We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Josh Montag. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Josh below.

Josh, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?

I am very fortunate to have supportive parents. When I was a kid my parents encouraged me to find a passion, and when I discovered that passion was music, they put me in drum lessons, enrolled me in school band, and eventually bought me my first drum set. I still have a very clear memory of my Dad coming home from work on my 12th birthday and asking me to help him get the groceries out of the car. As I ran outside to help, I came to realize the groceries were actually a deconstructed drum set, packed into the back seat and trunk of his Jetta. That was one of the greatest moments of my life, and a clear turning point, which I owe all to my wonderful parents for the support they provided me to follow my dreams. They were recently at our Rhythm Room show, proving that at age 60 they still know how to party and more importantly, they still support the music.

Josh, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Hello readers, my name is Josh Montag and I run the Arizona band Scattered Melodies, which I also play drums for. We’re a collaborative group who features a wide variety of musicians, and over the past 4 years have been performing with a set crew of friends/talented artists. We began our journey in 2012, and by “we” I mean myself along with Jake Johnston, who is the bass player, co-founder of our band, and one of my best friends. As we began our quest to start a band together, we had trouble finding the right “front-person”, so we started featuring our musician friends on songs, who were either already in other bands or working as solo artists.

In the early years of our career, we would feature a different singer on each song, which became both exciting and challenging. Constructing shows was a challenge because we had to rally up multiple singers to put together a full set. Throughout the set the singers would rotate on and off stage each song or two, providing an eclectic experience for the audience, but at the same time not always providing a consistent sound or vibe. However, these shows were very special to us, but at our level, this model wasn’t sustainable so we had to adapt and put together a more consistent lineup. (The current lineup of Scattered Melodies is Killa Maus, Haley Green, Kazton Boone, Phelan Parker, Billy Sutherland, and us two original members)

By doing this, we’ve evolved into a more consistent sound of funk, rock, soul and dashes of reggae. This also gave promoters a more general idea of what we could provide for our live show, which has led to landing opening slots with such artists as Cory Wong, The Motet, Passafire, Lucky Chops, Mike Pinto and Stoop Kids. We’ve also been able to travel outside of Phoenix to play shows in Flagstaff, Tucson and Bisbee.

Some of our creative endeavors I’m the most proud is our music videos. For me it’s the intersection of my two most cherished passions; music & filmmaking. I love the opportunity to create a visual experience to go along with our songs. All three stages of the filmmaking process are exciting & rewarding to me. In pre-production I get to brainstorm ideas, bounce these ideas off my collaborators, and then construct the story of the video. During production, we see everything come to life from the storyboard (created in pre-production) and watch in real-time as the video concept transfers from your imagination into the camera. This part of the process is the most challenging because the stakes are high, usually because there are time constraints involved and there are many variables of things that could go wrong. The final process (post-production) is inspiring as well because that’s where we piece everything together in the edit, sync it up, wrap it up and slap a nice bow on it.

Here at Scattered Melodies, we want our fans & followers to know that we love to have a good time and we love to make people dance. From the day this band was born, it’s been about creating music & memories with people that we love, people that inspire us, and people that make us better. We take our music seriously but not so much ourselves, and if you’ve seen our promo videos and select music videos, I’m sure you could agree with that.

Oh and lastly, the people should also know we have a new single out called “Makin’ Love Is Easy” and it’s streaming on all major platforms!

: Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

At this point in my life, being in almost my mid-30’s, the goal that’s driving my journey is to become full-time at doing what I love, and not having to work other jobs to supplement income. I’ve done music and film out of passion for many years, and this passion has always been the driving force of why I work so hard for it. But I’m also a realist with a family to provide for, so having my art become the full-time job I dream of would allow a lot more time and energy to be put towards it.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist is having the opportunity to meet so many talented and beautiful people. Most of the people that are important to me have been introduced to me through music. Whether it is my fellow band mates, musicians I’ve recorded with, fans I’ve met, people in other bands that we’ve played with, people I worked with at X1039 back in the day. All of these friendships were born through music, and to me that’s a beautiful thing.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scatteredmelodies/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheScatteredMelodies
• Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3ScIru0nXoWwa1U2548tTp?si=TLOuCK9zQMC2QmMsTIpD1Q

Image Credits
Esteban Obregon, Robert Slabaugh & selfie mode