A Chat With: Mondo Cozmo
Recently, ANCHR caught up with Josh Ostrander, better known by the moniker Mondo Cozmo, as he and his bandmates kicked off their tour with The Airborne Toxic Event. The tour takes place during the launch of Mondo Cozmo’s third album called This Is For The Barbarians, which was written during the initial stages of the pandemic and lockdown, and follows up 2017’s Plastic Soul and 2020’s New Medicine.
The new record showcases the duality of lightness and darkness, and the importance of still finding human connection during times of isolation. Sonically, the album has tinges of Bob Dylan influence, particularly with Ostrander’s vocal inflections, and it layers intricate, experimental production styles over rock and roll roots. Tune into the conversation with Ostrander below to hear more about his approach to songwriting during lockdown, the heroes that inspired him in the process, and what you can expect from the live show. This Is For The Barbarians dropped on Friday, April 8th, and you can order your own copy here, or pick up a copy on tour. Mondo Cozmo will be playing The Vic on April 14th and 15th, and you can snag tickets here.
Photo by Travis Shinn
ANCHR Magazine: Kicking things off, I actually interviewed you at Hangout music festival way back in June—
Josh Ostrander: Oh wow…2017?
Yeah, so it was like peak “Plastic Soul Era” and you were on all the festival circuits! So I’m sure it was all a blur, but just wanted to say it’s nice to chat with you again.
It’s nice to talk to you again!
Well since then, a lot has changed. You put out your second Mondo Cozmo record, and now you’re gearing up for the third record. Just in general, how have the past couple of years been for you?
Well it was tough when the tour got canned. New Medicine came out and we were gearing up to tour in support of it for as long as we could. I think we were one week into the tour and that’s when the world kind of went crazy. We canceled the tour, flew the band home…it was a scary time you know? I got back to LA and my wife and I decided to get out of LA, and we moved to a town called Twin Peaks up near Lake Arrowhead. We didn’t know what was happening, and we thought this was a good move for us. It turned out to be great, and I didn’t know what to do cause we couldn’t tour, so I just started recording. What would follow would be the record that’s coming out in two weeks.
I heard you dubbed the cabin you moved to and recorded in “Chateau Mondo,” which is very fitting. Is that where you wrote all the songs on the album?
Yeah everything was recorded during the pandemic and it was therapeutic for me to write that during that time. A lot of the lyrics have a lot of stuff dealing with [the pandemic]. It shows where my head was at.
Yeah totally. Do you have any favorite memories from your time retreating to the cabin?
I was always bumming that we put out the New Medicine record in the middle of the pandemic. I was bumming about that because I wrote and recorded that album to be a live record. I wanted it to translate really well to live shows, songs like “Black Cadillac” and “Come On” and then suddenly we weren’t able to tour, and I was like “Why did we put this record out?” essentially. Then one night, it all made sense to me because my phone started blowing up on a Sunday night. I was watching TV and all my friends were like “go to Twitter!” so I go on there and it was Bruce Springsteen talking about Mondo Cozmo. He did an article for the New York Times.
Oh wow, that’s amazing!
Yeah they were like “who are you listening to?” and he said he listened to Mondo Cozmo. I was like, holy fuck. I grew up in Philly….
Yeah, he’s the Boss!
I know everything about the guy, and suddenly I was like oh my god, and I got in touch with his day to day person. I wrote her a letter and said I know you probably get a ton of these a day, but if you could forward this to Bruce, I would be so thankful. It was a really heartfelt letter to him saying sometimes with what I do, it feels like I’m screaming into the night air, but he gave me a validation that I needed.
That is like THE validation.
Yeah, it shook me, it really did. I used that excitement to craft the next record, but constantly thinking “But the boss is over my shoulder!” Like constantly thinking, is this good enough? No, it’s not…make it better. It was a healthy challenge for me I think.
Just a smidge of pressure…
Yeah, just a smidge!
I was actually listening to an interview you did where you mentioned when you were working on New Medicine that Butch Vig had mentioned he was listening to you back then.
Yeah, Rachel, it was the same thing– “go to Twitter” and I go and see that Butch Vig is saying he listens to Mondo Cozmo!
Wow, so you go from Butch Vig to Bruce Springsteen, who’s next?! You’ve gotta get Keith Richards on the next one.
That’d be amazing. The new Grammy I think is getting on Barack Obama’s playlist. That would be a big one.
That would be incredible! Well speaking of your new music, I really like both the singles you put out, “Electrify My Love” and “Meant For Livin’” and with the latter, I feel like there’s this cadence to it that’s almost like you took spoken word poetry or rap lyrics and slapped it over a rock anthem.
Yeah that one was the first song I wrote during the pandemic. I was really proud, the lyrics came really quickly. I wrote it in about an hour and a half— I was missing one verse, but I woke up and I had it in my head and just recorded it. It’s very Dylan-y and I was like, fuck it, just go with it. The lyric “here’s to hoping that you get out alive”—In the band, we almost joke about it, but it was a pretty honest statement at that time in the pandemic. I didn’t know if my dad was going to get sick…we’re wiping down groceries…It was crazy times. It’s been nice seeing people’s reactions to that one.
Yeah. You mentioned Dylan, I definitely picked up on that. Were there any other particular influences that inspired you with that song?
When I started that one I was like I would love to make this feel like a Johnny Cash song. Whenever we go through New Orleans, I always try to see the big brass bands and stuff. I was like man if I could combine those worlds and add a little Mondo into it, I think it will come across very original.
Yeah it’s definitely its own but it sounds like you had some good influences behind it!
That’s awesome, thank you. It’s been going over really well live too, it’s been fun.
