Josh Burke is a nice, normal 17-year old. He’s got thick, dark hair that flops over his eyes and a big smile.
He talks maturely and dresses to match the music he’s into: black T-shirt, silver chain and loose-fitting, dark, worn jeans. He attended classes at the North Syracuse School District for most of his life and lives with his mom Linda, dad Michael, dog Mr. Binks and an older sister, Melanie, who just graduated from SUNY Oswego.
It’s all a slice of typical teenhood—until someone drops the Rolling Stone magazine bomb.
“Yeah, they were just talking to us about the new album,” Burke casually admits, in reference to the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus’ new album Am I the Enemy (Collective Sounds), due out Aug. 30. “We pretty much go to the next venue and {the media} will usually be there waiting, hanging out. There’s a couple scheduled {interviews}. Obviously, the Grammys is going to be scheduled.”
Burke recently became the new guitarist for Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, the Florida-based alternative rock group that blew up in 2006 with the single “Face Down.” On Friday, Aug. 12, RJA will be part of the musical lineup for Sausage Fest, a multi-band showcase presented by WAQX-FM 95.7 (95X) at Paper Mill Island, 136 Spensieri Ave., Baldwinsville. The show is also a homecoming for lead singer Ronnie Winter, who hails from Baldwinsville and whose grandfather actually helped build Lock 24, which is where Paper Mill Island is located.
Burke’s meteoric rise proves that a lot can happen in a year’s time. He went to his first RJA show on Sept. 19, 2010, at the Lost Horizon, arriving there four hours early expecting maybe a handshake, some brief conversation or even an autograph. Now he’s playing national tours with the group and participating in interviews with Rolling Stone and Grammy.com. Yet Burke isn’t starstruck; if anything, he’s grateful for the opportunity to work with Winter, someone he’s admired since his appreciation for modern rock began.
Burke first picked up the guitar at age 11, spurred on by an episode of the reality TV series Wife Swap. A preppy, sports-loving boy on the show ended up with a swapped rocker mom who forced a guitar as a replacement for the kid’s soccer ball. “He flipped,” Burke recalls. “He did not want anything to do with it, and I was like, ‘If I had a guitar I would not be freaking out. I would love it!’” Dad Michael Burke, who also saw the episode, pounced on the opportunity and put a guitar in his son’s hands within days.
For the next eight months, Josh Burke noodled in his room, trying to teach himself the instrument and instantly felt a connection. “Every day I played it,” he says. “I just loved it.”
After the months of self-teaching, Burke started lessons with Dave Brown of the since-closed Daddy’s Junky Music in Mattydale; within six months Burke was playing solos at the store’s recitals. Soon after, his parents asked Jimmy Falco, local guitarist of Dead Rose, if he’d be interested in having their son as a student. Both instructors helped in young Burke’s development: Brown focused on the basics, while Falco helped develop his technique in application.
But Burke still needed to get on stage with a band and expand his musical taste. “He was still really into 1980s music at the time,” mom Linda Burke remembers. “It was One Hard Krank that turned him over to modern music.”
From the time Josh Burke was 12 his parents would accompany him to shows, exposing him to live music even at local rock venues where his young age would have been an issue. Although security guards and club owners were becoming aware of Burke’s interest and talent, no band was interested in adding a barely teenage rocker to their roster, until One Hard Krank gave the mini-shredder a try.
“Two people in particular, Jake Morrison and Todd Stiles {of One Hard Krank}, I swear to you. . . ,“ Michael Burke recalls, his voice trailing off.
Linda Burke picks up the story thread:
“We always say Josh was ready for this opportunity because One Hard Krank was gracious enough to share their stage with him. ‘Cause we look back at videos and he’s 13 or 14, but he’s so good on stage. And really it came from having practice and it came from them opening up and pulling Josh on stage as often as they could. I wish a lot of local bands. . . they should adopt these kids. There’s an amazing drummer out there, an amazing singer, and they may be only 13 or 14 years old.”
