joe p Releases Sophomore EP French Blonde Accompanied with a Short Film

words by Jamie Hampton

Alternative singer-songwriter, joe p, is back with the release of his sophomore EP, French Blonde. Alongside the release of the EP, joe p and Anthony Yerba wrote and produced a short horror film, just in time for the Halloween season.

joe p has been playing music ever since he was young when he picked up a guitar as a toy, and hasn’t stopped making music since. After attending Berkeley in Boston for a year, joe p came to the realization he didn’t want to be “the best guitar player in the world” and started putting his energy into writing music himself.

“I kind of got more into staying in my dorm and skipping classes to make demos which was not worth the amount of money that you pay for in tuition,” joe p said. “So from that point on it was kind of like I’ll try to write songs every day, record them and just go for it.”

Before this point, joe p was in a band with his friends since the eighth grade, but once the pandemic hit he had to pivot to creating music as a solo artist. 

“Once the pandemic hit, it just got a little strange in the sense that there wasn’t as many roles and purposes for each person to have besides me, like I’ve always been the one that’s like ‘here’s what we’re doing’ and leading the whole thing, so I didn’t really see a difference,” joe p said. “So that just kind of crumbled apart and I was left to start from scratch, but it’s still been so fun.”

Over the years of creating music, joe p has collaborated with Anthony Yerba to put out music videos. However, it came to a point where out of boredom, they worked together to write and produce a short horror film to promote the release of French Blonde.

“We got to a certain point where I was like, ‘what if we did a horror movie that was cut in with these four live performances so you still get ‘music videos’ but it’s just a little spin on it, it’s a little different,’” joe p said. “Everything we do is always just to amuse ourselves mostly.”

The short film is out now and was inspired by 80s and 90s horror movies, and it follows the events a group of friends faces while on a trip to the first party of the summer. Throughout the entire short film, four tracks from the French Blonde EP are featured in varying ways. 

joe p released his first EP, Emily Can’t Sing, in 2021 during the pandemic, which he created entirely in his New Jersey basement studio. While French Blonde was recorded partially in the Atlantic Records studio, joe p stuck to his DIY roots by recording the vocals for the EP back in his basement studio. 

“I would just set up stuff and then I would record there [Atlantic studio], like hit record on the space bar, run into the room and play the drums and then hit stop,” joe p said. “And then I would go back to my basement to do all the vocals because there’s something about  being there and being home and having to deal with all the like water heater turning on and all that stuff makes me trick myself into believing it’s authentic.”

French Blonde can be streamed everywhere now and his short film is also available here.