During the last five years, Josiah Wolf has been known primarily as the drummer for Why?, his brother Yoni Wolf’s band that signaled the Anticon label’s departure from hip-hop into more indie rock-based terrain. With the release of Jet Lag, Josiah is embarking on a new identity as a solo artist. Truly going it alone, Josiah played every instrument on his debut album. “I am actually doing the first tour myself,” Wolf said in a recent email exchange. Opening for Why? on the upcoming tour, Wolf will perform his songs solo  “It will be a stripped down version (I don't believe in backing tracks) so we will see how that goes.”
     Adding to this new sense of independence, Wolf recently divorced after an 11-year relationship and relocated from California to Ohio, where he grew up, was taught drums by his rabbi father, and studied at the University of Cincinnati’s music conservatory. Much of the album was written in a cottage in the woods outside of Cincinnati. Jet Lag is a very personal account of the intricacies of his separation, communication, and change. Lyrically, some of the songs feel like diary entries, focused and sincere, with precise vocals: “And I couldn’t sell the bed/So I put it up for free/And this man he came to me/And then the house was clear”
     The most successful moments on the album are the simple but emotionally-loaded lines that seem to come out of nowhere that make you feel like you’re right there with Josiah, wondering what is going on. The lyrics are not sad, or even very emotional, as one might expect from a breakup album. Instead, they capture the hopeless feeling of giving-up and being-given-up-on. My favorite line on the album is in the last part of the song “The New Car,” when he sings, “But when you told me I wasted your twenties I didn’t know what to say,” and then lets the line sit there for a few beats before going back into the chorus.
     In the same song, Josiah sings: "You went and bought another car to help with the separation/But the night you got it home the black blood went all over the pavement/And I was waiting for the tow truck when it hit me how things are changing." In order to relate to the lyrics, we have to imagine Josiah standing there, having this epiphany while standing in the street thinking about two seemingly disparate events (along with a strangely indistinct image of blood being spilled). As far as I can tell, this is how epiphanies actually happen. They come, almost unnaturally, out of inadvertently combining thoughts or reformulating a memory to redefine the way we are taking in an experience. And because this feels sincere and unforced, especially compared with the more clichéd, rhyming, break-up songs of mainstream, it is easy to picture ourselves having a similar experience.
     Wolf was “inspired and influenced by [Why?] in many ways,” and it’s clear that they share a confessional nature and a strong interest in the everyday aspects of life. Josiah comes off as even more honest and direct than his brother Yoni, who has a definite hipster/ironic vibe that Josiah steers clear of. This same openness and sincerity, however, was something of an obstacle for him.
     “Before I started much of the writing,” Josiah writes, “when I was learning cover songs, my ex-wife was the only one who knew of that for a while. I didn't really keep my music writing a secret, though. People knew I was working stuff out. I didn't play my songs for many people and some of the songs I didn't play for anyone for a long, long time (until the recordings were almost finished). There is something about keeping a thing to yourself that makes it more powerful but I knew that eventually I wanted to share it. I am too reliant on others’ opinions and feedback to keep it hidden for too long. I always admire those artists who keep their work a secret their whole life, but perhaps that isn't the healthiest way to live.” Appropriate to its lyrical content, the songs were recorded in similarly private and diaristic manner, but in the end one’s private creations become public.