As Josh Burke started playing more often with One Hard Krank, weaning himself off Ozzy Osbourne and into the current decade, he became increasingly interested in the music of RJA, learning their songs and idolizing Ronnie Winter. “Back in the myspace days when everyone used it, it had that “Who You’d Like to Meet” section,” Burke says. “And I had a picture of Ronnie there.”
So when his favorite band came to town last September, Burke couldn’t miss it. He got to the Lost Horizon so early, he had to kill time at the nearby Guitar Center on Erie Boulevard East. He chose a guitar, tuned it up, set the amp as needed and jammed away before returning to the venue and meeting up with Winter, who just happened to be looking for some new guitar strings. Burke and his dad gave Winter a ride back to the Guitar
Center and Josh picked up the guitar he had been playing earlier, instantly impressing Winter.
“Ronnie looked at me and said, ‘What are you gonna do with that talent?’ Michael Burke recalls. “I looked right back at him and said, ‘What are you gonna do with that talent?’” Winter took the challenge. By the end of the night, they exchanged information and Winter soon became Burke’s producer, pairing him with another teen talent, 14year-old Blake Dawson out of Orange, Fla.
Winter and Dawson collaborated with Burke from a distance until circumstances in RJA changed. When guitarists Duke Kitchens and Matt Carter left RJA just before the band’s Milwaukee Summerfest performance on July 1, Winter knew who could step up and fill in.
“He ended up calling me two, maybe three days before one of his biggest shows,” Burke says. “They were headlining. This show was like 6,000 people. It was great. Big stage. We were the headliner so people were crazy about it and we had one rehearsal before it for about four hours. I just went out there, did fine and I think that was kind of my test. {RJA} just wanted to see how I do on stage, how I acted, if anything went wrong and how I’d react.”
Burke certainly passed the test: Winter invited him to join the band for their national month-long tour throughout July and on July 17 officially welcomed Burke as RJA’s lead guitarist. From meeting his favorite band to completing a tour with them, Burke is tired but supremely satisfied. And his parents are prepared to make the necessary changes to help facilitate their young rocker’s dream. Linda and Michael Burke have quit their Central New York jobs and will move to Florida with their son so he can be closer to other band members. Josh will abandon his senior year of high school and plans to obtain his diploma through an alternative program.
“It’s all crazy,” Linda Burke says. “I always told Josh, ‘If this is what you want to do, we will support you 100 percent, but it does mean you’ll have to work harder than anybody else.’ When kids are in the fifth grade and they say they want to be a basketball star or play in some famous band, don’t discourage them right away. If you can imagine it, it’s possible. They need their parental support and for anybody to tell a child, ‘Well, that’s not realistic. You really should have a backup plan,’ why go to that right away? Why not see what the possibilities are?”
Josh Burke proves what those possibilities are and sets an example for aspiring musicians everywhere. Hard work, dedication, big dreams and endless practice can pay off in a big way.“I want people to know that this is a very genuine thing,” Ronnie Winter says in a YouTube FILMvideo highlighting Red Jumpsuit Apparatus’ Summerfest appearance. “I met {Josh, he’s} a fan of the band, and {he’s} a great guitar player and now we’re boys. So guess what? If you play guitar, bass, drums,
sing, anything, don’t give up on your dreams because this can happen for you. This really happened. This is a true story. Believe in yourself. You can do it.”
In addition to Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, the bands All That Remains, Egypt Central, Seven Day Sonnet, Bobaflex and Burn Halo will perform at Sausage Fest, which was known in previous years as the 95X Summer Bang. (One of this year’s sponsors is Basilio-Buda sausage, presumably leading to the name change.) The gates open at 4 p.m. with music starting at 5 p.m. All ages are welcome, but you have to be 21 and over to drink. Advance tickets are $9.95, available at area
Hess Express gas stations; at the gate, expect to pay $15. More information is available at www.95x.com or call (800) 234-4797.
