Inverness-based singer, songwriter, producer and self-taught multi-instrumentalist Joshua Mackenzie has been immersed in music since before he started school. His dad played guitar in Highland folk rock band Wolfstone ‘when they had horrific mullets and denim tuxedos’, his grandfather was passionate about classical music and his mum introduced him to the joys of The Cure and The Smiths.

‘From a young age I was trying to force my way into bands with much older people,’ he says. ‘When you are a nine-year-old who can play all these songs on guitar, it’s very hard to win the trust of kids who are 15, 16, wanting to go off and do gigs and drink, and they’ve got a child hanging around.’ Mackenzie eventually formed his own indie band, Lional, at a time when Inverness enjoyed the buzz of the Ironworks venue and a sense of connection to the Scottish music scene. ‘I know it’s an easy scapegoat but since the pandemic it just feels like the Highlands are a little bit left behind,’ he says.

Without the pandemic, however, Mackenzie may never have sequestered himself in the world of DIY production, creating audacious pop music ‘with no regard for what the outcome was going to be’. His musician friends Louis Slorach and Joshua Gilbert were receptive, encouraging and, ultimately, part of the band when gig offers started to come back in. With a name inspired by The Doors’ Morrison Hotel, The Joshua Hotel was now fully open for business. ‘I feel I can take more risks now,’ says Mackenzie. ‘I think I’ve really come out my shell in the past five, six years and The Joshua Hotel has been a canvas for me to be unashamedly myself.’ 

Mackenzie will cop to the unintentional influence of early 80s outfits from Orange Juice to Japan, though he is far more likely to be listening to Björk, Kate Bush, Aphex Twin, Blur and a certain shape-shifting pop icon. ‘Bowie is how I inform all my creative decisions,’ he says. ‘The good thing is there’s not really any ceiling on that. I don’t care about something sounding flamboyant or too poppy. Before there was always a sense of things needing to sound cool, whatever that means.’

Debut album Rapture Party, recorded way down south at Fuzzface Studio on the Ayrshire riviera, testifies to that creative confidence. For the first time, Mackenzie has written unashamedly personal lyrics, so much so that the album is a life story of sorts. ‘I realised with all the songs, I was looking back on my life as far back as I’m consciously aware of and trying to cover all the big emotional milestones,’ he says. ‘The idea was that the album should be a film soundtrack to the time I’m covering lyrically, so that’s why it bounces about a bit stylistically.’

Mackenzie is excited to finally share his artistic playground with the world. ‘I’m just focusing on enjoying it as much as possible because you can really diminish the joy if you are thinking about it too strategically. I want us to keep having fun, keep putting on a good show and move on to the next thing.’

Rapture Party is released by Last Night From Glasgow on Friday 26 September.