Joe Pug

"It’s always been the music I’ve listened to most, though I’ve listened to different stuff along the way. I tried to write plays, but the reason it didn’t work is because I hadn’t seen or read enough plays. The albums I’ve listened to in the genre of American singer-songwriters hitting the road is innumerable. I feel really comfortable speaking that language."

“People requested 2 copies, 5 copies, 10 copies, 20 copies. We’d send them all. We even covered the postage. Suddenly we’d be rolling into towns that we’d never been before and there would be crowds there who knew the songs. Our fans essentially became like a radio station for us, and they still are.”

"When Steve Earle released his Townes album, he tapped me to open his tour. It was a couple months in the U.S. and Europe. He was playing solo, so every night, there were only two people on stage. First me, then Steve. I was too young to be as terrified as I should have been. It was his endorsement that really made people take notice. Everyone needs that first hand up into the business, and Steve extended his to me. Grateful does not begin to describe the feelings I have for him. Since then, it’s been a slow and steady burn."

"His lyrics are less declarative, and sometimes quake with doubt: 'Not So Sure' is a penitent ode to epistemology. 'Unsophisticated Heart' is an admission of immaturity that literally ends with a whimper. 'Disguised as Someone Else' is a fantasy in which the singer disavows his identity to hide from his regret. On the last record, Pug shouted, 'I have done wrong, I will do wrong, there’s nothing wrong with doing wrong!' Here, he seems to tack on a meek amendment: 'These days, I’m not so sure.'"

The album met critical acclaim, with Paste Magazine rating it 9.1/10, adding: “unless your surname is Dylan, Waits, Ritter or Prine, you could face-palm yourself to death trying to pen songs half as inspired as the 10 tracks on Joe Pug’s debut full-length.” The success of Nation of Heat and Messenger led Pug to tours and performances with M. Ward, Josh Ritter and Levon Helm, as well as invitations to Lollapalooza and the Newport Folk Festival. In August 2010, Pug announced "The $10 Tour," an attempt by Pug to rein in ticket service fees for his shows. The tour was Pug's first headline tour with the Hundred Mile Band, his backing band consisting of Matt Schuessler on standup bass and Greg Tuohey on guitar.

”Everyone kept congratulating me on how well the tour was going, and the mood was probably the best it had ever been on the road. We finally got two hotel rooms in each city instead of one. We’ve got this incredible group of die-hard fans that somehow make each show bigger than our previous trip through town. Meanwhile my relationship was in shambles and creatively I was at a dead end. There was absolutely no joy left in playing music. So we walked off stage after a particular show when I played terribly, and pulled my manager aside in the green room and told him to cancel the rest of the tour dates and that I was essentially through."

Joe Pug released The Flood in Color on July 19, 2019.

“I’d never heard anything like that before. In a way, it was unfathomable to me that someone could write a song that would be as clear as a well-written book. I mean, I knew exactly what he was saying, immediately.”

With Windfall, Pug cites more contemporary influences, such as Josh Ritter, Ryan Adams, and M. Ward. However, Pug's trademark literary influences are still present: the chorus of "The Measure," which repeats, "all we’ve lost is nothing to what we’ve found" is inspired by a quote by Frederick Buechner's novel Godric. Of the reference, Pug explained:

This period of reflection and recommitment culminated in the 2015 release of Windfall, Pug's third album. As a Paste review notes, the optimistic album "steps away from the more traditional Americana for a folk-soul hybrid that places greater emphasis on his vocals." The Lexington Herald-Leader praised the album's two-band approach as presenting an "elegiac, electric vitality" to the "unhurried solemnity" of the songs. Windfall's hopeful final track – "If Still It Can't Be Found," which featured Wilco's Pat Sansone on mellotron – received particular acclaim, with a Rolling Stone review noting that "it showcases the singer's unique and achingly honest point of view that spins lyrics into folk poetry."

However, in 2014, Pug took a break from touring, recommitting to, in his own words, "behaving like a human being again":

"For about a month in the states and a month overseas, it would just be me on stage by myself and then him on stage by himself—we’d be the only two people on stage. I was, like, I think, 23 at the time. So, luckily, I was too young and stupid at the time to know how daunting it was. (Laughs) If I had to do that now, I probably couldn’t get through it. I got to watch his show for ninety minutes or two hours every night. I took so much away from it, stuff that I still use on a daily basis. I’d go sell records after my set and as the lights would go down in the lobby I’d run backstage and pull up a chair next to his guitar tech and just watch the show from the side of the stage every night. I’d watch him as he sculpted the set, putting songs in different places. I’d watch him deal with everything from a seated, quiet Sunday night audience to a completely loud, drunk, standing audience somewhere in Scotland—I’d watch him deal with them as well. I got to see just about every scenario."

