JOBIE Takes On A New Life Form In “Earworm Lullaby”
Samantha Colleran, October 2023
Ahead of the release of her newest single, “Earworm Lullaby”, I had the pleasure of speaking with singer-songwriter Josie Artuhr, better known by her stage name JOBIE. Following the release of her debut album Grendel, JOBIE was tasked with writing a track for her friend Justin Landsman’s horror film as part of their thesis. Invaders from Within centers a character named Paul Cody, a folk musician who is struggling to write new music. His mind is taken over by parasitic alien bugs who help him write his next big hit. Taking on the perspective of the invader bugs, JOBIE’s track is hauntingly beautiful. In our interview we touch on what it was like for JOBIE to write music for someone else, how she stepped into the mindset of the bugs, and how double meanings of songs can be a powerful part of music.
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SC: Hello everybody! I’m here with Josie Arthur, who you may know by her artist name JOBIE. We are here to talk about her newest release, “Earworm Lullaby”. Josie, if you’d like to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about the project.
JA: Hi, I’m JOBIE and this is a song that I wrote for my friend’s horror short film called Invaders From Within. It’s about these alien bugs that take over the main character’s mind and I wrote the song from the bug’s perspective. It’s kind of a spooky, weird concept. It’s a weird song that’s not like my other stuff, but I’m really proud of the way it sounds. On top of the source material, it’s a double entendre. The song is about being real and being yourself and loving the fact that you’re alive and we’re on this Earth where we have the opportunity to be human and do so many things. I’m really excited for this release!
SC: I’m so excited for people to hear it! As you mentioned, the song is part of a project your friend was working on for their thesis. How did you actually meet and how did the discussion of you writing a song for the film come about?
JA: The person whose thesis it is, their name is Justin Landsman. Justin is just my friend, we met freshman year of college and have been buddies ever since. I was glad that they asked me to do something for the film, I think it came around naturally. Since Justin needed a song for their film, I guess I was the only person they could ask- I’m sure they could have asked someone else, but naturally I said yes because that’s my friend and I loved the concept.
SC: What was it like to write a song for someone else as opposed to writing something for yourself?
JA: I don’t know, I just imagined if I was in place of the bugs and I became human for the first time, how would I feel if I suddenly became human? Clearly, the bugs wanted to become human, or they wanted some sort of human autonomy. I was just imagining what it would feel like to finally become a human if I were the bugs, you know? Like, “Wow, it feels so good to be this way, I love to be alive”. I just imagined that the bugs would feel that way, I put myself in their shoes and just wrote with their voice.
SC: I love it, I think it’s so cool! I feel like I’ve never really heard of a song like this before. When people listen to it they may feel like it is a love song, or a celebration of coming into yourself. If you don’t know what it’s actually about, it can take on this totally different meaning.
JA: It does have the double meaning of being with someone and it feels good to be real, you’re not being fake. Real love feels that way, like you’re on top of the world and you can do anything. You feel like a bad bitch, I guess. [Both laughing] That’s the way love should feel. I hope that people listen to this song and it sets the standard for the kind of love they accept for themselves and they’re able to realize how badass they are.
SC: I think that’s absolutely beautiful! Going back to the original prompt of the thesis, when you first heard it did you immediately know how you wanted the song to sound, or did it take you some time to come up with the overall feeling that you wanted to take on?
JA: I picked the chords I wanted the song to be based on, and I just started playing. I wrote the first two verses and then I came up with the chorus, then I wrote another verse and worked with the chorus again to make it slightly different, which is what you hear at the end. I can’t really remember the specifics, but I wrote it in one go, it was not difficult for me. A lot of the times I don’t even think, I just go and write songs.
SC: Would you say this process of writing and recording was similar to how you normally approach a song, or did you feel like there was anything different from what you would typically go for when recording?
JA: It helped to have a prompt. It was cool because it wasn’t just me having to come up with the atmosphere I imagined in my brain. I have to get in a headspace to write a song, but the headspace was already provided for me in this case. I read the script and I was like “Okay, I know I want to write from the perspective of the bugs, I want this to be their song”. That made it easier, I knew what I was going for because I had the film as a reference point. Other than that, once I got into it my process was pretty much the same. I recorded the basic tracks- the guitar track, a Logic drum track I used as a click track which I recorded all in my basement myself. I brought it to my collaborator co-producer Russell [Lacy], who is really awesome and talented. He has a studio outside of Richmond, Virginia, which is where I’m from, and that’s where I’ve recorded all of my music thus far. All of the percussion in the song is done by my dad; I was at my parent’s house and I did it in their basement. My dad got an almond can and a trash can lid and another instrument that you swipe sticks across, all of these weird little percussion instruments we used to create a whole drum track. I had a scratch vocal, guitar, then the percussion, some electric guitar, and a pedal steel which is all the higher pitched alien stuff. I took it to Russell and then he added a bass line and some more electric guitar stuff, we messed with some of the frequencies a little, I reworked the vocal so it fit the song. Russell also recorded it on a cassette tape so it sounds a little older.
SC: I love that! That is actually so cool, because the film is set in the 70s, right? It makes sense that the song would sound a little bit more ‘aged’.
JA: The main character who gets taken over by the bugs – I don’t mean to spoil the film – but he goes to this cabin and he’s trying to write a song for a radio contest where if you send in your song and it wins, they’ll record it and play it on air. While he’s trying to write the song, he gets taken over by the bugs, and then the bugs end up writing the song and the song wins the contest, so at the end of the film you hear the song on the radio.
