Only a week after returning to the States, I was already back into my routine of spending the summer nights watching MTV to check out music videos. I was just about to switch off the tube after twenty minutes of Katy Perry’s I Kissed a Girl when a soft acoustic sound started emanating from the speakers. I took my finger off the power button on the remote and watched as a teenage guy with a guitar sang about very commonplace teenage boy stuff: girls.
However, there was one fundamental difference between this singer and other teenage musicians - this guy’s voice was much more mature. No, he didn’t have a very deep bass sound, but he had a raspy tone that was way beyond his years. And not only did his voice make him sound older, but his lyrics and song content as well. What was more, when the video ended and they flashed the artist’s name there was one thing that stood out above everything else: the guy had a Japanese last name… Nozuka.
So I sat on the couch awhile, slightly startled by the Japanese name, but I never bothered to get off my butt to run a search on this Nozuka character. I would later regret this when, weeks afterwards, I finally found some time out of my dreadfully busy summer vacation schedule to check out this guy’s music. Due to my terrible memory I could not remember the guy’s name. With my general knowledge that his first name was Western and his last name was Japanese, I could only run very general searches like “half Japanese, half American musician” or “teenage acoustic singer.” After maybe an hour on Google (remember, I could only spend an hour searching for this guy because I was so busy), I finally stumbled across… “Justin Nozuka.” The name clicked - it was without a doubt the same guy whose music video I had seen on MTV a couple of weeks earlier. Inspired by my find, I started frantically clicking on anything related to the name. After ten minutes of my reading (and the infinite supply of information on the net) I had already found out that Justin Nozuka was only 19 years old and half-Japanese, half-American, albeit being raised in Canada. He had evidently started writing his own songs at age 12, foreshadowing his success as a young musician.
After skimming through his biography, I accessed the iTunes Music Store to listen to samples of songs from his debut-album, Holly, named after his mother. It sounded like he drew influences from the likes of Jack Johnson, Jason Mraz, and James Morrison – generally musicians that play soft rock laced with acoustic guitars, piano, and strong vocals. However, Nozuka’s voice is completely unique; and this is one of his strongest points. Lucky for him, he doesn’t have one of those generic teenage singer voices, but instead he carries a signature sound that sets him apart from all other artists.
Lyrically, Nozuka covers a lot. Although he usually sticks to the theme of love, the songs he writes explore the theme deeper than most other artists - asking questions and uncovering brutal truths instead of just being romantic. Perhaps, the best example of this is Save Him, the tenth track off of Holly. On the song, Nozuka sings about a couple that seems to have the perfect relationship until their child comes along and the father cannot deal with the fact that it is no longer just him and his wife. The mother sacrifices herself, taking the beating from her frustrated husband so that her son doesn’t have to suffer. Obviously, this song is not your typical “I love you” song. However, the album is not all this dark and moody. After Tonight (the first single from the CD), for example, is much more musically upbeat and lyrically happy-go-lucky.
For fans of acoustic rock, Justin Nozuka completely satisfies the need for poignant melodies and substantial song-content. And even if you don’t particularly like this genre of music, I still recommend Holly because it succeeds in being more musically universal than other albums of the recent music scene. Do yourself a favour and check Justin Nozuka out right now, right here. You won’t regret it.