To get an idea of just what a phenomenon Vance Joy is, understand that he sold out every single date of his Fire and the Flood Tour. That’s every single date from North America to Australia, including some seriously big rooms.
The young troubadour, whose real name is James Keogh, has charmed countless fans with his mix of curly hair and sweetly sung, ukelele-driven folk tunes, which has garnered props from triple j, commercial radio, and his BFF Taylor Swift.
But according to the man himself, his influences span a little wider than what you may first suspect. In fact, speaking recently to Rolling Stone, Keogh revealed that one of his formative influences was none other than Metallica.
“I was at home and my dad told me he’d got me guitar lessons, which I wasn’t too happy about,” Keogh told RS. “He bought me a guitar and was like ‘This is happening. You’re going to get a lesson in a couple weeks’.”
Keogh found his way around a six-string by practicing Metallica riffs and even credits the thrash metal masters with helping him form his first ideas about songwriting, in particular he says, Metallica taught him how to break the rules.
“Their songs are kind of unique because they don’t fit the normal program,” he said. “They’ll play a 12 minute song with a 1000 different parts. I like seeing that kind of thing… [A song] can be whatever. As long as you’re feeling like this is a cool thing, I think people will go on that journey with you.”
