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Josh Hoge, 26, is now without a major label contract but among a crop of young artists choosing indie labels over major corporations as a path to success.
Pop/R&B singer Josh Hoge was on his way to being music’s next big thing.
With a breezy but biting single, “360,” on the charts, he was on tour with Disney mavens Aly & AJ, dueting with singer/actress Nikki Flores on the “High School Musical” theme song “Breaking Free” and being compared to Justin Timberlake.
He had a debut disc set for release and was being touted by his record label, Epic, as the epitome of “New Nashville” — singers from the music city but not defined by its traditional genre.
But that was a year ago.
Today, Hoge, 26, is without a major label contract — unceremoniously dropped by Epic, which never released his album, and a casualty of the atmosphere of turmoil at major record labels.
And while he’s hopeful of becoming the next big thing, Hoge epitomizes something else in the music industry.
He’s among a crop of young artists choosing indie labels over major corporations as a path to success.
Hoge (rhymes with “rogue”) says his split with Epic came amid mergers and personnel changes that saw the departure of Ben Goldman, the senior vice president of A&R who brought Hoge to the label.
With his album, “Call It What You Want,” set for a 2006 release, Hoge says “fun corporate music-business changeovers happened, and I find out that right when my record was supposed to come out that I’m no longer going to be a part of Epic.
“The single came out and did really well with Top 40 radio, and things were going well … then ‘Let’s just not even do anything.”
Hoge says that rather than “sitting around and waiting for something else to happen,” he decided to do it himself. Because Epic owned his album, he self-recorded a six-song EP, “Bedroom Sessions,” then toured 150 to 175 dates with friends from Nashville.
He says he teamed with Elliot Yamin when the former “American Idol” singer told people who knew Hoge that he was a fan, and they ended up hanging out together.
Then, Hoge says, he reteamed with Goldman, who signed him as his first artist for a label he’s starting, BlackLedge Music. Hoge says he expects to start recording at the end of the year after his tour with Yamin, have a single by spring and release a full disc by summer.
Hoge will re-record a couple of songs from his unreleased disc, but it will have a new arrangement, and his new songs will be closer to John Mayer than Justin.
“I’ve just grown so much by being on the road and touring,” he says. “Everything I want to do now is just a little more mature than it was.”
Hoge says it’s “really random how much more stuff has happened for the better since leaving” the major labels.
In fact, he recently signed a promotional deal to be the first musical act to promote Geico car insurance.
“They obviously do great marketing campaign stuff,” he says. “So we’re going to be doing a lot of stuff for them, and they’re going to help set up this record for next year.”
Asked whether he’s going to be the new gecko — the animated lizard spokesman Geico uses in its popular commercials, Hoge laughs.
“I hope not,” he says. “I don’t actually want to be the gecko, but I want to be friends with him.”