On The Phone With... Josh Tehee
You probably know Josh Tehee as the guy behind the Homegrown show on New Rock 104.1, or maybe from his music coverage in the Fresno Bee. Or maybe you’ve seen him fronting a punk band or slipping onto a bill with a new project. Honestly, if you've been around the Central Valley music scene at all in the last couple decades, chances are that Josh has been somewhere nearby whether it’s been on stage, behind a mic, or writing about it the next day. We got on the phone to talk about all of his projects, including the show he’s putting together later this month with Sparklejet, Big Ser, and Seven Asterisk.
“I started my first band, like, serious band in high school. And it was a ska band called Dr. Rocket and the Moon Patrol,” Josh tells me. “We were probably playing almost, if not every weekend. Like most weekends we had shows. We did sort of touring regionally. We figured out how to record and release an album.”
After that band ended, he kept playing, eventually forming the long running punk band It’ll Grow Back, a name a lot of folks in the Fresno scene will recognize. “We probably started in 2001, 2002, 2003, something like that, and have been playing kind of consistently since.”
Like a lot of musicians, Josh started using the downtime between band activity to work on his own material. Years later, that became New Old Man, a solo project that was created during the pandemic. “It’s just the experiment of me learning to be a musician on my own. Like, aside from just being a front man, can I play guitar? Can I play bass? Can I figure out drum stuff? Can I sing, you know, realistically? Can I write songs? Can I record songs?”
Josh has also been part of the AC/DC cover band, Big Balls, dabbled in post-punk with The Strikingly Originals (you can find them on Bandcamp), and just recently joined Werebear on bass (new music coming soon). “First time I saw them, I was just like, oh, these guys. Because they were so good. I related so much to it. I was like, I want to be in that band from the first time I saw them.”
The next big thing on his calendar is the New Old Man set on August 31st at Tower Theater’s indoor lounge, with Sparklejet, Big Ser, and Seven Asterisk. “For this show that’s coming up, I’m going to be playing with Sparklejet as my backing band, essentially. So they're going to be performing on their own, but then they'll also be doing a set as my backing band, which is pretty cool.”
Sparklejet isn’t just filling in. Josh has been collaborating with members of the band for years. “Victor Sotelo, who’s the guitar player for Sparklejet, and Wade Krause, who is the drummer for Sparklejet, who also drums with me in It’ll Go Back, we’ve been kind of collaborators for a long time.”
It’s going to be a stacked night of familiar faces and longtime scene supporters. “Sparklejet’s been around for a long time. The Big Ser guys have been around a long time. And obviously, Seven Asterisk was brought on as someone who’s new & good.”
When he’s not playing shows or recording, Josh is also doing the very important work of promoting local music, “For a short while, we were trying to get this record label started. And I was kind of doing like some press stuff for it. And one day I was talking with this guy and he was saying how he loved this band Pink Eye, who was playing in Fresno at the time. And afterward, I was just hyping him up and he was like going on. And then when I got off of it, I was like, Oh, man, that's great. But I'm also in a band that, I appreciate, that I should be putting effort into, you know.” That impulse to promote others is hard to shake. “Even if it starts off with me going, ‘Hey, I have this show coming up,’ it becomes like, ‘Oh, you know who’s on the bill? These awesome bands Sparklejet and Big Ser and Seven Asterisk. Oh, and also I’m playing.’”
It’s the same energy he brings to the Homegrown radio show, where he highlights new Central Valley music each week. “It forces me to pay attention and to know who’s doing what” He says the submission form on the New Rock website gets used often, so if you’re a band looking to share your music, send it in! Even though Homegrown has its limitations (primarily being rock/alternative), Josh finds ways to support artists through other channels like his Substack newsletter. “A lot of times the newsletter is where I’ll write about the stuff that I can’t get on the radio show and vice versa.”
Whether it’s his own music, the radio show, or promoting other artists, Josh just wants to keep being a part of the scene. “For a long time, I didn’t care about recording at all or putting music out. It was like, I just wanted to play live.” For a guy who's been part of multiple generations of Fresno bands, he’s still discovering new favorites and encouraging others to keep going, too. “You can continue to make and play original music as long as you want, right? You just have to kind of find an audience for it.”
So what’s up next for Josh? New Old Man will be performing along with Sparklejet, Big Ser and Seven Asterisk at the Tower Theater lounge on August 31st. Tickets are available here. It’s going to be a fun show, so I hope to see you there! And on September 20th, It’ll Grow Back will be performing at Summer Fox in Tower along with Space Vampires, Trash N’ Privilege and Out Of The Ring.
Whether he’s on stage or behind the scenes, Josh Tehee is a reminder that you don’t have to choose between making music and supporting it, you can do both. So if you haven’t seen him live yet you’ve got a few opportunities. Hope to see you out there!