Josh Doyle
is a British-American songwriter and musician who was the lead singer and guitarist for British punk-pop band Dum Dums. He disappeared after the break-up of Dum Dums in 2001, the band having released one album. He resurfaced in Nashville, Tennessee in 2004 with a wife and daughter and a new "folktronica" sound on the independent The End Of Fear
EP.
He is currently recording a solo debut album with platinum award winning producer/engineer Joe Baldridge (awarded for Jesus Freak (album) which has sold over two million copies, [1] achieving double platinum certification by the RIAA.)
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JOSH DOYLE TICKETS
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History
Dum Dums
Between 1998 and 2001, Dum Dums were among a handful of successful guitar bands amongst a glut of all singing, all dancing boy-bands and female pop starlets. While touring the "toilet" circuit
[2] (small clubs across the country such as "The Charlotte" in Leicester and "The Camden Monarch" in London) in the UK, they were signed to Wildstar by Ian McAndrew (
Arctic Monkeys,
Travis) and exploded across the radiowaves. Their first single 'Everything' hit the Official UK Top 20 and led to four UK hit singles from the first hit album, "
It Goes Without Saying".
Josh became a recognisable face in the UK music scene. The band grew in stature, selling out venues all over the UK including Shepherds Bush Empire in London. They were cover stars of national music magazines including
Melody Maker, and due to an awesome live reputation made fans ranging from Paul Cook of
The Sex Pistols to John Entwistle of
The Who, were invited by
Paul Weller (
The Jam) to play Earls Court and by
Robbie Williams to support him on 30 arena dates.
They played all the major festivals, sharing the stage with
The Flaming Lips in Glastonbury,
Supergrass at V2000 (the same day they supported
Bon Jovi at
Wembley Stadium) and a star studded line-up at
Party in the Park for 250,000 at Hyde Park. They toured as headliners in Germany and Japan, hitting the Japanese charts with single "Everything", in 2001 signing to MCA in the USA.
While recording the follow up album, after the big US deal, the band span off into personal breakdown. Given a "write more 'pop' or get 'dropped' " ultimatum by the UK label, Josh decided they had already strayed too much into 'pop' territory and quit the band. He watched as poppier, manufactured copies of his band sprung up such as
Busted and
McFly and dominated the music charts for the next couple of years, while he couldn't put his finger on a direction to pursue next. Depression descended and Josh became reclusive, not leaving the house for days at a time.
Solo
In 2003, he and his wife sold and gave away all their personal belongings and moved from the UK to
Nashville, Tennessee, a town where he was a stranger and he could get some space to write something that would define him as an artist and writer.
The next year saw him recording the emo-influenced folktronica "End Of Fear EP" with college student Sam Shacklock, one half of Intramural
[3] (the other half being
Statistics frontman and Conor Oberst bandmate Denver Dalley). Josh refused to use his contacts and channels to immediate international exposure but instead released the EP independently from his website, mailing each CD out by hand, oldschool.
An underground US following developed quickly, and respected zines such as Absolute Punk
[4] "a stellar debut, 8/10" and Sound The Sirens "a therapeutic must-have" gave high ratings. Using only MySpace and physical CD mail order sales (no touring, no digital sales, no radio) Josh slowly but surely sold out of the first run of the EP, with help from a remnant of
Dum Dums fans and a growing contingent newly discovered fans from the USA.
In 2006 he played rough acoustic demos of new material to rock producer Joe Baldridge (
Beck,
Family Force 5,
Jewel), who agreed to produce his album without even a record deal or management. As he stepped into the studio, he also played his first solo shows in four years in Tennessee supporting
Imogen Heap. His new songs impressed so much that he scored international management from Showdown in the USA (
Creed,
Mute Math,
Paramore,
Family Force 5) and Radius in the UK (Imogen Heap,
Dum Dums).
In September 2007 he was invited to play in the Speakerheart and Nettwerk Showcase during Digital Forum West at Nettwerk's Los Angeles Office. He has since loaded numerous tracks including promotional material for release through Speakerheart.com. He is one of the site's top artists.
Solo Discography
- 2002 - The Barnroom Sessions
- 2004 - The End Of Fear
- 2009 - Values And Virtues