Aiken Promotions Presents: Joe Pug at The Sugar Club

“Not only does Chicago-based singer have a beautifully mature voice, but the lyrics on Pug’s debut possess wisdom seemingly beyond his age. Pair that with his powerful songwriting and it’s nearly impossible to avoid drawing comparisons between Pug and folk legends like Bob Dylan or contemporaries like Josh Ritter. .”–NPR


The day before his senior year as a playwright student at the University of North Carolina, Joe Pug sat down for a cup of coffee and had the clearest thought of his life: I am profoundly unhappy here. Then came the second clearest.

Pug packed up his belongings and pointed his car towards Chicago. Working as a carpenter by day, the 23

year-old Pug spent nights playing the guitar he hadn’t picked up since his teenage years. Using ideas

originally slated for a play he was writing called “Austin Fish,” Pug began creating the sublime lyrical

arrangements that would become the Nation of Heat EP.

The songs were recorded fast and fervently at a Chicago studio where a friend snuck him in to late night

slots other musicians had cancelled. He was short on money, but his bare-boned sincerity didn’t require

much more than a microphone and it dripped off of each note he sang.



The early rumblings of critical praise for the EP were confirmed when his first headlining gig sold out

Chicago’s storied Schubas Tavern in 2008. As word spread, Pug struck upon an idea that would later prove

to be one of the most significant in his young career. He offered his existing fans unlimited copies of a free

2-song sampler CD to pass along to their friends. He sent the CDs out at his own expense, even covering

the postage. Inside each package was a personal note thanking the fan for helping to spread the word. The

response was overwhelming, and to date he has sent out over 15,000 CDs to 50 states and 14 different

countries. Without access to radio, Pug managed to turn his fans into his very own broadcast system. The

offer still stands, and to this day it’s featured prominently on www.joepugmusic.com.

“Look, in the end, I just trust my fans, and the nature of people in general. I need to pay my bills like

anyone else does. But I also don’t think it’s right to ask someone to pay $15 when they don’t know what

they’re getting. So in a way by sending out these CDs, I’m wagering that they’ll like my music, and that if

they do they’ll come to shows, buy CDs, and help me spread the word even further. And so far I’ve been

proven right. Without question, the more sampler CDs I send out, the more music I sell.”



Nation of Heat took on a life of its own, passing from friend to friend and iPod to iPod. The crowds swelled

and the media took notice. Tours with Steve Earle, M. Ward, and Josh Ritter followed, as did invitations to

Lollapalooza and the Newport Folk Festival. He crisscrossed the country incessantly, traveling mostly

alone in his 1995 Plymouth Voyager with no stereo or air conditioning. As the tours went on, he became

closely linked to the burgeoning indie-folk scene that was coalescing loosely around Pug and his young

contemporaries in bands such as The Low Anthem, Langhorne Slim, and Horse Feathers.



After over 200 shows, Pug took a brief respite to record his full-length debut. If Nation of Heat heralded the

arrival of a talent to watch, Messenger assigns Pug a deserved spot among the finest songwriters of his

generation. From the opening notes of the title track that leads off the record, it’s clear that the artist has no intention of retreating to the comfortable or the familiar. While the scathing war indictment “Bury Me Far (From My Uniform)” and the sparse, poetic “Unsophisticated Heart” illustrate that Pug is still a master of

the guy-and-guitar song, it’s the supporting cast Pug brought on board that truly brings out the record’s

subtle beauty.

Pug’s latest release is a live album recorded at Lincoln Hall in Chicago last spring. It’s seventeen songs- from Nation of Heat, In the Meantime, and Messenger- played with the band to a hometown crowd. “Our live show has defined us for the last three years. If you subscribe to these emails, there’s a good chance you’ve caught one yourself. So we had the whole night properly mixed and mastered, and we’re offering it up at our website for only for 5 bucks. It’s what I consider to be a proper document of our last three years. Damn it’s been fun.”

His next proper studio album is The Great Despiser scheduled for spring 2012.