Josh Kaufman is one of the finest vocalists ever to come out of The Voice – but after winning the sixth season of the show in spring 2014 and embarking on The Voice’s summer tour and starring in Broadway’s Pippin immediately afterwards, he seemed to disappear. Republic Records, The Voice’s associated label, never even put out a single from Kaufman, let alone a full album. But now he’s finally self-releasing his self-titled EP, on June 17, and Yahoo Music’s Reality Rocks is delighted to premiere the video for the EP’s soulful, soaring first single, “Truth Be Told.”



Kaufman is indeed truthful when explaining why it has taken so long for him to release new music. “There are multiple reasons,” he says. “I was contractually obligated to be a part of The Voice tour right after I was on the show, which meant I couldn’t work on my own music right away. Soon after that I began working on Pippin, which took me to the end of 2014, and again I didn’t have much spare time to work on my own stuff. Beyond that, there is, of course, a record deal with Republic Records that comes along with winning The Voice. Republic is one of the biggest, most successful labels in the world, which sounds great. Unfortunately, at least in my case – and I think this has been an issue for other winners of The Voice – because Republic has so many huge artists, I was pretty low on their priority list. Big labels aren’t in the business of taking risks anymore, and Republic has enough ‘sure things’ on their roster that they weren’t going to put time and money into me.

“It was hard to get things moving,” Kaufman continues, “and when we finally did get to cutting a single at the end of 2014, it wasn’t something I was proud of. I had no hand in writing or producing the song, and it just wasn’t me. That song was never released. Ultimately, the record deal was more of a hindrance than a help, and in the first part of 2015 my manager contacted Republic and asked them to let me out of the deal, which they did. I spent 2015 creating lots of new music – songs that I’m really excited about. And believe me, I really wanted to get something out there before this. The problem is, we were trying to time a release to coincide with an appearance back on The Voice. Unfortunately and frustratingly, that just hasn’t worked out.”

Despite the setbacks, Kaufman is optimistic and excited about his independent musical future. “There comes a point when you have to stop listening to people, and stop waiting and hoping, and just move forward regardless of everything and everybody else. And that’s kind of where I am. I’ve made a lot of music that I’m really proud of, and I’m looking forward to getting it out there over the next few months. No more waiting.”

Josh Kaufman was produced by powerpop maestro Bleu, with whom Kaufman co-wrote all but one of the EP’s six tracks. (“Avalanche” was written by Sacha Skarbek and Becky Hill.) “Bleu and I actually went to high school together. We played in a band back then,” says Kaufman. “I remember covering Hendrix, the Beatles, Lenny Kravitz. We kind of lost touch after high school, but he got in touch with me after I was on The Voice and mentioned the possibility of working on some music together. I worked with a number of other producers and writers, but the stuff with Bleu just came out the best. I actually have about another entire album of music ready to go from what we’ve worked on over the past year. Really excited to be releasing this music!“

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