for being scientific economists, but I have found the predictions of some of them to have been very wrong on some subsequent matters of economic performance. For example, the best-known of the 33, Paul Krugman, is a “military Keynesian” — a liberal neoconservative (and military Keynesianism is empirically VERY discredited: false worldwide, and false even in the country that champions it, the U.S.) — and he is unfavorable toward the poor, and favorable toward the rich; so, he is acceptable to the Establishment.) Perhaps a few of these 33 economists (perhaps half of whom aren’t even members of the economics profession) ARE scientific (in their underlying economic beliefs — their operating economic theory) if a scientific economics means that it’s based upon a scientific theory of economics — a theory that is derived not from any opinions but only from the relevant empirical data. Although virtually all of the 33 are basically some sort of Keynesian, even that (Keynes’s theory) isn’t a full-fledged theory of economics (it has many vagaries, and it has no microeconomics). The economics profession is still a field of philosophy, instead of a field of science.

The last chapter of my America’s Empire of Evil presents what I believe to be the first-ever scientific theory of economics, a theory that replaces all of microeconomic theory (including a micro that’s integrated with its macro) and is consistent with Keynes in macroeconomic theory; and all of which theory is derived and documented from only the relevant empirical economic data — NOT from anyone’s opinions. The economics profession think that replacing existing economic theory isn’t necessary after the crash of 2008, but I think it clearly IS necessary (because — as that chapter of my book shows — all of the relevant empirical economic data CONTRADICT the existing economic theory, ESPECIALLY the existing microeconomic theory).

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Eric Zuesse.

These claims come amid heightened communal tensions within India following the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir, on April 22, in which at least 26 were killed. Since then, there have been multiple reports of targeted ‘retaliatory’ attacks against Muslims, particularly Kashmiris, in various parts of the country. On social media, accounts that blatantly share pro-Hindu or pro-Pakistan content and misinformation have also been on the rise.

READ: Pahalgam and after: Tracking ‘retributive’ hate crimes against minorities across India

On April 27, X user Julia Kendrick (@JuKrick) shared a clip showing the Welsh church on fire, claiming that two Indian immigrants (Raghav Patel & Rahul Kumar) were behind the attack. This user also said, “Christianity is under attack in the UK”. At the time this article was written, the X post had over 389,000 views and was reshared over 3,200 times. (Archive)

Another X account, @seriousfunnyguy, also shared a clip of the burning church and claimed that two Pakistani nationals were responsible for it. The user also insinuated that cultural plurality was inevitably resulting in the destruction of locals’ culture. It said, “… they are destroying your culture and your religion for Sharia!”

At the time of writing this, the post has more than 106,000 views and was reshared over 15,000 times. (Archive)

You welcomed them with open arms in the name of Multiculturalism, they are destroying your culture and your religion for Sharia!

Wales Church burnt down by 2 Pakistani nationals

pic.twitter.com/Swl1rzsby4

— SUDHIR (@seriousfunnyguy) April 27, 2025

Several other X users shared these claims, including Shefali Vaidya (@ShefVaidya), whose posts amplifying communal misinformation we have often flagged.

Fact Check

A simple keyword search led us to several local news reports that said two teenage boys suspected of causing the fire were arrested. A report by Wales Online said that a 14-year-old boy from the Sandfields area and a 15-year-old boy from Bryn were arrested by South Wales Police on suspicion of arson. Both localities fall within Neath Port Talbot in Wales. The identity of the boys, including their full names or ethnicities, was not disclosed, likely because they are minors.

We then checked the official social media handles associated with South Wales Police for an official statement on the incident. On April 28, they shared an update on the case, which said that two teens from the Port Talbot area were arrested on suspicion of arson. It further added, “Other rumours circulating online are false and inflammatory, and we urge people not to share such claims.”

Two teenagers from the #PortTalbot area have been arrested on suspicion of arson following a fire at a chapel in the town earlier this week.

