We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Josh Ransom a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Josh , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Two huge parts of my life are music with COSMS and the adoption of my sons. I never really thought that those two things might intersect in some way, but they did with my job with Kids in a New Groove (KING). It’s always been important to me to do work that matters. As Program Manager, I match music mentors to youth experiencing the child welfare system to create these bonds that bolster tomorrow’s Austin musicians. By creating trusting and meaningful bonds, the youth (and the mentors!) grow into versions of themselves that are not only more confident, coordinated, and more regulated, they sound great too!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I started playing bass in college in Indiana. Growing up, I was consumed by music. I never thought it was something that I would either be capable of our would have access to. That changed when my roommate at the time handed me an old bass of his. By the end of the night, I could play numerous parts from favorite songs of mine. It turned out that access and confidence were much bigger barriers for me than capability.

I soon started creating music of my own. I really wanted to make music that I had never heard and thought should exist. I started with soundtracking videos from a study abroad trip around the world. The images influenced the songs, some of which waiting on a shelf for a decade or more to get worked into a COSMS song.

COSMS is an instrumental duo band from Austin made up of myself and Damen (drums/syths). Coming from Shanghai, Damen has an approach to music that is very similar to my own and very different as well. I think our mission of playing music for its own sake and to inspire ourselves and hopefully others makes us a very capable pair. We can hear a riff or rhythm in drastically different ways. Sometimes that means our output is slower as we work through an idea, but the result is unlike anything else that is happening in Austin or elsewhere.

Part of what contributes to COSMS’ longevity is that we are very family-centric. My wife and I adopted our two boys and Damen and her husband have twins. We have had to stop and start numerous times throughout our time together because of an adoption or birth (or pandemic!). We are used to sending ideas back and forth remotely to get the momentum on an idea prior to ever being in the same room to jam. Some songs have been almost fully fleshed out in that process.

With music and adoption being central to my life, I began to think about how that could manifest in my professional. life. I began working for the Kids in a New Groove (KING) music mentoring program (from Partnerships for Children). We match youth experiencing the child welfare system ages 5+ in the greater Austin area with music mentors to provide free music lessons in the the home on an instrument of their choice. I’ve never thought of my music life as something that could benefit my day job. In this case, being a musician is integral to managing the KING program.

There are many wonderful things about this work, but the biggest for me is removing the barriers that I thought when I was younger. Whether it is access to an instrument, confidence, or a positive force standing beside you to encourage and push you on, KING meets all of those needs (and much more). When it all comes together and the students perform for strangers, I feel like all of the pieces come together. Everything makes sense and it all seems worth it.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

There are moments in creation where you realize you have tapped in to something special. You get goosebumps. You can’t help but smile. Words fail you. It’s those moments that make me want to come back to my bass. There are far more failings than those realizations. I am so glad that I have recorded just about every jam/practice that I have ever done. I can clearly point to those moments in time and they still make me smile.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

COSMS has endured many starts and stops in our decade of playing together. In the beginning, we had a few guitar players and figured out that the music we really wanted to play was somehow only possible with the two of us.

In 2014, we were organizing a fundraiser for a pitbull rescue in town and our guitar player canceled on us. Damen and I met to work through our next steps. She suggested that we just play the show as a duo. I didn’t quite understand. But in the 2 weeks prior to the show, we learned how to play as a duo, reworked some of our songs and kept our commitment to play.

Shortly after the first release as a duo, my wife and I adopted our first son. COSMS took some time off from in-person practicing as we figured out how to become parents overnight. But the writing never stopped.

Damen would send me ideas created on her computer and I would send her crude bass recordings. Then we would start to flesh things out on a shared Logic file. So, when we met as a band to jam, we had a song to learn how to perform. Similar situations happened when Damen and her husband had twins, when we adopted our second son and then during the pandemic lockdowns.

There were MANY times when quiting might have seemed like the logical solution to others. It never occurred to us.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: cosmsband
• Facebook: Facebook.com/cosmsatx
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-ransom-487641111/
• Other: If you are in the Austin area and are interested in becoming a music mentor with KING: partnershipsforchildren.org/king

Image Credits
Image Credit: Brad Ferguson, Kaelin Crowley and Genine Packer Short