Boston-local indie-rock darlings Cosmic Johnny were kind enough to let us film them at gigs, at a taco establishment, at a theater, and just walking around town.  The culmination of our persistent following is this installment of our Artist Profile series, documenting the music, the members, and the future of Cosmic Johnny.  Mike Suh (vocals, guitar) tells us to “PLEASE refer to us as indie darlings,” Cameron Murvhill (lead guitar) tells us about her guitar tone in the context of space-rock, Dhruv Angresh (bass) tells us about how they tastefully use their 5-string bass, Marcus Dembinski (drums) tells us about “the boomies and the bappies,” and resident moral support contributor Keithe Laflambe (lizard) tells us about “…”

We also captured a solo performance of the currently unreleased song “Hotel” at Lesley University back in September of 2017, which we are happy to finally share in this short documentary. 

You’ll be able to hear the song as it was intended to be heard soon enough: in the context of their nearly 60 minute debut full-length record called “Good Grief.”  “It’s a concept record I guess in the sense that it’s an album that’s very much about my life and the things I’ve dealt with and experienced, so not really I think what a lot of people think of when they talk about a concept record – it’s more just a personal documentation of where I’ve been and where things led me,” Mike told us.  “The recording process has been really complicated and we’ve just been doing it all ourselves which is tricky because it makes it a lot harder to be strict about things, but at the same time it also means we’re able to try to focus on nailing things down exactly the way we want them and gives us the liberty to revise things like parts or lyrics as our perspectives change on them.  For instance, the version of “Hotel” we filmed in September has changed a lot.  I’ve changed some of the words and we found a way to work the rest of the band into what used to be a really stark, spare song.  The new version feels a lot more desperate to me, like it feels like it’s trying to break out of itself.  We kind of took it apart and reimagined it as though we were taking the words and the melody but approaching the music from a completely different starting point, and then we kind of combined the versions we had, so it’s a song that changes a lot through its runtime.  It starts in one place and ends in a really different place.” 

The tentative release date for “Good Grief” is 4/20 😎

Catch Cosmic Johnny at a gig near you: 

4-14: Cosmic Johnny, Sidney Gish, Plastic, Nailbiter @ JSB – Providence, RI

Watch our full Artist Profile video with them below: