Feb 23, 2007

Screenwriter turned musician writes his own destiny

Paul Freeman / Entertainment Writer

Joshua Radin couldn't script a better success story for himself. The former screenwriter, now a singer-songwriter, performs at San Francisco's The Independent, in the midst of his first headlining tour. He's come a long way in a short time.

Radin's sound is soft and soothing, his vocals whispery. That is partly because of a New York neighbor who complained about loud playing. It also evolved from his love of such artists as Paul Simon, Nick Drake and Elliott Smith. He has crafted a sound that utterly disarms listeners, making his Columbia album, "We Were Here," a charmer, from the first track to the last.

"I look out over the crowd while I'm playing and they're all singing along, knowing all the lyrics. It's amazing," Radin said. "I feel so lucky. It's all happened relatively overnight."
It was only three years ago when, at the suggestion of his girlfriend (now ex-girlfriend), the Shaker Heights, Ohio, native played an open-mike night in the West Village.

"It was incredibly nerve-wracking," Radin recalled. "I'd never played music in front of anyone before. I'd only been playing guitar for two years. I hadn't written any songs."
He was going to perform three covers. He decided it would be more impressive, if he included one original. So he wrote the song "Winter."

"I never really thought I could write a song before. But when I played it, people really liked it. They came up and asked where they could get a copy," he said, but, "Obviously, there were no copies."

He played the song for friend Zach Braff, star of "Scrubs," who loved it and said if Radin would record it, he'd get it in the hands of the show's producers. Radin recorded it in the bedroom of another friend, songwriter Cary Brothers. Three weeks later, the "Scrubs" producer called to say they wanted to use it on the show.

"It was just crazy. All of a sudden, I had a fan base ... in 42 different countries."

More songs poured out of Radin. "It happens at night. Some lyric or melody will be rolling around in my head and I can't fall asleep and I have to get it out," he said. "Usually, when that happens, a song comes out in 15 or 20 minutes, like stream of consciousness."

He's tried to force songs out and has found it to be self-defeating. "I have to just let it come out when I really have something to say," Radin said. "It's just truth ... and it comes right out. You almost can't even take credit for it, you know? It's kind of like a divining rod."

Many of the tunes came out of a breakup. "This album, generally, is a record about falling in and out of love during the last year of a dying relationship."

As he wrote the songs, the couple grew further apart. "That had to do not only with her hearing what I was saying in the songs, but also, as a struggling screenwriter, I was sitting in the apartment all day, typing at the computer," he said. "The more I started playing out in front of people, girls started showing up and she started getting jealous. There was more tension on the relationship. So the music kind of pulled me out of this dying relationship."

His personal expressions found universal resonance. "When you start to not feel for someone after a bunch of years, you have that guilt," he said. "But then people relate to what you've written and say they feel the same way about the person they're with or just broke up with. It gives you a bit of justification."

After moving to Los Angeles, Radin fell in love again. This provided the album with balance. "When I met someone new, I started writing some songs that weren't so depressing," he said. "It was art imitating life ... or life imitating art. I don't really know which."

Quickly, Radin's songs were heard in "Grey's Anatomy," as well as such films as "Last Kiss" and "Catch and Release."

It's not as if Radin hadn't paid his dues.

"I'd been living in New York, painting and writing screenplays, doing the whole starving artist thing for six or seven years. A dollar a day for food type of thing. New York is such an expensive town to live in, especially when you're broke. When the music thing happened, it was a very welcome change."

Elements he had learned in painting and screenwriting colored his songwriting, which he found more cathartic than other media.

"I grew up painting. That's what I studied in college. Screenwriting is a visual medium. You always have to be thinking about showing, not telling," Radin said. "So when it came time to write a song, I guess my lyrics always came out visually."

Radin optioned two scripts, but neither was produced. "It was very frustrating to put all that time into something and then have it sit on a shelf somewhere. You have to get so many people involved to make a film. With music, I could write a song, record it on a computer, put it on the Internet, like on MySpace, and boom - it's out there."

Radin has already outlined his happiest ending. "I'd like to eventually write a script, star in it, write and play all the music for it, make it have something to do with fine arts and do a lot of paintings that would be featured in the film.

"Everything I do creatively, incorporated into one project - that would be really cool. Then I'd be able to die peacefully," he laughed. "It'll take time and money, but that's what I'm working towards. It'll be fun trying."