I’m excited to hopefully see it in Chicago! So generally with the whole album This Is For The Barbarians ,I know the title was influenced by David Lerner and the Barbarian poets of the 1980s. What was it about their work that spoke to you most?
I was reading a lot of this poetry book that’s called The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. It’s awesome, it’s just like a selection of amazing writers and this one guy, every time I’d read it, I’d be like holy fuck…and it was always this guy David Lerner. This guy, I’m just really dialed into this guy, so I order more of his poetry books. There’s one called I Want a New Gun and it came in the mail, it’s a little poetry book. I opened it up and the preface is this blank page and in very small font, it said “This is for the Barbarians.” I was like wow, this is powerful. Whatever follows this, I’m in. It really resonated with me and I think it’s the perfect title for what I’m working on.
That’s awesome. And the fact that you read that book and didn’t even necessarily know the poems you had a pull to were all by David Lerner seems like it was meant to be.
Exactly, yeah. He’s been a nice influence on me. I wish there was more work of his that I could find.
With the album, there’s an underlying theme that death and life can be celebrated synchronically, and lightness existing in dark times too. I think that’s been something heavily prevalent during the pandemic, and just trying to find the silver linings during these devastating times. Is that something that drove your writing on the record?
Yeah during 2020, my uncle was diagnosed with cancer and he was a huge influence on me, he was the best. He was dying of cancer and I would drive up to see him and spend time with him in Northern California. When I would go up and see him, I would always take along demos of songs and I’d work on lyrics going up and back, driving back and forth. It was heavy but it was beautiful and it was just part of the process for me. But it was beautiful to be there with him when he went. It was powerful, and it really impacted the lyrics for me.
I’m really sorry for your loss. There’s a duality of that loss and pain and then creating art from a tragedy. I’d say that’s more productive than a lot of people who experience loss!
I also heard that “Electrify My Love” was written last for the record, but you wrote it with the intention of being the first song on the album right?
I had a record that was very much I wanted it to be fun sequencing with the songs. Everybody put a lot of work with the mixing and the guy who mastered it. The flow of the record was super important, where certain songs run into other songs…it was a wonderful task to undertake. But I wanted something, harking back to Springsteen, he always comes out one,two swinging on his albums. So I knew I wanted a big, big track to open the record. I wanted it to be a long intro with a calming sense to it, and the opening lyric to be “good evening everyone, I hope this finds you well.” Like a sincere check in on everyone after the two years we just had.
Yeah totally, well talking more about the process of bringing the record together, you recorded everything at home. Did you produce everything, or did you work with anyone else on that part?
I always record myself. Whenever I record with anyone else…it just doesn’t work for me. I’m very much best when I’m left on my own. With this one, it was cool because I could ask people to send me stems or they could record at their home and send it to me, and I could just load it in. That was beautiful and that was fun. My friend Peter Hayes helped a lot on the record, like he did with New Medicine. He’s in a band called Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, he’s been just a great wall for me to bounce things off of.
That’s awesome! I feel like that’s one of the silver linings that came out of the pandemic as well, it’s easier to connect more remotely with people. I heard of a lot of bands recording that way during lock down. If you always prefer working alone, that’s probably your dream to just record at home rather than going into the studio!
Yeah I’m excited because we’re starting to get albums coming out that were written during the pandemic, and I think we’re going to be flooded with a bunch of great music and really powerful stuff. I’m really excited.
Yeah me too! Well as you mentioned, there’s still a pandemic, but the world is obviously opening up a bit more and there’s been more tours going on. You’re in the midst of tour with The Airborne Toxic Event now.
Yeah our third show was last night and we just started getting good! The first show I was like I don’t even know how to do this. I haven’t talked in…how long? But finally last night I was like ok, I’m good to go!
Yeah you had to dust yourself off and get back in the groove! How has it been going besides getting back into it? Any cities you’re looking forward to visiting?
I’m excited for this tour—we were going to push the record back to be honest because we wanted to be able to tour. I was like I’m not gonna be the guy who puts out two records during a pandemic, so we were going to push it because we didn’t have any tours or shows. I was scared to go out, and then Airborne invited us to do this run. So we decided to stick to the plan! The record comes out on April 8th, which is my birthday. I’m going to be in my hometown of Philly on that night, at the TLA where I used to go as a kid. So I’m really looking forward to it.
That’ll be a highlight! Your birthday and hometown show in one night.
Oh my god there’s gonna be a grown man crying on stage, it’s going to be excellent!
You had to take that tour then! So for fans coming out to the show, will you be playing a mix of New Medicine and the third record?
Yeah it’s been challenging because I remember in 2017 when you saw us, we had ten songs, they’d be like we want you to play for 75 minutes, and we’d have had to play the set twice. Now we have forty songs and it’s fun. I would like to play longer but we are filling every second of that set up with every song that we can. We did “Come On” and “Black Cadillac” from New Medicine and then “Shine” and “Plastic Soul” from Plastic Soul and then “Electrify My Love” and “Meant For Livin’” from the new one. We have like an 8-song set and it’s something to see I think.
That’s got to be hard once you have more songs in the catalog and you only have a certain time slot. I’m glad to hear you’re fitting in a mix! Are you planning on a headline run after this one?
We’re hoping to do an East Coast run this fall, maybe another support run as well! I definitely want to go back to Philly. The phone’s starting to ring again, it’s nice to hear the phone ring.
Yeah totally, it’s been very touch and go with touring but it seems like we’re in a good spot for it now. I’m happy to see you’re getting back out there.
Absolutely!
Anything else you’d like to mention before we wrap up?
I think just the main thing is I hope people sit down and listen to the record from front to back. That’s my goal. I guess that’s it though!
Yes totally, I think people are barbaric (pun intended) when they don’t listen to an album in order for at least the first time!
