Having written songs since the age of 12, Justin Nozuka is something of an old hand at songwriting despite his tender age. In fact, some of the songs that featured on “Holly”, his 2007 debut album, were written when he was just 15. Wisely, he never rested on his laurels, and was always looking for a way to improve as a musician and songwriter, and this lead to him attending a song writing workshop in the mid-2000’s. While he was there he struck up a friendship with the Canadian pop singer Damhnait Doyle, who introduced him to a Universal Records talent scout by the name of Allan Reid. This lead Nozuka recording a three track label try-out for Universal with Bill Bell as their producer, and although Universal were interested, Nozuka wanted to be free to express himself the way he wanted to, and turned them down.
He recorded the album independently, and released “Holly” in 2007 on Coalition Entertainment in Canada and Glassnote in the United States. Ever since then, Nozuka has remained one of the most critically acclaimed artists in Canada’s famously thriving indie rock scene, with two other acclaimed albums released in 2010 (“You I Wind Land And Sea”) and 2014 (“Ulysses”) respectively. He even caught the ear of the Wu-Tang Clan’s very own RZA, who took an unreleased song of Nozuka’s called “Gone”, sampled it and turned it into a tribute to his dearly departed Wu-Tang bandmate Ol’ Dirty Bastard in 2011. He’s a musician in the truest sense of the word, one who has been creating music for longer than he hasn’t, and for that, he comes highly recommended.
‘Holly’ Justin Nozuka’s debut album is probably my most listened to CD of all time, and that’s a bold statement to make, because I listen to a lot of music! He opened the show with Supposed to Grow Old, which was done beautiful and with such emotion. It still blows my mind that he wrote that track when he was just 15 years old. The set was split into two halves, and the first and shorter half focused on his older work, and a couple of very well arranged covers, which were a lot of fun, and the second half moved onto the new album. He has a great personality, and interacts flawlessly and confidently with the audience, which is something great to experience.
The Ulysees album is incredible, and I was so excited to hear some of the tracks live. I thought that he’s play a few songs intertwined with his older material (which is still fantastic), but he played the entire album from start to finish, and goodness me it was epic! The album has the blend of folk/rock and soul bang on, and to hear some of the sounds stripped back with just Justin and his guitar, against full band numbers was a really exciting journey for the evening. Justin was gracious, friendly, and interacted really well with the audience. He showed real appreciation and respect of his band members which was lovely to see. I’d definitely recommend you catching one of his shows if you like his music, he’s even better live than on any of his recordings.