Josh Hastick

Like most origin stories mine begins in New Jersey. After my aunt bought me a toy keyboard, I would play along with the songs on my cassettes I had growing up. Before long, my interests expanded to various other instruments like guitar, bass, brass, and percussion. It was in high school when I would come into my own with music and it was by senior year that I started my first band. We started writing songs to play at venues and were received well at the time by the local community.

After graduating high school I went to trade school to learn everything I could about audio engineering and the technical side of music. I continued to play publicly as a solo artist— I went on to play and work with a lot of bands in the Asbury music scene in NJ and even started to play in the East Village in New York at that time. I sought new beginnings in Florida soon after, where I attended Full Sail University to continue my audio engineering studies. I made many valuable connections there and even met my wife. I had many opportunities to play shows with my new band while attending college.

After graduating with my Bachelor’s degree, I threw everything I owned into a truck and hauled ass to Nashville where I picked up my career where I left it off in Jersey, working with various songwriters producing and engineering their albums again. I also worked live audio gigs which eventually led me to becoming the technical production manager at Kid Rock's. While there, I really cut my teeth on the live audio workflow until the pandemic hit years into it— In times of great adversity they say “adapt or die," so adapt I did by working with the bands to build broadcast audio-rigs for live-streaming and got into video production and photography as well. Eventually when the world got back to spinning and venues opened back up, I decided I needed to get back to the reason why I entered into this industry to begin with. I took all the songs I'd written over the years and finally started putting together an album of my own.

Farewell to Old Friends is the culmination of everything I’ve been working on my entire life. I think of it as an anthology with songs spanning from 2011 to 2024. Each song is a milestone on my journey thus far. The title track reflects on the loss of a childhood friend, and “Fly Away” remarks my despair and reform after Hurricane Sandy. “Release Me” is a very special co-write I did with my brother during the COVID shutdown, and “Saint Martyr” recalls those friends who are so unwilling to help themselves that they take you down with them. Finally, “Redbird” looks toward the future, pondering life after life. My hope for this album is that everyone finds little pieces of themselves scattered throughout because that connection is what binds us together through all of our journeys.