Well October 19th is National New Friends Day and Tavares wrote this incredible track 10.19 about one of his friends.
The story behind this track brought tears to my eyes.
Tavares said "10.19 is a song about love between friends. I wrote it after one of my best friends attempted to take their own life, but thankfully failed. When I started writing it, it was a VERY depressing song talking about the things that led them to this, but I quickly changed it to talk more about the happy memories we have together. It's the intro track from my upcoming album, so there is a longer intro (if you're not into that - skip to 0:30 :P). I wanted to make a song that didn't follow the typical radio-format song because I was writing about something that I didn't think would fit in that template"
His lyrics are stunning. I just keep listening over and over, there is something new I notice each time that makes the song more personal. I think this track, regardless of what your friendship has been through, is the sweetest love song for a friend. True friendship is so unbelievably valuable so to hear a song about valuing friendship and keeping that support so sacred and intact regardless of what either friend is going through is so important.
Soft. Sensitive. Gentle. Well, none of those words actually describe Toronto-based alt-pop artist Josh Tavares, but he likes to think so. A music lover from an early age, his current musical influences include Lorde, Billie Eilish, The Neighbourhood, and most prominently Taylor Swift, who he says, inspires his current writing style, and in recent years encouraged him to take song writing more seriously. Josh began experimenting with original music at an early age, picking up the guitar when he was 10 and begging his teachers to perform his new songs in front of the class any chance he got - which wasn't embarrassing at all...
Writing music is by far his favourite part of the creative process. Almost always starting with a title and working his way through the verses and chorus from there, his inspiration for writing comes from literally anything around him: his friends and family, TV shows and even occasionally eavesdropping in on a stranger's conversation waiting in line for coffee. Song ideas can come at the most inconvenient times, almost always producing the most beautiful results.
Review by Hannah Schneider