Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.

Josh Carus came across a 1970s picture of Route 46 in January 2020 while scrolling through New Jersey subreddit, a highway he’s driven “100 times.” He forgot about the picture for a while but remembered it when looking for a cover for his upcoming album.

Album covers mean a lot to the Syracuse University sophomore. He’s a believer that a good album cover draws its listeners.

“I wanted to make sure I put proper thought into my cover,” Carus said.

Carus, who is studying in the Bandier Program, will release his second album “Need a Vacation” on May 21. The indie-rock record will be available on streaming services including Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon Music. Carus dropped his song “Next Time” on April 16.

As an artist, Carus is inspired by classic rock songwriters such as Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young and The Beatles, along with the general production style of the ‘90s. He strives to combine those two aesthetics and make it sound like him, he said.

At about 1 year old, Josh Carus’ parents noticed him constantly muttering the word “diguita.” They took their son out of his crib and he went right over to one of his 10 toy guitars. He couldn’t stop saying it, according to his mom Julie Carus.

“Most kids’ first words are ‘momma’ or ‘dadda’ and mine was guitar,” Josh Carus said. “I think my parents knew the second I said it that I had a passion for music and that it was going to be a big part of my life.”

Even outside his first word being guitar, the sophomore always had a strong connection to music ever since he was little. At his summer sleepaway camp in Rock Hill, New York, his friend Ross Brenner remembers him always walking around with a guitar in his hands and performing rock songs at their annual camp talent show.

“I feel like everyone knew who Carus was and that he wanted to be a musician,” Brenner said.

Carus got serious about writing and recording his music in high school at Montville, New Jersey, and performed about six charity shows each year with classmates from the school’s School of Rock club.

Sophomore year of high school, his uncle gave him a Fender Telecaster electric guitar that he owned for years as a “permanent rental.” The guitar, made in Japan, has become part of his signature look. The neck is a V shape, and fits Carus’ hand perfectly becoming like a third arm, he said.

In November 2019, Carus put out his first album “Dissociate,” which became available on streaming services in 2020. A lot of the album was inspired by what was going on in his life, between relationships and friendships, he said.

Carus started writing the songs for his second album his freshman year at SU, and into the early part of quarantine. He originally had a tracklist of 13 to 14 songs but narrowed it down to 10.

Maya Goosmann | Design Editor

When brainstorming a name for the album in quarantine at the Sheraton, Carus wanted something that encapsulated all the themes he sang about including what it’s like growing up in a small town and being a college student. He was overwhelmed and thought to himself, “I need a vacation,” and then it hit him.

Unlike other artists, Carus doesn’t have a big setup and records everything on his phone’s GarageBand app in his childhood bedroom. Carus’ process for making a song includes recording and mixing all of the instrumental components, then putting vocals over it.

When he gets stuck during his three-to-four-hour recording sessions, Carus looks to the poster hanging above his bed — a guitar signed by dozens of rock legends with little pictures of notable rock bands and solo artists. It generally inspires him and gets him back to recording.

As an artist, he’s always appreciated longer songs so he chose his seven-minute track “Let Me Out” to be the first song on his album, he said. The song starts with a rhythm guitar chord progression, which he then recorded to a drum loop. Afterward, he added a bass, lead guitar and keyboard.

He said his first album was a way to put his foot into the door in the music world, but felt like the album was more of a collection of songs. For his second album, he wanted to put together a more cohesive vision and something he would be proud of and called SU sophomore Sami Miller, who he described as the “Bandier marketing guru,” for help.

The two of them meet weekly on Zoom from their dorm rooms to discuss a marketing plan, including a timeline for each single and album release. So far, they’ve also reached out to local Syracuse organizations such as University Union to help promote his music, and have plans of launching a TikTok.

“We’re just starting local, because he doesn’t have much of a fan base right now just because every artist has to start from somewhere,” Miller said.

Sophomore year of high school, Carus’ uncle gave him a Fender Telecaster electric guitar. Meghan Hendricks | Staff Photographer

Watching and playing live music is Carus’ favorite thing. He’s an obsessive Springsteen fan and in 2016, he stood in the pit of a MetLife Stadium Springsteen concert.

Carus tries to emulate the feeling he gets at a live concert in his music. He believes an artist’s true vision is captured in a live show and that hearing music live makes it more personal and relatable and really helps you see where the artist is coming from.

“Just think about the way you feel when you’re at a show,” he said. “Just offering people that feeling is one of the most rewarding things that I could do.”

Published on May 3, 2021 at 10:56 pm