Simon Joyner

Cited as a key influence by Conor Oberst (of Bright Eyes) and Beck, Omaha, Nebraska native and singer/songwriter Simon Joyner has been putting out delicate, intimate, mournful songs since the early '90s. Despite his status as a respected and influential performer and his collaborations with members of Wilco, Lambchop, the Dirty Three, and other commercially successful artists, Joyner has remained staunchly independent, working without managers, booking agents, or publicists for the entirety of his career. His focus on songcraft first resulted in a steady run of brilliant albums, with frequent highlights such as 2012's sprawling double album Ghosts, the insular reflections of 2019's Pocket Moon, and 2022's Songs from a Stolen Guitar, which ruminated on themes of isolation and memory. The 2024 album Coyote Butterfly was made up of songs of love and grief Joyner experienced after the death of his son. Joyner was born in 1971 and settled in Omaha. He was recording collections of his songs by the early '90s and released his first widely available album in 1993, when the One Hour label released his Room Temperature CD. The decade was prolific for the songwriter, as he released a plethora of albums, 7"s, and EPs, including proper albums like 1995's Heaven's Gate and 1999's The Lousy Dance, a collaborative 7" with the Mountain Goats, and much more. Joyner's profile expanded considerably when legendary, taste-making DJ John Peel played his 1994 album The Cowardly Traveller Pays His Toll in its entirety on his BBC show. In 2001, along with his band the Fallen Men, Joyner released To Almost No One, a tribute to ten singer/songwriters including Paul Siebel, Anne Briggs, Kris Kristofferson, and Jerry Jeff Walker. The bleak but critically lauded Hotel Lives arrived that same year, followed by the equally introspective Lost with the Lights On in 2004. A compilation of singles and rarities, Beautiful Losers was released in 2006, as was Skeleton Blues from Jagjaguwar. In 2008, Joyner released Cowardly Traveller Pays His Toll on Team Love and Out Into the Snow followed on the same label in 2009. It wouldn't be until 2012 that the normally prolific Joyner would release another album, but that year's double-disc Ghosts saw him backed by a full band. The next year, New Secrets emerged, the second collaboration between Joyner and Shrimper Records founder Dennis Callaci following their 2004 EP Stranger Blues. After a long absence, Joyner returned with the contemplative, downbeat Grass, Branch & Bone in 2015. Joyner processed the historic and disruptive American election of 2016 as the microcosm, looking through the fictional lives of its citizens to get beneath the hype and smoke of mass media. Working with longtime collaborator Michael Krassner at Omaha's ARC Studio, he recorded 13 songs, including the epic, suite-like closer "I Dreamed I Saw Lou Reed Last Night." (On the vinyl version it took up an entire side.) The finished album, Step Into the Earthquake, was issued by Ba Da Bing in the fall of 2017. After the usual touring cycle, he returned two years later with Pocket Moon. During the course of 2020 and into 2021, Joyner collaborated remotely with several players on the recording of his next record. Due largely to cautions in place related to the COVID-19 pandemic, Joyner recorded his guitar and vocal parts live in Omaha, and sent the new recordings around to friends like bassist Wil Hendrix, drummer Ryan Jewell, viola player Megan Siebe, multi-instrumentalist David Nance and others. This distanced collaboration fit with the lyrical content of the album, which circled around themes of loneliness, isolation, and self-reflection. Once pieced together, the album, Songs from a Stolen Guitar was released in June of 2022. Joyner toured with various combinations of friends backing him, and a few limited, tour-centric releases surfaced, such as the 2023 album One Carried a Lantern (credited to Simon Joyner & the Echoes) and 2024's This Is Where the Ocean Begins, an LP that reinterpreted older songs in the trio form of Joyner, Krassner on electric guitar, and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm. The next set of completely new songs from Joyner was 2024's Coyote Butterfly. The album followed the 2022 death of Joyner's son Owen, and its heartbreaking and raw songs processed the pain of loss and the surreal nature of grief. ~ Gina Boldman & Fred Thomas, Rovi