Joshua Powell

JOSHUA POWELL is the tender wizard at the helm of Indiana’s most haunted astral rock band. From his hardcore roots in the Floridian swamps and through the fever dream of his troubadour folk era, Powell’s songs have morphed genres but maintained a vision for spiritually charged lyrics that dig for enlightenment in surrealist muck. Comprising his power trio are born drummer BROTHER JACOB and virtuosic low end architect BASS MOUNTAIN, the two best pals a skeleton boy could ask for.

The first show was in a basement in Anderson, IN on Halloween 2011. Two years later, they began touring full time as “Joshua Powell & the Great Train Robbery,” sleeping on the couches of Oregon witches and New Hampshire pastors and everyone in between, and have since logged ONE THOUSAND SHOWS in 43 states. They released three LPs and three EPs as JP&GTR before dropping the moniker in 2021 and rebooting as simply JOSHUA POWELL.

That year, the band signed to Indiana label ROMANUS RECORDS and released SKELETON PARTY, building an aggressively arty bridge from their previous psych-infused folk rock into a heavier genre space. AUDIOTREE wrote: “Four LP’s and over 900 shows later, the midwestern road dog’s ever- evolving, transcendent style embraces hallucinatory metal and grimy psychedelia.” 
 In 2022, Romanus would re-issue Powell’s 2019 LP, PSYCHO/TROPIC on vinyl. The accompanying promo singles for “Bliss Is a Flak Jacket” were square-cut lathe-cut 7″s filled with spent shotgun shells.

Joshua has had songs on ABC, Freeform, AMC, and MTV and on the Spotify playlist “The Wilds.” His  music has been featured in queer and horror genre pictures like “Cannibal Mukbang,” “Full Moon Glory Hole,” “Retake,” and “Just Like Being There,” and he composed the score for the horror short “Drone Shot.”

The band has recorded sessions with PBS, Audiotree, NPR, Daytrotter, WISH-TV 8, and the Emmy-award winning Music in Transit. They have played at Gainbridge Fieldhouse at a Pacers game, and performed at Mile of Music, Nebraska Folk and Roots Festival, Midpoint Music Fest, Holler on the Hill, Audiofeed, Harvest Gathering, and All IN. They have shared stages with bands like Death Cab for Cutie, As Cities Burn, Silent Planet, The Cactus Blossoms, As Cities Burn, Dawes, White Denim, and The Forecast.

In 2024, JP and Co were endorsed by Vola Guitars and released two singles “COFFIN CLUB” and “TUNE THE HARP” with music videos inspired by the Powell brothers’ love of horror cinema, signaling their sonic shift into post-hardcore, metalcore, and shoegaze textures. Inspired by the aggressive catharsis of the bands that made them (As Cities Burn, A Day to Remember,  Deftones) and the newer wave of experimental metalcore from bands like Loathe and The Plot In You, the band is now recording their followup to SKELETON PARTY which promises to be a darker shade and another evolutionary step along their aestheic path to sublimation.