Conversations with Joe Copple

Today we’d like to introduce you to Joe Copple

Hi Joe, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
It’s been a winding road. I’m originally from outside of Richmond, VA. I grew up in a musical family where my grandfather, father, and older brother all sang southern gospel music in quartets. My father and older brother were in a Gospel Quartet called the Virginia Harmonaires. One of my earliest memories is going out to an old farmhouse in Virginia that was turned into a gospel music venue called “The Gospel Chicken House” where the Virginia Harmonaires were one of many acts that performed. My parents had put me in piano and guitar lessons when I was around 9 or 10 years old but I didn’t take to either one much and ended up quitting on both to play sports throughout the rest of my childhood. In college I messed around with music production and beat making and even used to rap on those beats during the peak soundcloud era of 2016-2017. At this point I still played no instruments. After graduating from college I was working a “stepping stone” job looking for something more permanent and that’s when Covid hit. Around this time I got a job for a big builder supply company who relocated me to Wilmington, NC. I realized pretty quickly I was miserable at this new job making collection calls and working in a cubicle and began leaning on a binge drinking habit I’d picked up in my college years. Living in downtown Wilmington made it easy to keep drinking and I was on a downward spiral. I had brought my old dusty cheap Ibanez guitar with me from Virginia and in order to keep myself from walking downtown I began teaching myself to play again in the summer of 2021. I was not good at all at first and it took some time to learn to strum and sing at the same time. I started hitting open mics and after several months I was offered a paid gig at a bar in Downtown Wilmington after impressing the manager at their open mic. I didn’t even know enough songs to fill out a 3 hour set so I had a musician buddy of mine Taylor Bissette play half the set and I played the other half. We each probably knew about 10-15 songs total. That was probably on of the very first gigs for both of us. After that it may have been foolish at the time but I left my 9-5 and dived into playing music in bars & restaurants full time, still very green to performing and raw in my musical ability. A lot of musicians spend years and decades before they put themselves out for the world to see but I had been playing for about 6 months before I really started performing a lot. I was learning as I went along, basically paid practice is how I viewed it. But I was working extremely hard to improve at my craft. I ended up working too hard and doing way too many gigs and injuring my voice in late 2022 and had to get laser surgery to remove a vocal cord cyst in March of 2023. It was one of the darkest times of my life. I was unable to talk for an entire month and could not perform for nearly two months. I stayed in my apartment alone for weeks at a time. Financially it was devastating. It was only my faith in God that got me through that period. Since the injury I’ve been back to performing and although I still struggle to maintain my vocal health I’ve gotten a lot better at knowing when to take it easy. This year I will probably end up doing well over 150 gigs with some really cool opportunities coming up. I know that was a lot but it has truly been a winding road

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Oof you may want to see the first answer. Outside of the vocal cord injury I’ve dealt with a bit of a binge drinking problem on and off. There’s been several times I’ve gone 3-4 months without a drink, but it’s something I’m still working on, although I’m in a much better place than I was. Outside of that I’ve had some very difficult personal matters with a close family member and that has taken a toll on my mental health, but it’s just another thing that has made me stronger.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a singer-songwriter musician who performs mainly in Southeastern North Carolina. My music is influenced by country, southern rock, blues, gospel and more. I think what sets me apart is that people can feel the emotion of the song when I sing and perform, especially my originals. They’re authentically me and it’s clear I’m not trying to put on some persona. I’m not just going through the motions with covers either. Every cover I play is a song I deeply relate to and feel in my core. I often talk to my audiences and give them a background on the song or why I play it, or some fun fact about the writer or song. I’ve been told I have a knack for crowd engagement, and that’s what I believe my actual talent is. Music is something I had to work to become good at, but I was always that kid that liked getting up in front of the class

The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
I think Covid helped a lot of us realize what really matters. I was stagnant in my life and it wasn’t until I moved to a different state on my own during Covid that I began collecting all of these new experiences and growing as a person. I always tell people I’ve grown more in the three years since moving here than I did in my first 24 years of life

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joecopple.music?igsh=NXZua2Z3YzVmaHhn&utm_source=qr
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/qJQHYjexeZ26FkHd/?mibextid=LQQJ4d