“In life we’re faced with a barrage of negativity stories, news, images all the time. Negative sells.”
From fundraising for charities to taking the lead role in local TV show Hood, there’s no doubt that Josh Kemp is passionate about everything he does, and his latest project sees him combine a few of his favourite things; music, traveling, and spreading positivity.
A few weeks ago, the 24-year-old released a meaty music video, just shy of six and a half minutes, which he has lightheartedly dubbed as his “mission for happiness”.
The video is filled with footage of his two month traveling spree spent mostly in Asia earlier this year, and although you might be mistaken for thinking he’s bragging with the video, documenting a series of adventures few of us will ever get to see, Josh is eager to correct this misconception.
“I think there’s an element [of feeling] that positivity can come across as cliche or boastful so we’re slightly less inclined to talk about it. You don’t tell people good news for fear of being boastful.”
But this is a music video of two halves that embraces these wonderful experiences. The first half, an original track called Imaginary Friend which Josh wrote last November, deals directly with this: “I wanted to write a song that would talk about the very best and most special things that I’d been lucky enough to see so far, to somebody who had never had chance to see it.
“The song stems from a story, about conveying to someone you would never meet the incredible journey you’ve been on so far.
“Around November there was a lot of stuff going on around the world, not necessarily in a good place, and it hit me that my song was in direct contrast with the message that is spread on a day to day basis.
“For five minutes I wanted to show the uninterrupted best things about life.”
The video’s second half comes with a cover of Louis Armstrong’s What A Wonderful World, a song he chose to complement the rest of work as it “lyrically pictured” everything he wanted to say.
“It’s almost a note to the watchers to say, ‘in case you missed it, this is what this video is about’.”
You don’t have to travel to the other side of the world to find this beauty in the every day – he was keen to discuss how it can be the exact opposite.
“Everywhere has its own charm. I was driving through the Peak District the other day to a gig in Manchester, and the way the sun was hitting the hills was incredibly beautiful.
“You might walk down a London street and see a nice bit of graffiti and think, ‘My God, that’s amazing’. If you try to push yourself to notice more things and to try to help yourself and help other people it breeds a positive way of looking at it as opposed to thinking, ‘that’s disgraceful’.”
This positive outlook is something which seems to spill out of Josh to anyone in his company. It might be a cliched pun to say that his passion for creativity, art, and experiencing other cultures comes across as a “lust for life”, but it certainly feels as such.
From the weeks he spent in Asia it’s no wonder he’s spoilt for choice when deciding a favourite moment, eventually conceding to pick three highlights; scuba diving and Halong Bay among them. And for the favourite?
“We spent a week trekking through literally the middle of nowhere through the jungle in Laos. We would be walking huge distances each day and we would use zipwires to go from ravine to ravine, and we were staying in tree houses which were 70 metres in the air.
“On the first night my mate and I hooked up to the line in the middle of the night and pulled ourselves out into the middle of the ravine.
“You look up and there’s not a single bit of light pollution for as far as the eye can see, and I have never seen the stars like that. You’re just hanging in your harness in the middle of the air, leaning back and admiring the night canvas, it was beautiful.”
He admits there are ties between this project and the next piece he’s working on, a musical about the impact of karma and the knock on effect of small selfless acts.
“Ultimately the characters realise they’ve been putting their own happiness first, and often that is the loneliest thing. The concept is to treat others as you want to be treated yourself, but also that the act of treating other people well will fulfill you too.
“What I want to explore next is how the more you feed a particular state of mind, the more it will grow. Much like a plant.”
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