Other rumours circulating online are false and inflammatory and we urge people not to share such claims. https://t.co/3d2lOmbeVj pic.twitter.com/MLcVT8maEh

— South Wales Police (@swpolice) April 27, 2025

Alt News also reached out to South Wales Police for further clarification on the teens’ identities. In an email response, a spokesperson for the police confirmed there was “no link to India or Pakistan at all.” They further stated that the rumours circulating on social media over the weekend are “completely false,” and that the two teenagers are local residents from Neath Port Talbot.

Thus, the above findings make it amply clear that the viral posts claiming that Indian or Pakistani immigrants were behind the fire at the historic Welsh chapel are baseless.

The post Welsh church fire has no Indian or Pakistani links, South Wales Police rubbishes social media claims appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

Uhh… [laughs]

Or do you think it’s fine to make your art and if you’re doing an interview or if a fan comes up to you with questions, do you think it’s okay to just say “I don’t really know” when they ask you about your songs?

I feel like that’s probably okay to do. That’s what I hope, anyway, because that’s how I feel about explaining my music. I could spin up a bunch of stuff to say if someone wanted me to talk about it but it’s ultimately not very relevant. I find artist’s statements about things to be kind of silly in general. Or that they’re often humorous, unintentionally. When people have some kind of ready-made thesis statement about their music or about their artwork, it’s not necessarily very helpful for relating to the music or to the art. It’s kind of like you’re trying to sell cars or something. You’re trying to do an elevator pitch as if you could meet Bill Gates and be able to explain in thirty seconds or less why he should start a foundation in your name.

Some people are good at that and it kind of freaks me out. Can you tell me more about the cover art for the new album? It’s much different than your other album covers.

I guess I had this attitude about music that I wanted to just have fun with it rather than continue to refine and optimize my brand and continue down this road of having handwritten cursive covers. I like those covers but I wanted to do something unexpected. I sort of didn’t give a shit anymore, in the sense that I was not concerned about upsetting somebody or destroying my career, so I figured that making a cover that was unexpected and silly would be fun for me. And maybe for people that like my music, they would be taken aback but that would be productive in some way for them. They could listen to the music with a fresh perspective. Laura Callier, who did the cover, and I had been talking about these bootleg action movie posters that are illustrated. You’ll see a Die Hard action movie poster for the Ghanaian market and it’s this hand-illustrated thing with a muscly Bruce Willis and bad-looking explosions and there’s something really interesting and funny about them. I think it’s good because on its face it’s very silly and funny and it catches your eye, I would hope. But then the album invites the listener to see the sincere aspects of it as well.

I think the cover does exactly what you’re saying. It helps you get in the right frame of mind when you sit down to listen to the album. But then the silliness is kind of subverted.

I like when things are more sincere than you think they are at first glance. Rather than the other way around. To capture sincerity, to guide the listener in a proper way, it’s a tricky thing to do because there’s an aesthetic of sincerity that exists and that has been developed over the years.

When I first started releasing music with Majical Cloudz, the first album cover was just the text and it was painted. And that was an attempt at subverting the expectations of an album cover as I saw it at the time, in my world, and to present something that felt more sincere. When you looked at the cover you’d feel like “Oh this is raw, I’m having access to something that is not polished.’ But over time that aesthetic became codified in a way. Doing the muscle man illustration album cover is something that AI wouldn’t do necessarily, that a boutique branding firm wouldn’t come up with. And so in doing so, it communicates my humanity, to some extent. The listener can see it and be like, ‘He has a sense of humor. That’s a funny image.’ But also, it’s a human image, it’s not a graphic design thing. I think that was important for me as well.

I feel like with Majical Cloudz, the idea of sincerity was something that got kind of attached to that project. I don’t know if you felt that way. Your shows were so intimate, and seemed to be about genuinely forming a connection with the audience, but did that make you feel uncomfortable, having that become almost branded on you?

There’s always going to be a boiled down version of what your thing is, of what they describe it to be. And I felt that that was as good as any because I felt like it did capture my intent behind making the music. I was able to do that for a few years and then I think it contributed to me burning out in a big way because it’s a tough thing to do, emotionally or mentally. When I was young I didn’t really have any boundaries in my life and I had a lot of energy to give to the music but it’s not a very sustainable expenditure of energy. Which is fine. I’m happy with what it was. It was a tough thing to sustain, like other types of music tend to be too. Bands that give a lot of energy and are very sincere tend to not last very long because you just run out of gas doing that sort of thing.

