Joel Martin [Distant Society] - Baby Got Back (Canadian Idol)
What is the Distant Society? It's a group of people brought together with the goal of distancing themselves from a society in which dreams are portrayed as being unattainable. They believe that the journey in pursuing a dream brings meaning to one's life.
Joel Martin is a new breed of singer/songwriter who is as business savvy as he is driven to carve out his place in music history. He graduated with honours in Audio Engineering in order to engineer, produce and mix his own recordings. He then studied Entertainment Business Management so he could manage his own career. He’s a career artist who at the age of 25, is about to release his 6th CD in 9 years.
When a musician’s first show is at an event that superstars like Avril Lavigne, Matthew Good, Alexisonfire, Theory of a Deadman, Default, Simple Plan and Bif Naked have been a part of, you can’t help but expect big things from him in the future. Since that first show at The Ottawa Exhibition in 2001, he’s been working relentlessly to spread his music to as many people as possible. His determination and insane work ethic has earned him the reputation as “the hardest working independent musician” (Chelsea Miller Live 88.5 Ottawa). Playing over 500 shows across Canada, including dates with ill Scarlett, Default, Silverstein, Lights, Buck 65, Brian Melo, State of Shock, Social Code, Wintersleep, The Arkells, The Cliks, People In Planes, Magni and Dilana (Rockstar Supernova), The Mudmen, Cancer Bats, Dead & Divine and The Salads, has helped him sell close to 6000 CDs independently. He’s released 4 alternative/rock CDs under the name Distant Society and has recently released his first solo CD appropriately titled “Distant Society presents…Joel Martin”.
Within just a few years of releasing Distant Society material, he rose from complete obscurity to become one of Ottawa’s biggest and most celebrated musicians. He played the biggest venues in the city, his single “The Cycle” was in rotation for over a year on the biggest rock station in Ottawa, he played a private show for the Prime Minister, DS was the “Band To Watch” alongside Thornley in the spring ’08 issue of Umm Magazine (Canada’s most popular men’s magazine with over 400 000 readers per issue) and he won $5000 in the Live 88.5 Big Money Shot competition. In the much respected Ottawa Xpress Reader’s Poll, DS was voted one of the 3 best local bands and “The Reconstruction” was voted one of the 3 best local CDs. Joel was also voted one of the 3 best singer/songwriters alongside Kathleen Edwards. After reaching the top of the Ottawa music scene, Joel decided that to attain the lofty goals that he’d set for himself he’d have to move to a bigger music scene. He now resides in Toronto where he’s quickly surrounded himself with the biggest names in the music industry.
He’s been enjoying some fame as the result of his show stopping appearance on Season 5 of Canadian Idol. He placed in the top 50 out of 10 000 and his acoustic performance of “Baby Got Back” has become one of the most talked about Idol performances of all time. His performance has been hailed the “best performance on Canadian Idol…EVER!” by YOUTUBE.COM.
Combining Myspace, Youtube and Purevolume, he has close to 200 000 plays online. His Distant Society Myspace page alone has over 70 000 plays and close to 10 000 friends placing him 1 on several occasions on the Unsigned Band charts out of hundreds of thousands of bands.
The next step in Joel’s plan to expand his fan base globally is the release of his ambitious 4 demo CD project. The 20 songs will be made available to download for free online and then surveys will be set up to find out which of the songs are the most popular. The 5 favourite songs will then be re-recorded professionally and released as his 2nd solo CD.
