"Thank You for Listening" screens Saturday at 4:30 at the Texas Theatre.
RON: "Thank You for Listening" is the title of one of Joshua's songs. And you are the star of this documentary. This is your story, really, and such an important crossroads in your life. What was it like for you when Bob Ray approached you and said, "I wanna do this film?"
JOSHUA: Bob Ray and I had a good conversation on my porch over the phone. He was introduced to me by Gene Gallerano, the other director on the film. And Gene and I met on an airplane flying to Europe. I was going to tour. Gene was going over there to meet his wife for a theater project, I think. And, you know, I was kind of dragging my feet getting back to Gene. It was really busy. And then I got sick, and everything ground to a halt. And I reached out and I was like, I want to make something. And it wasn't necessarily a documentary at first, but I knew I wanted to stay busy while I was going through treatment.
MIRANDA: Yeah, so the project wasn't formulated as like, this is a local musician who's been diagnosed with cancer and is dealing with it. Y'all approached Joshua before any of that happened. Did the project kind of have to transform because of that?
BOB: Oh, completely. So the co-director, Gene Gallerano, he had met Joshua on a plane, like he said, and they talked, Gene and I met at South by Southwest two years ago in 2024. And we just kind of hit it off, you know — at the festival, there's a lot of energy. Everyone's excited, you know, and so he's like, you want to make a movie together? And I was like, yes, of course — and then thinking nothing would come of it. Gene calls me three weeks later. He's like, I met this really interesting dude. His name's Joshua Ray Walker. You know, do you want to co-direct this movie with me? I was like, absolutely. What is it? And he's like, I don't know what is is? And so we started trying to figure it out. I was, like, let's just start filming, the story will tell itself. I was in already, and I like a challenge. And then I said, OK, Gene, tell me about this guy, Joshua Ray Walker, who I wasn't familiar with. But I heard his music, and it was beautiful. And it's like I don't know, just has this old timey sort of '60s vibe to me. It's just like cool stories and nice instrumentation. I was like, this is great. I love this.
I'm not a lyric type person, but I would start to laugh and then I would start to cry and then i would start laugh again when I hear Joshua's music, and I am like what the heck is this dude doing? You know he's cracked some kind of code, and I just knew there was something beautiful and interesting there. We didn't know the journey we were going to take — obviously you don't know where it's going — you just know you have interesting people with interesting potential and you hope that something wonderful unfolds in front of you and you catch it and you're able to re-create it on the screen.
RON: I think you said you wrote two songs the day you were diagnosed. Did you say that in the documentary?
JOSHUA: Yeah, I wrote one, 'Thank You for Listening," started the night before the doctor called, and then I finished it up that week. The day that I found out, I was actually flying to L.A. For Kimmel.
MIRANDA: That's an emotional seesaw. You're like, let me go on national television and also get the worst news of my life.
JOSHUA: It was, and I had to not tell the team, because I knew it would throw off the vibe of the shoot. So like we did the Kimmel performance, and then afterward I had to tell my whole band and the team, my management, everyone was in town. It was a wild couple days in L.A., and then I flew home and pretty much immediately found out I was going to go through treatment and have surgery and it was a roller coaster.
RON: One of your lyrics really stuck out to me. I know it's interesting, because Bob Ray said he wasn't always one to listen to lyrics, and yet your lyrics, for some reason, just kind of jump off, don't they? You hear them. You said, "God made me with some crossed wires". And I sort of took from that that God, by design, crosses wires. That's what makes us all different, right?
JOSHUA: Yeah, that line for me was really speaking on mental health struggles that I've had through my adolescence and early adulthood. Just questioning all of that. And another big takeaway from getting sick was I have dealt with mental illness, with suicidal ideation, depression, anxiety. I talk about that in some of my other songs. I have a song called "Voices" that's all about that.
Getting cancer gave me the opportunity to fight for my own mortality. Like at times when I thought I didn't want to be here anymore, that's in my hands. And when it was taken away from me, when that choice was no longer my choice, I was really struck by how hard I wanted to fight to be hear. And that's really made a big impact on me and my own mental health journey and just how I view mental illness, depression, suicidal ideation as a whole. I had an opportunity to fight for myself, and it changed my whole perspective.
MIRANDA: You talk a lot in the film about how you feel about the concept of infinity. Do you think that making movies, making music, is that like extending your infinity a little bit?
JOSHUA: At the beginning, that's kind of what I was worried about, right? When I first got sick, and my whole life, I've been like, how do I make whatever I do while I'm here last the longest? What do I have to do so that the most generations will remember that I was here? By the end of making the documentary and the end being sick, I was like, I don't care. It doesn't matter. Like it does, you know, that is so not the point of being here. The biggest takeaway from being sick and making the movie and its whole period of time was just: I wanna spend as much time doing things that I love to do with people that I love — and that is, I can't even believe, that's a lesson I needed to learn. But now a lot of my choices are really just optimizing. How do I do things I like to do with people I like? And how do I less things I don't like doing with people don't I like. Because I feel like so much of life you're like, I'm gonna do this really hard thing, and maybe I don't like who I'm around or whatever, but once that goes well, then I'll get to do this thing that I really wanna do. And none of that's guaranteed. So I just, I'm much more thoughtful with my time and choices these days.
RON: I had this conversation with a friend, and we were saying: Why is it the things that seem like they're harder to do and involve more sacrifice are somehow more valuable than the things that come easy to us that bring us joy? Why do we put more value on that thing that that's a harder uphill climb and we don't have to?
JOSHUA: I've put so much of my self-worth in being able to outwork everyone. My whole life, I was like, I want to be remembered for working hard. It's like, who cares? No one's going to remember that. And even if they do, what value does that really have? And I still do it. I still overwork myself.
RON: I was gonna say, I've seen your touring schedule, it's not like you're taking a break.
JOSHUA: I still have an issue with overworking myself, but I am at least aware that it doesn't matter as much as I thought.
Ron Corning and Miranda Suarez are the hosts of KERA's forthcoming talk show, NTX Now. Got a tip? Email them at rcorning@kera.org and msuarez@kera.org.
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