Today we’d like to introduce you to Josh Robins.
Hi Josh, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I began playing guitar at age eight, got serious by age 15 (1991) and have been writing music and playing in bands (often as the band leader) ever since.
When I started, I loved The Beatles and Van Halen, but as a teenager, I took to the extreme DIY ethos of more obscure bands like Dead Kennedys and NoMeansNo. I hardly took any lessons until age 22, when I realized I needed guidance and began focusing on lead guitar with a teacher.
As I improved and learned, I began writing more complex music, imagining violins, woodwinds and bigger orchestration. I’d record my ideas onto 4-track tapes playing all the parts on guitars. I moved to Austin in 1999 and took music courses at ACC and studied classical guitar privately. I learned to read/write standard music notation and began transcribing my ideas from those 4-track tapes and eventually started a band to perform them – The Invincible Czars.
The Invincible Czars will celebrate our 20th anniversary in 2023. We started out playing in Red River clubs but our unique mix of classical and rock instruments lent itself to bigger projects and we eventually stepped into the art world and now operate more like an arts ensemble and less like a rock band.
In 2007, we joined a second wave of bands making new soundtracks for silent films and performing them live at the Alamo Drafthouse original location on Colorado St. As we added more films / scores to our catalog, silent film eventually eclipsed everything else we did. By 2014, we were playing out of town more often than in town and we were the only band taking our silent film soundtracks out of state.
The Alamo and other theatres have called us one of the best in the nation in this small niche.
This fall 2022, we’ll embark on our biggest tour ever: 47 dates performing an updated soundtrack for Nosferatu’s 100th anniversary!
We’ll celebrate our 20th anniversary next year with several special shows and releases.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I’m so grateful for all the challenges that have helped me learn – even though some were so painful or infuriating in the moment.
Defining success – one of the hardest things to do. I’ve called myself an achievement addict. I’ve often put my head down to do the HARD work on a project only to look up when it’s done to realize the end result didn’t serve my actual desire.
Money is always an obstacle – or perhaps changing my attitude about it permanently.
Self-doubt (and worse)
Getting married and divorced twice (one to a band member with a VERY dramatic ending)
Not being cool – so much of the entertainment business is guessing / hoping what might work. We spend so much time learning how to create and perform that we come to believe talent makes us worthy of fame or fortune when, in fact, talent is simply a prerequisite to working in the business of guessing what might be profitable at any given moment with any given audience. Some people and organizations are really good at that part! If you’re not, all the talent in the world will simply give you unlimited opportunities to try.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
The Invincible Czars are the only band touring nationally at the scale we do performing original silent film accompaniment but that’s just one of our projects (certainly the most lucrative).
We’ve come to operate more like an arts collective than a rock band – rotating players, seasonal material, constantly changing the sound. These things aren’t conducive to marketing a rock band but I’m proud of simply having lasted and paving a way forward for weird music. When I moved here, I loved the “keepin’ it weird” notion but the truth is that most of the bands people know from Austin aren’t that weird. Other than The Octopus Project and Graham Reynolds, most Austin bands that have had national success have had a ready-made audience for their brand of blues, Americana, indie rock, soul or country music. I’m proud to be among the few who export some actual weirdness from Austin.
How do you think about happiness?
Learning guitar solos by my favorite guitarists – especially Eddie Van Halen and Marty Friedman. It’s just fun.
Writing music, playing with actual humans – something I took for granted before the pandemic.
Being with my partner Katie — after two divorces, I think I finally got it right and she’s a delight.
Visiting family – they live far away and I appreciate being with them more.
Good friends
Cycling – it’s meditative and calming
Petting cats
Contact Info:
- Website: https://invincibleczars.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/invincibleczars/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/invincibleczars/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsLV9eBeG2HN937wCMvvyUQ
- Other: https://www.patreon.com/invincibleczars
Image Credits
Individual photo by Gary R. Hook fence – Katie O’Neil piano – Gary R. Hook theater shots – DeAndrea Jones Nutcracker photo