SC: I think it’s awesome!
JA: I don’t mean to spoil the whole film, but that’s the concept of it and it’s just so cool. I never would have thought of this otherwise. I don’t think of alien bugs, you know?
SC: We keep talking about the bugs and how you stepped into their shoes. What was it like to take on a different life form when writing this song? Was it interesting for you, did you find it challenging, exciting?
JA: I thought it was exciting. In my previous album, Grendel, the title song is me singing from Grendel’s perspective, or it seems as if Grendel’s perspective inspired me because I feel like we have similar perspectives. I think with this song, it’s from my perspective if I were taken over by alien bugs. I think that a lot of times, people only think things are real if they can be seen. Bugs so much are not seen, or they’re just a part of the world but nothing that they feel is ever going to matter in our human socialsphere. So those aliens, the alien bugs, that are not part of humanity or Earth… maybe they just wanted to experience that. They are real, but they don’t feel real until they’ve been perceived by other humans, they’re not real on Earth unless Earth acknowledges them as real.
The main character, his name is Paul Cody, he’s writing this song, and as a singer songwriter you hope that people hear this song because if it doesn’t go places, is it even real? As a singer songwriter I understand that feeling. My interpretation of the character is that he is a musician struggling to make it, but when these bugs who are outside of the situation get the opportunity that Paul Cody has, they’re so excited about it because they finally have the chance to be real, to be part of the world. What I hope people get from the song is that they can look at their humanity and their ‘realness’ is way more of an opportunity than they thought it was. It’s such a blessing to be alive on this Earth. So many creatures on this Earth don’t have the autonomy we do, so it feels good to be alive.
SC: I don’t think I could have said it better, honestly. Even just listening to the song you can feel it, whether you know it’s about bugs taking over a human mind or not. You feel the humanity behind it, and I think that was a very genuine and honest way to approach the song. So, thank you for being so vulnerable about it.
JA: Thank you for listening!
SC: I just know people are going to love it! We have talked about the double meaning behind the song, was it fun for you to write a song that can take on a double meaning? Do you feel it’s something you’ll take on in the future, or did it inspire a new way of writing for you?
JA: I’ve thought about it a lot. People always ask if you can separate the art from the artist. A lot of the people who have influenced me the most are terrible people. I see the way they act and I think “These people clearly suck, I wouldn’t be friends with them”. I don’t care, I listen to their music. I wouldn’t want to meet them, but their music has been influential not only to me but to the world. Michael Jackson for example, I’m just a regular person and I don’t know what he really did, but if he was an asshole, that sucks and I’m not supporting his actions, but at the same time his songs are iconic and his songs exist in the world.
The point I’m trying to get at is the art does exist outside of the artist. I had this class in Greece and we were talking about art in a democracy and everyone was arguing that you can’t separate the art from the artist because politically if you exist inside of a polis in the traditional Greek democracy sense, everything you do is political and you can’t escape the politics of your art. I agree, but once the art exists and it’s out there for other people to see it… there’s this whole Aristotle idea of forms. Say there’s a table, there’s a table right here, but then there’s the idea of the table. There’s the form of a table, which is the idea of a table, that doesn’t physically exist in the world, but then there’s the table that’s right here and that’s a copy of the form. If someone were to try to copy the table or do something inspired by this table, then that’s a copy of a copy. People make art and that’s a copy of certain forms, but when people perceive the art that’s another copy. They are making the art again in their brains, it’s a new work that someone is perceiving.
Art is meant to be shared and take on new life when new people experience it and that’s why I think it’s so powerful. This song has a double meaning for me, but it might have a million different meanings. Ultimately, it’ll have a different meaning for each individual person who listens to it. That’s something outside of my control. I think I definitely want to continue to make songs that are multifaceted and can take on new life. Even when I’m gone, or when I’m not around, I hope it still matters to somebody regardless of what I think or what it meant to me when I made it. That was a really convoluted answer.
SC: No! It was very informed. I would not have thought to go in the separating the art from the artist direction. I think it’s very important to talk about in this world, especially in today’s society because let’s be honest, there’s a lot of messed up people and things happening around us. And there are a lot of bad people making art for people to consume. I always think of John Lennon; he was a horrible person, but he was part of The Beatles…
JA: Exactly, you can’t escape that art, it’s everywhere. Everybody still listens to them.
SC: Even up and coming artists today are saying that The Beatles are influential to them. It’s a very deep and important conversation to have, so thank you for sharing your thoughts and having that conversation with me! Is there anything else you’d like to say about “Earworm Lullaby” that I haven’t asked you about or that you’d like to talk about, maybe things people can expect for the future of JOBIE; new songs or an album…
JA: I’m working on playing some shows around the United States. I’m doing some shows in the Northeast this year, but I’m trying to tour in 2024 in the summer. I’m putting out some more songs, too. I’ve been recording a lot of songs with Russell. I’m still trying to experiment with my sound and they’re not totally finished, but I’m going to continue releasing stuff. It’s always so fun for me to release new music, especially when I really like the stuff I’m releasing and I’m doing it not too late after I’ve made the song. Sometimes I feel like if I wait too long to promote a song I get bored of it. I’m really excited about the stuff I’m going to be putting out, and just keep on trucking.
SC: Thank you so much for your time!
JA: Thank you so much!
“Earworm Lullaby” is available to stream on Spotify and Apple Music. You can follow JOBIE on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok to stay up to date on future releases, as well as 2024 tour dates!