After a heavy touring schedule in 2013, Pug considered quitting music. As he later told Denver's Westword that "hitting the road can make you go broke really quick" and that he "had expectations that were all out of whack." About the period, he wrote:

As soon as Messenger was released, Pug immediately began writing the songs that would become his second full-length album. To help create thicker "arrangements that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the lyrics," Pug brought on producer Brian Deck, who he had known from his time in Chicago. The Great Despiser was released in April 2012.

In 2011, Pug moved to Austin, Texas, lured by the Texas songwriting tradition that produced the likes of, in Pug's listing, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, David Halley and Billy Joe Shaver. Pug later described the move as follows:

He frequently makes reference to the influence of Texas' songwriting legacy in interviews, telling KDHX "there's been a lot of songwriters I wasn't familiar with before I moved to Texas but now really think are influential in my writing." In his touring throughout 2011 and 2012, Pug began paying tribute to Austin musician Harvey "Tex" Thomas Young by playing "Deep Dark Wells," his cover of Thomas' "Start Again," which Thomas originally wrote as a poem to his jailed brother.

Pug toured with Strand of Oaks in April and May 2011. The two acts promoted the tour by releasing covers of each other's songs: Pug for Strand of Oaks' "End in Falmes" and Strand of Oaks for Pug's "Hymn #101." Pug's April 29, 2011 performance during this tour at Lincoln Hall in Chicago, Illinois was recorded live and released as Live at Lincoln Hall.

The Earle tour and the crowds generated by Nation of Heat piqued the attention of Lightning Rod Records, the Nashville independent label behind folk and Americana acts such as Jason Isbell, James McMurty, Amanda Shires, and High Cotton. In 2010, Lightning Rod signed Pug and released his debut full-length album, Messenger. On Messenger, a full backing band supplemented Pug's guitar, vocals and harmonica, a change featured most notably on an electric version of Nation of Heat's "Speak Plainly, Diana." Reviewers, like Steve Kolowich at the Washington City Paper, noted that, with Messenger, in contrast to Nation of Heat, Pug turns from declarative and extroverted to reflective and introspective:

While working as a carpenter in Chicago after dropping out of the University of North Carolina, Pug wrote and recorded what would eventually become his debut EP, Nation of Heat. Its literate lyrics received widespread acclaim and Pug's unorthodox promotional strategy of distributing free CDs to anyone interested in sharing his music resulted in the EP selling over 20,000 copies. After touring with Steve Earle in 2009, Pug was signed by Nashville indie label Lightning Rod Records and released Messenger in 2010. After moving to Austin, Pug released The Great Despiser in 2012.

Developing on ideas and themes he was originally attempting to express in a play he was writing called "Austin Fish," Pug began writing the songs that would later become his first EP, Nation of Heat. The songs were recorded at a local Chicago studio, where a friend snuck him in to record during late night slots that other musicians had cancelled. In 2009, after Pug self-released Nation of Heat, he began shipping fans 2-song sampler CDs to pass along to their friends. The unconventional promotional strategy was a success, resulting in Pug sending out over 15,000 samplers and Nation of Heat selling over 20,000 copies. As Pug later recalled on his website:

As he toured the country in 2009 and 2010 in his 1995 Plymouth Voyager, Pug became increasingly linked with the burgeoning indie-folk scene associated with bands such as The Low Anthem, Langhorne Slim, and Horse Feathers.

In 2009, Pug released In the Meantime, an EP of songs that were recorded but not released on Nation of Heat. This second EP was made available for free on Pug's website for anyone who joined his mailing list.

In 2005 , on the night before his senior year fall classes were to start, Pug dropped out of college and drove directly to Chicago, having thought (as he mentioned later to The Daily Tar Heel): "I had a moment where I realized life is short and I knew where I wanted to be and I should just get there.” That week, he took a job as a carpenter and moved into an apartment in Logan Square. Pug has described his two-day trip from Chapel Hill in his Ford Ranger and his first week in Chicago as "the most magical experience of my entire life".

Pug graduated from high school in 2002 and enrolled at University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, where he studied playwriting. Pug later told Kentucky.com that studying theater had helped his future music career:

Joe Pug (born Joseph Pugliese, April 20, 1984) is an American singer-songwriter from Greenbelt, Maryland. He has released two EPs, as well as the albums Messenger, The Great Despiser, Windfall and The Flood In Color.