Was the song “Twenty Seven” a response to all of that? Did you ever want what the narrator of that song wants, your “face on all the magazines,” things like that?

Did I ever want that?

Yeah.

Oh yeah, of course. It’s all autobiographical. [laughs]

I like that song a lot. It’s really honest. What’s the “miracle” you’re referencing in that song when you say “hallelujah for the miracle”?

The miracle of life, of existing in this one way train of life. Where you just grow through time. The miracle of change and time. I was all of these different people. My very identity is this ever-changing thing and I’m constantly learning and in awe of life and over time it keeps on developing but no matter where you are at the time, like in the song, “Oh, when I turn twenty-seven then I’ll have it all figured out,’ but of course you never do.

How do you feel about wasting time? I had a bad start to the day yesterday because I didn’t know how I was going to fill my day. It’s so easy to waste hours on your phone, looking at Instagram reels and trailers for TV shows. And then you see other people online “not” wasting time, being productive.

It’s easy to think that other people are doing more than you are, artistically, or that they’re somehow wasting less time. Yeah, I worry about wasting time but then I enjoy wasting time. I sometimes wonder about how to think about wasting time. What is valuable time spent in the context of a short life?

I’ve been having these heart issues over the last few weeks that I’ve been going to the doctor about repeatedly, so I’m like, I could just die of a heart attack next month, and what does it mean to use your time wisely vs. to have wasted your time? Making art is time well spent in the sense that it’s something that can reach out and touch people and that people can relate to even after you’re gone. Ultimately, I think that that’s the crux of life, it’s love.

It sounds like a corny thing to say but when you really get down to it, and you’re in these situations that put you into this mindset where you suddenly don’t care about all these things you used to care about in your life, but you care about other people, and you care about love, you care about being loved by people, you care about showing people that you love them, and connecting with them. With art, you can do that with people and you don’t even know it. Connecting with people even when you’re not around to see it, that’s a good thing.

Do you read reviews of your work?

Yeah, I’ll read reviews. It’ll be rare to read a review and feel like “Okay, this person really did it justice and there are things that they said that are critical that I actually agree with, like oh this is good work.” Oftentimes it’ll be like, they listened to the album a couple times and then they wrote something.

I’m looking now at a review of one of your albums, the little one-sentence synopsis of the album. It says the album sets your voice free to “preen, wander, and soar.”

To preen, wander, and soar. Fuck off! Shut the fuck up. [laughs] In that review, I still remember, it was like, “Devon sings as the strings crescendo and then he hits a fucking bum note,” or something like that. “He hits a flat note.” And then I listened to the song, and that didn’t happen.

I think it’s a dangerous part of the whole reviewing/criticism game. It’s not just someone sitting down to write the most accurate, thorough critique of a work of art. It also becomes about the critic and they want (or need) to make it interesting for themselves. They need the review to be its own work of art.

Yeah, for my metaphor to work, the strings need to soar and he needs to belt out a bum note. That’s my metaphor for this album. Cool, but that didn’t happen so…what are you doing? With [Dream Songs] in particular, it took me so long to make that and it was a matter of life and death for me. I was so shattered as I was making that music. I was making these demos and I didn’t know what I was doing because I had ended Majical Cloudz and I was so lost, so unconfident, I felt horrible, and I felt incapable of pulling myself out of this place where I was so depressed and I was so hopeless, and I had sent Austin [Tufts] some of my music and he was like “This is awesome, man, if you want any help with working on it…” And so I ended up making [Dream Songs] with him because I couldn’t have done it on my own.

It was such a troubled time in my life. It took so much effort, and so much energy. It was so risky for me, it was so scary to put out that album, and then this [reviewer] gets the record and they sit down at their desk in One World Trade Center and they just piss out this review and they say that I hit a fucking bum note, and it’s like “Okay, I’m putting the fucking gun in my mouth, you piece of shit.” [laughs]

It reminds me of when I was in college writing papers for literature classes. Like, what useful thing am I going to say about this work of art? It can all feel a little bit forced. What frustrates you most about the music industry?

