INTERVIEW: Josaleigh Pollett Invites Us to Love the Questions

Salt Lake City-based Indie Singer-Songwriter Josaleigh Pollett's “Radio Player” is an electronics-infused and Poltergeist-inspired new single. Here, Josaleigh has reunited with long-time collaborator Jordan Watko (Crowd Shy) for the first time since Jordan’s relocation to Japan, making this their first recorded output since 2023’s highly acclaimed “In the Garden, By the Weeds,” which NPR Music’s Bob Boilen featured on All Songs Considered.

Despite the distance between them, the pair opted to make their first cross-continent collaboration more ambitious and exploratory than what came before. Initially finding acclaim in 2020 with their ‘No Woman Is the Sea’ album, before going on to share bills with St. Vincent, Torres, Deep Sea Diver, DeVotchKa, Mini Trees, Hibou, and Kilby Block Party, “Radio Player” sees their sound continue to evolve. This new slow-burning single merges analogue atmospherics, Indie Rock drive, and Pop melodies to create something that feels haunting, claustrophobic, and cathartic.

"Radio Player is a song about memory and fear, loosely based on seeing the movie Poltergeist at too young an age," she explains. "It is a journey through the hallways of childhood that we leave a light on within. A pink light flickers on and beckons the listener through, releasing them changed and covered in ectoplasm five minutes later.”

As our discussion shows, Pollett is a deep and sensitive thinker, who views life as a series of opportunities to embrace, rather than obstacles.

Name a perfect song and tell us why you feel that way.

"How Simple" by Hop Along. I don’t know how they perfected a sing-along so uniquely devastating. There is heartbreak magic in that song that never ceases to floor me. “We will both find out just not together” R U KIDDING ME

How do you manage having a good time at shows, but also trying to stay mentally and physically fit?

I have not really toured much, but I do attend/play a LOT of shows in SLC, and this has been something I have dedicated a lot of thought to. When I’m not playing shows, I adhere pretty strictly to my bedtime. Sleep is so incredibly important to me and I’m a bit of an old man when it comes to the time I get ready for bed. If I know I have a show where I’ll be up late coming soon, I prioritize sleeping and eating well in the days prior. I try to make sure the day after will be an easy work day when possible.

I’m really lucky that my boss at my day job is a big supporter of my musical career and I can work a flexible day with later start times the day after a show if needed. I also don’t drink alcohol which has made recovering from late nights and busy shows exponentially easier than it was when I did drink.

I also cannot stress this enough, but you have to strengthen your core to make all that standing on concrete not so hard on your back. Think about your posture, lift with your legs. Stay active. For mental health, I think prioritizing physical health really makes it so much easier. If I’m well rested, I’m able to tap into my mental health tools easier - like mindfulness, journaling, resting. It’s all connected. 

How do you feel your queer identity ties into your performance style or music?

My relationship to queerness and gender is so deeply connected to my art. I have been able to explore my queerness through creating art for my entire life. Sometimes when a feeling feels too scary to articulate or speak into my every-day life, exploring it lyrically makes it lighter. Any time I feel uncertain in my identity or my queerness, I am able to look back at art that I have made for my entire life and point to a history of knowing myself even when I thought that I didn’t. Like I have love songs I wrote about women in my life from years before I ever externally or even internally acknowledged that I wasn’t straight. 

My relationship to gender with its nuance and fluidity feels like it gives me the space and permission to be more exploratory in other aspects of my life, and to the inverse, being more exploratory in my music has led me to realizations about my gender that have helped me to be more articulate about it. The same way that I have a hard time telling someone what genre of music I make, I struggle to tell someone what my gender feels like. It can be a lot of things. It depends on the day. It is always changing. I feel lucky to have a place like songwriting to explore it and feel out where it might go next. In a song I can have any name or body or gender I want, and I can see how I feel in relation to it. 

What would you like to say to people who are currently questioning their identities?

I would say that the questioning is the best part. And to never stop questioning it. The questioning is tied to our humanness, our capacity for change, our understanding of ourselves and each other. It’s the suffering that can so easily come with questioning that hurts. So how can you remove suffering from your questioning? What’s keeping you from loving the questions? 

Recent release you cannot stop listening to?

I’m so deeply enamored with the new Madeline Kenney album, Kiss From the Balcony. I have been such a fan of hers for years, and this album feels like the best thing she’s ever created. Every lyric leaves me breathless, and the production is so incredibly beautiful. The song "Semitones" belongs in a sonic museum. Madeline Kenney inspires me so deeply and has for years. Ugh, I love it. 

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