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Self taught singer, songwriter and producer Joshua Chan is a triple threat By LIli Hakimi

“To go up in front of people and perform my music in its most raw form, singing to [the audience] is the best feeling,” Joshua Chan said.

Chan, a Redwood alum and junior at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), is a self-taught musician who has gained 100,000 streams in the past year across various platforms. With no record label, Chan is an independent artist as well as a pre-law, political science and philosophy major.

Chan was born in the Philippines and moved to Chicago when he was four. In 8th grade, Chan moved to the Bay Area, where a friend inspired him to start playing guitar. Once Chan became comfortable with the guitar, he started to sing and post song covers on social media. When he went to college, he was surrounded by artists who encouraged him to make his own music. This prompted Chan to shift his hobby of making music into a career.

“One of the things I wanted to do is find a way to express my feelings about past relationships and life experiences, and apply that to my music and my songwriting,” Chan said. Between January and March after releasing several songs, he noticed a rise in his streams.

“When I released my first song, I had zero expectations … I just went with the flow. But once it's in terms of turning [music] into a career rather than a hobby, it’s [more about] the marketing and business side of music,” Chan said. “With social media nowadays, there's so many ways to express your art and get seen by people, and I have been experimenting with different kinds of content.”

After building a small following within his college town, Chan began to sign up for local shows to share his music on a larger platform.

“The first performance I signed up for was a benefit showcase for one of the cultural clubs [at UCSB] and it was a sold-out show. There were 300 to 400 people there. I had never performed in my life. I ended up performing a great set,” Chan said. “From there, that opened up more opportunities for me to perform.”

Performing for the first time in March 2022, Chan sings at a Benefit Showcase hosted by UCSB’s Filipino Culture club “Kapatirang Pilipino” (Photo courtesy of Joshua Chan).

For Chan, one of the best parts of making music has been forming connections with different people, which is why he strives for authenticity in his songwriting.

“My lyrics are very vulnerable; I talk about things that people don't usually like talking about. Sometimes I'll show people my music, and we instantly have a deep conversation about the theme of the song. Some people have told me my songs helped them through [a hard time] or [they] just make them happy. It's something that I'm very grateful for and I can’t take [that] for granted,” Chan said.

Many of these personal lyrics are in the love songs Chan writes. When composing these songs, Chan takes a different approach than most artists.

“The way that I write songs, especially when it comes to love, is that I don't focus too much on the other person. I don’t want to shame anyone or say anything super negative. I think [the focus] is more on the strong feelings I had and what resulted from them,” Chan said.

Chan’s newest song “Say it First” retells the first time he told someone he loved them and all the different feelings that came with that.

Posing for a photoshoot, Chan promotes his single “Say it First” in San Diego (Photo courtesy of Joshua Chan).

“These are experiences a lot of people go through and they bring up strong memories and emotions. Being able to talk about it helps people through challenging moments,” Chan said.

Sandhi Upreti, another UCSB student and close friend of Chan, has watched his musical journey from the beginning. Upreti believes Chan has matured as an artist and developed a stronger sense of himself.

“The more music he made, the more confident he got. He now has a clearer vision of how he wants to portray himself as an artist and what he wants the listener to think of him,” Upreti said.

Like many artists, it wasn't until Chan started writing his own songs that he realized how much thought goes into lyrics.

“Some of the best music is based on feeling … With the music I make, there's a specific feeling I want to convey, and everything in production is [when I] try to make that happen,” Chan said.

This past summer, Chan started producing his own music. Martin Castillo, a close friend of his, said that learning how to produce his own music was a huge turning point for Chan.

“As an artist, you need to portray what you feel and you want your work to be understood. That’s why he really wanted to learn how to produce his music, so he could actually convey his feelings without any other input,” Castillo said. “There are not a lot of people that can sing, songwrite and produce their own music. That trifecta is really what distinguishes Josh from [other artists].”

Upreti had a similar idea, highlighting Chan’s dedication to his music. “[Chan] puts an extra focus on getting everything right. [That’s] why he's picked up so much traction, because he does his research and he really puts in the effort in [the entire process]. He gives his absolute everything, and it just comes naturally to him,” Upreti said.

Chan’s latest song, called “Letter to my Future Love,” was published on Sept. 30 and can be streamed on Spotify, Apple Music and Soundcloud,