A long way from Wheaton.
Wheaton, Missouri has about seven hundred people in it. That's where Josh Kennedy learned to play — guitar in his bedroom, working out Clapton and Hendrix and Creedence until the songs were his own. There was no rock scene in the southwest Missouri Bible belt, so at twenty he packed up and drove to Phoenix to study at the Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences, then interned at the Gin Blossoms' studio. He never left.
He cut his teeth the way the good ones do — in other people's bands first. He played guitar in Violet Wild, a Tempe rock outfit that earned him a reputation around the Valley as one of its best players. With drummer Chico Diaz he built Chalmers Green, the group that would shed its skin and become something bigger.
In 2012 that something became The Black Moods — and the kid from Wheaton stepped up to the mic. More than a decade later he's still the voice and the guitar at the front of it, and the band still works the same way it always has: write the songs, play them loud, drive to the next town.
"I didn't choose a career in the music industry. It chose me."
Josh Kennedy · Northeast Valley News
