Josh Pyke still has wolves gnawing inside
Twenty years on from Feeding the Wolves, and ahead of a show with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, singer-songwriter Josh Pyke talks about songwriting, performing and hearing the audience sing.
The lyrics of Josh Pyke’s breakout song Middle of the Hill mark a moment early in his life and a chance to reflect on today.
“It’s a timestamp in the sense that it’s about my childhood and is totally autobiographical,” Josh says over the phone.
“But there’s a line in particular at the end of the song where it says, ‘I don’t pay enough attention to the good things when I got them’.”
Prescient or serendipitous, Middle of the Hill claimed the number 19 spot on Triple J’s Hottest 100 of 2005. While the mini album it came from, Feeding the Wolves, received an ARIA nomination for Best Pop Release.
“When I’m playing a show… that song is a really pertinent and present reminder that I love what I’m doing and I’m grateful for being able to do it.”
Josh will team up with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra for a one-off performance celebrating the 20th anniversary of Feeding the Wolves. They’ll perform the mini album, plus some of Josh’s other well-loved songs, adding lush orchestral arrangements to his indie-folk melodies and evocative lyrics.
He’s excited about the reimagining of the title track.
“It’s a really stripped back arrangement on the record and I can’t wait to hear how that translates,” he says.
When Feeding the Wolves was released, reviewers widely praised it, calling the songs “genuinely lovely” and Josh a “genius songwriter”.
In Private Education he wrote about insecurities and not feeling good enough within a particular situation. Without formal music training and unable to read music, the feeling lingers.
“I still have massive imposter syndrome whenever I’m doing things like playing with [the ASO],” he says.
That said, Josh is a bit of a renaissance man – he’s written 10 children’s books and composes for commercials, film and TV. The soundtrack for both seasons of Troppo on ABC TV is his work.
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“I was brought up listening to lots of classical music, and the scoring work that I do is not like classical scoring, but it definitely contains elements of drones and cellos and violin sounds that have [those] recurring motifs,” Josh says.
While the orchestral arrangements are yet to be finalised, Josh is hoping to bring these melodic motifs into a new light with the ASO.
“In Feeding the Wolves there’s a returning melody on the guitar that I’d love to hear emphasised and brought forward by strings or another instrument,” he says.
His soundtrack scoring and previous appearances with state symphony orchestras have changed the way he communicates melodies now. Also changed is where he finds inspiration, “chipping away” at voice memos and the like to write “about 10 good songs a year” while processing his life and memories.
Josh’s mother passed away last year after battling Alzheimer’s. He says this experience has thrown up questions around identity and loss of collective memory, and spurred him to increase his output, though not necessarily release more than usual.
With much more life experience now than in his 20s, he’s moved on from writing songs about burgeoning love and confusion about finding his place in the world.
“Having had kids and navigating that type of love, it’s a whole new, deeper and more complicated type of love that’s mixed up with so much fear and a broader reckoning with the state of the world,” he says.
“Leeward Side, Your Heart Won’t Always Weigh a Tonne, You’re My Colour – all those songs have been inspired by my kids, not with specific references to them, but just the things that I experienced in the world in relation to them.”
Having provided the soundtrack for our pivotal memories for 20 years, he is looking forward to the ASO performance.
“There’s no greater joy than playing songs that people know and are engaging with like they’re their songs.”
Josh Pyke and the ASO is playing at 7:30pm, Thursday April 24 2025 at Festival Theatre. Book now via the website.