Josie - Interview

by Dave Goodwin

published: 7 / 9 / 2025

Dave Goodwin speaks to Dawn, the bassist with Copenhagen-based band Josia about their native Danish indiepop scene and 'Still Time', their new single on Precious Recordings of London.

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Welcome to Josie, Copenhagen’s newest pop group!. The group formed in 2023 have now found themselves on the roster of the lovely people at Precious Recordings of London. You should know them by now - the folk responsible for bringing obscure radio sessions from back in the day to the fore via some absolutely lavish ten inch vinyl records. ‘Still Time’ is the much-anticipated debut single from Josie who incidentally are four friends – Charlotte (vocals and rhythm guitar), Dawn (bass and backing vocals), Martin ( lead guitar), Anton (drums). Apart from releasing this new single. thet have a recent support slot with Shonen Knife to brag about too. The Precious Recordings website suggests their sound is sort of a combination of the Shop Assistants, Talulah Gosh, Tiger Trap and is Infectious, urgent, a bit ramshackle and gone in two minutes. Well, they aren’t wrong. ‘Still Time’ crashes along at breakneck speed, and amongst all of that I do hear a bit of the Cranberries as well. Josie reckon they’ll have an album out later this year, and just for good measure these songs on this debut 45 won’t on it but you do get a nice badge with it while stocks last apparently. (NB: Buy the ‘trio bundle’ if you want to save postage.) This little delight was recorded, mixed and mastered by Marcus Ferreira Larsen at No Master’s Voice studios in February 2025 and comes in a lovely James style flowery yellow cover with mugshots of the offenders on the rear. The B-side ‘Shirley (not )’ isn’t bad either. And here’s another added bonus from us wonderful folk at Pennyblackmusic. We managed to have a word with Dawn and to interrogate them a little. The chat went a little like this;- PB: The tracks on ‘Still Time’ aren’t on the forthcoming album. Have got so much other material that you can afford not to include them or is there some other reason for doing this? D: The LP was already recorded and though we did initially run it by Precious’s Nick amongst others, we ended up going with K. Nick was still very interested in working with us and we just so happened to have barely written two songs that would be perfect for a 7” single. So. we asked if Nick would be interested in putting it out and within days, we went to the studio and recorded it. PB: The majority of Precious’s other releases have been old radio sessions so how did you get involved with Precious? D: As mentioned, Nick’s name was bandied about by various people while we were searching for a label and luckily for us he decided to take a chance on a new release. Lovely to work with him and quite remarkable to be semi-label mates with all those legends. PB: Influences? What sort of stuff were you all listening to as you were growing up and what influences you now? D: I had an unhealthy Smiths obsession for most of my teenage years along with an eyebrow raising love for The Monkees, Anton has had a scary amount of love for The Pogues and the Dubliners dating back to his childhood, Martin has always been the biggest Ramones fan in Denmark even when he was living in Luxembourg, and Charlotte has an unwavering love for David Bowie…and Kelly family. As for bands that directly influence the songs we write in Josie, our core inspirations have been the obvious ones; Tiger Trap, Talulah Gosh and Shop Assistants. Besides that Buddy Holly and maybe even some good old REM have been on our minds. In terms of more (or less) recent bands we also enjoy the likes of The Umbrellas, Lightheaded, Ribbon Stage and Free Loan Investments. PB: Have you all known each other for a long time or is this a new musical relationship? D: We're all connected through the music scene in Copenhagen in some way. I wanted to be friends with Charlotte as soon as I saw her old twee band Enids play, Anton I’ve known for 15 years and me and Martin played in a post punk band before. But it was Josie that brought us all together! PB: What is the music scene in Copenhagen like and where do you fit in? D: When it comes to indie pop there isn't that much around at the moment but a few bands have come out recently such as Pelts and Bubbling Well. I think because of this we are more a part of the bigger underground scene that exists around Ungdomshuset and Mayhem. We even played at K-Town Hardcore Festival which was very joyous. Punks are cuter than you think! I think we fit in quite well with the bands here that are more on the melodic side, Big Mess, Molly, Pleaser - we are all living in one big tuneful house together. (Not literally) PB: Can we expect the same vibe as ‘Still Time’ on the rest of the album or would you say the sound is a little more eclectic? D: Both the songs on the ‘Still Time’ release are a good indication of what to expect even though I wouldn't say ‘Still Time’ and ‘Shirley (Not)’ are directly related to any of the other songs - maybe cousins once or twice removed? PB: Nick Godfrey says he’s trying to sort out a London gig which would be good - have you ventured out of Denmark touring yet and is world domination on the cards? D: We have yet to set foot outside of Denmark, but we're doing a mini tour supporting the Scottish phenomenon The Cords in October from Bristol all the way up to Edinburgh with a Precious show in London to start. We are looking forward to playing some shows on English and Scottish soil and eating a different kind of gravy and potatoes. PB: Thank you.