About
Joe Pisapia is a singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work as a member of Guster and k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang. He co-produced and co-wrote Guster’s 2006 release, Ganging Up On the Sun, an album that cracked Billboard’s Top 25 and was one of the best selling internet albums of the year. He did the same on the band’s 2010 Easy Wonderful. He produced and penned the title track for Lang’s 2011 album, Sing It Loud, and acted as music director for the accompanying tour.
As a producer and mixer, he’s worked on some of the finest indie rock and pop and Americana records to come out of Nashville in the last few years. Among his credits are: Ben Folds Five’s The Sound Of The Life Of The Mind, The Hush Kids (Self Titled,) Zac Clark (Self Titled,) Drew Holcolmb And The Neighbors’ Medicine and Souvenir, Chuck Mead’s Free State Serenade, Josh Rouse’s Love In The Modern Age, Courtney Jaye’s The Exotic Sounds Of Courtney Jaye, Matt Wertz’s While We’re Becoming, William Tyler’s Lost Colony E.P. and Paper Hats, The Silver Seas’ Alaska and The Pierces’ self-titled album. When the Grammy Award-winning band Fun. needed orchestral recording for its Grammy performance, they called on Pisapia.
Born and raised in Rahway, New Jersey, Pisapia migrated to Nashville
in the mid-1990s with his brother, the drummer Marc Pisapia, as the namesake members of Joe, Marc’s Brother. Following its Rick Clark- produced self-titled debut, the band quickly became progenitors of a burgeoning indie pop and rock scene that included artists such as Josh Rouse, David Mead and Lambchop. In 2000, the release of the Robin Eaton, Roger Moutenot and Brad Jones-produced Around the Year with Joe, Marc’s Brother cemented the band’s reputation as masters of the pop-rock genre.
While Joe, Marc’s Brother as a unit now performs infrequently, Pisapia continues to record and perform as a solo artist.
His 2002 release Daydreams was given four stars and called “stellar” by AllMusic.com. Ron Sexsmith called 2015’s Nightvision, “amazing” and the “best thing” he’s “heard in a long time.”
In 2016 Pisapia collaborated with singer/ songwriter Kate York for the duet E.P. “Kate York And Joe Pisapia.” The song “All My Worry” was featured in the 2016 “Magnolia Mix Tape” vinyl release. 2018 was a watershed year for Pisapia as he released two full length solo albums. “Connection” was released in February, and “Cosmic Christmas” launched in November. In March of 2019 Pisapia put out a single of Guster’s “Jesus On The Radio.” The A and B sides are two entirely different takes on the same song.
Pisapia is currently putting the finishing touches on an instrumental album, which friends have described as “superimposing bossanova and 60’s Italian film score music onto the backdrop of the American desert.”
Joe lives in East Nashville with his wife Jennie.