page_title: Joe Pug
section_title: Influences
hierarchical_section_title: Joe Pug / Influences
caption_attribution_description: English: Steve Earle, at the Midlands Music Festival in 2007, Westmeath, Ireland
context_page_description: Joe Pug is an American singer-songwriter from Greenbelt, Maryland. He has released two EPs, as well as the albums Messenger, The Great Despiser, Windfall and The Flood In Color.
  While working as a carpenter in Chicago after dropping out of the University of North Carolina, Pug wrote and recorded what would eventually become his debut EP, Nation of Heat. Its literate lyrics received widespread acclaim and Pug's unorthodox promotional strategy of distributing free CDs to anyone interested in sharing his music resulted in the EP selling over 20,000 copies. After touring with Steve Earle in 2009, Pug was signed by Nashville indie label Lightning Rod Records and released Messenger in 2010. After moving to Austin, Pug released The Great Despiser in 2012.
  Pug's acclaimed narrative songwriting has led critics to draw comparisons between his work and that of John Prine and Bob Dylan. His stated influences include John Hiatt, Warren Zevon, and Beck, as well as literary figures such as John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck, Raymond Carver and most notably, Walt Whitman.
context_section_description: Pug's lyrics has been noted for their literary techniques and allusions. Pug admits to this influence, citing various novelists, short story writers and poets as inspirations.  John Steinbeck is referenced Messenger's "Not So Sure." Pug cited Walt Whitman as the biggest influence on Nation of Heat, calling "Hymn #35" the "palest imitation of 'Leaves of Grass' in recorded history!" He told Rolling Stone that the biggest influence on The Great Despiser was short story writer Raymond Carver, praising him for how "when you return to a piece of his that you read long ago and realize just how much of your own detail was placed in the gaps." Pug has stated that he is attracted to "the narrative of the individual and the individual being the only thing you can be sure is real in yourself," which, he says, drew him to Walt Whitman and John Steinbeck when he was younger, and Raymond Carver and Cormac McCarthy as he has grown older.
  Pug has cited John Hiatt as an influence on his melodic sense and narrative structures. He described the first John Prine record he received from his dad as a memorable moment in his development as a songwriter:
  “I’d never heard anything like that before. In a way, it was unfathomable to me that someone could write a song that would be as clear as a well-written book. I mean, I knew exactly what he was saying, immediately.”
  Pug credits Steve Earle for teaching him "everything," calling his time touring with him a "master class" in performance. He later told PopMatters:
  "For about a month in the states and a month overseas, it would just be me on stage by myself and then him on stage by himself—we’d be the only two people on stage. I was, like, I think, 23 at the time. So, luckily, I was too young and stupid at the time to know how daunting it was. (Laughs) If I had to do that now, I probably couldn’t get through it. I got to watch his show for ninety minutes or two hours every night. I took so much away from it, stuff that I still use on a daily basis. I’d go sell records after my set and as the lights would go down in the lobby I’d run backstage and pull up a chair next to his guitar tech and just watch the show from the side of the stage every night. I’d watch him as he sculpted the set, putting songs in different places. I’d watch him deal with everything from a seated, quiet Sunday night audience to a completely loud, drunk, standing audience somewhere in Scotland—I’d watch him deal with them as well. I got to see just about every scenario."
  With Windfall, Pug cites more contemporary influences, such as Josh Ritter, Ryan Adams, and M. Ward. However, Pug's trademark literary influences are still present: the chorus of "The Measure," which repeats, "all we’ve lost is nothing to what we’ve found" is inspired by a quote by Frederick Buechner's novel Godric. Of the reference, Pug explained:
  That was the original kernel for the song. It comes from a quote from Frederick Buechner's 'Godric,' which we've actually made the epigram for the album: "The secret that we share I cannot tell in full. But this much I will tell. What's lost is nothing to what's found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup." I thought it was a beautiful phrase and tried to write a song that did justice to it.
  Throughout his career, Joe Pug has performed and recorded covers in tribute to his influences. He performed Harvey "Tex" Thomas Young's "You Can Go Crazy" on Young's More Than We Was album.  On Dead Man's Town: A Tribute to Born in the U.S.A., Pug performed Bruce Springsteen's "Downbound Train", telling Esquire: 
  "It is at once a testament to the timelessness of the Boss's songwriting and to the unchanged economic torpor of working people in America that this song is so relevant 30 years later. I was thrilled and honored that Lightning Rod Records gave me the opportunity to try to interpret one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite artists."
caption: Steve Earle, who Pug opened for in 2009.
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