It’s this industry that’s premised on intimate expression through music, which is one of the most moving, intimate mediums of art. It’s not intellectual, it goes straight to your soul. It’s also a medium that appeals to young people. Music meant the most to me when I was coming of age, figuring out who I was. Music meant everything, it helped me process my life and my emotions. I see it as a sacred thing. It’s a spiritual practice. It connects to people in their soul and in their heart. But then, you need to sell it. Not only do you need to sell it, but there are people who need to get fucking rich off this shit. They need to squeeze out every penny. I think that that’s not a good combination.

You recently got a job as a journalist for a small local newspaper. Tell me about that. Has it been creatively fulfilling?

It’s been really good because it’s an excuse to write very regularly and I hadn’t really had that before. Even if it’s not creative writing, it’s still writing, and it developed my confidence and brought me out of a time in my life when I was confused as to what to do with myself. I wanted something other than music to put my attention on, something where somebody was telling me what to do and I could learn something that I had never done before. It’s nice to have a different focus so that when I do think about music, it’s fresh and I’m not obsessing over it and it’s not the source of all these anxieties, and my identity isn’t premised on music stuff.

Is being in a relationship with another musician a positive thing for you?

I’ve never been in a relationship with somebody who isn’t also an artist, or a musician, or a writer. So I have no idea what the alternative is like. Being in a relationship with my fiancé Nika is good. It’s inspiring. It can be a lonely thing to make art. It’s easy to lose confidence in yourself and to feel like, “What the fuck am I doing?” So it’s nice to be in a relationship with somebody who understands that and also does it. There’s a sense of solidarity and a sense of understanding something that’s so important to who you are. If you’re a writer or a musician and your partner doesn’t understand that part of you, that’s huge. That’s a big problem. And it’s nice to be encouraged by seeing your partner make something and being like, “Oh, this is awesome, I want to make something too.” I want to make something that will impress my partner who isn’t so easy to impress, she’s not somebody who knows nothing about music and is like “Oh you made a song! good for you!” She’s somebody whose taste I respect and if I can make something that she likes then that’s really good.

Has Nika ever called you out and said you need to go deeper into a song, or that a song feels half baked?

Oh yeah, for sure [laughs]. She’ll always be supportive but it’ll be like, “I don’t know about this…” That’s when I need to trust my gut because sometimes it’ll be something that I don’t like either. But sometimes it’ll be something that I love and she’ll be like “I don’t get this,” and I’ll be like, “Well, you’re dead wrong, so…”

When you’re making an album, how much are you thinking about what it’ll be like if you decide to perform it live?

It depends on the time in my life. When I really had that muscle strengthened and I was doing it a lot, it was one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done in my life. But it’s a practice. You can get out of practice with it. You can be in a certain time in a life when it makes sense to do that. You can do that. I didn’t really have a life outside of that. I lived in a little windowless bedroom in an apartment. So my bedroom sucked. I didn’t want to spend time there, I didn’t want to spend time at home. But being out and performing and being on tour and playing, that’s where I lived. That’s where I was alive. Now I have more going on in my life that isn’t music. It’s something that comes and goes. As of right now it’s not really part of my thought process when I’m writing music.

Do you have any shows booked for the near future?

It sounds so lame to say but if I’m being totally honest, I struggle enough with my mental health and ability to live a life as it is.

That’s not lame.

In the last year I pulled myself out from being a blob to being somebody that is doing things and is a productive citizen. I’ve come off of medication for depression. I built this routine and life for myself, and the album’s coming out, and it’s the first time I’ve released music in years. So then I was thinking about booking shows that were gonna follow right after the album. And then I was just like, you know what? It’s the middle of the winter and I don’t need to do that and it’s not gonna be healthy for me to do that. So I decided not to do it. If somehow I blew up overnight on Tiktok and I became a meme with the kids, then I could go on tour but in the absence of that I probably won’t because it’s such a difficult thing to do. It would be me driving a rental sedan around America on the verge of tears trying to drive on the highway. It would be a danger because my eyes would be filling up with tears and I would not be able to see the cars in front of me. It wouldn’t be a good thing to do.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Joseph Grantham.