When Joybomb takes the stage at the Radians Amphitheater in the Memphis Botanic Garden, opening for Third Eye Blind for Live at the Garden’s kickoff concert of the summer this Saturday, June 21st, the band will be where it was always meant to be, in a sense. Sure, the group has cut their teeth in local clubs like Bar DKDC, Growlers, and the Hi Tone, but a quick listen to their wall of sound confirms that they were destined to rock festival stages.
“Some bands lean into the lo-fi, and that’s a signature part of their sound,” reflects the band’s front man, singer, and songwriter, Grant Beatty. “But I don’t know, for Joybomb, I want to feel the drums in my chest. I want to hear the guitar soar in the left and right speakers. I think some of those alt-rock, pop punk records of the mid-aughts by, like, Taking Back Sunday and Jimmy Eat World, from 2005 to ’06, just sound so good.”
It’s a huge sound, one that the band has embraced from the beginning. And that’s due to Beatty’s earliest encounters with the first music that moved him in the mid-aughts. “When I was a kid,” he says, “I got into punk rock and went to the Warped Tour, and there was Rock Against Bush. ‘Political punk’ sounds so cheesy, but at the time, you know, there was a war going on. Being a kid, I was super inspired by a lot of that stuff and those bands, even going back to the Clash, you know? Protest music through the power of good lyricism and clever writing and rock-and-roll.”
And he’s serious about the rock-and-roll. His guiding mantra has kept him focused on that, as he’s aimed to “will myself to just make the best shit that I can and just bring the rock, you know? Just strive to melt face and then make it undeniable, I guess is my inner motto,” says Beatty.
That’s also staying true to his inner teen, dating back to his youth in Mississippi. And for much of his life, that just meant having fun, even when he moved to Memphis after completing his undergraduate degree from Mississippi State University in Starkville. His bass player at the time moved here soon after, and “we made Memphis our new home, our new launch pad. So for a few years after that, Joybomb played places like the Hi Tone, and we’d occasionally go to Nashville, stuff like that. But we were kind of treading water. We were having fun, making friends, sowing our wild oats. But I don’t know, I wasn’t really goal-oriented with it, or trying to spread our wings, and then I just got it got to a point where that made me sad. I wanted to do something for real. I wanted to give it my best shot, like a real effort.”
To be sure, that still included fun, but, for the record, “Joybomb” is not a playful take on the phrase “Soy Bomb,” which artist Michael Portnoy scrawled on his torso before jumping onstage during Bob Dylan’s appearance at the 1998 Grammy Awards. “No,” says Beatty, “it was a compromise between two different names, and so we just smooshed them together and decided on Joybomb.”
All names aside, the group, while going through some personnel changes since those early days, has only leaned into rocking harder since becoming a quartet a couple years ago. “We were a four piece by the middle of ’23,” says Beatty, “because we did two singles in ’23 that had a fourth member. So that was when Joybomb was really coming together, although I’ve been with my bassist Conner Booth since ’21.” The other players in the current lineup are Luki Luvsik on guitar and vocals and Xander Sinclair on drums. And ultimately, having a four piece helped the band flesh out their arrangements to create that big, anthemic sound that Beatty has always loved.
Also crucial to perfecting their bigger sound was starting to record with Matt Qualls at Easley-McCain Recording. “We have worked with him since cutting the singles in ’23. And honestly, he hit home runs with those. He just really knew his background. He was really from that era that I was talking about, the early- to mid-aughts, punk, hardcore, metal kind of stuff. And so he really gets the hi-fi, big rock album thing.”
Those singles, like “Visions” and “Tell Tale Boys,” come on hard and heavy with angular riffs that give way to lighter, sparkling guitar textures and background vocals. That continued into last year’s tracks, collected on the Modern Scripture EP, a collection that strikes a perfect balance between heavy slabs of riffage and shimmering pop flourishes. Now, about to open for ’90s hitmakers Third Eye Blind, Beatty sees them as kindred spirits.
“Third Eye Blind are icons because their music is just baked into the psyche, at least the hits, right? That first record is really interesting and chock full of bangers, dude! That was a super hi-fi, well produced record, but it was just really interesting, too. They’ve got hooks. They’ve got thick, really interesting guitar tones. I salute bands that are able to do something without being super flashy, and it just delivers in a catchy way.”
In other words, they pair well with Joybomb, though the local band’s love of heavy riffs may well surpass Third Eye Blind’s — a predisposition which should fit a major stage like the Radians Amphitheater to a T. “I love rock, right?” Beatty notes. “So I like anything that throws down, whether it’s ’80s thrash and hair bands or, I mean, like Black Sabbath, one of my all-time faves. I’m informed by decades of that. If it rips, then I’m about it.”
