Joey Briggs ‎- The Traveling Salesman, Pariah, Me (2011)

Sometimes, when a singer of a punk band does a solo record it loses it's potency and is generally a watered-down country version of his band. With Joey Briggs' first full-length effort "The Traveling Salesman, Pariah, Me", though the music is vastly different from the punk rock outfit The Briggs, the lyrical content packs a serious punch and releases enough venom of brutal honesty to take down a buffalo. Showing us he didn't need loud distorted guitars or throat-bleeding screams to get his point across.
More than just a compilation of songs "The Traveling Salesman, Pariah, Me" is a story book of tales revealing Joey's nomadic life of touring such as on "Bottom of a Beer" and "First Page of My Book" letting us in on some of the more personal, behind the scenes of the touring world. And in "So Let Down" Joey let's us know exactly how he feels about the state of the music industry and subculture scenes. The record combines his long loved folk and indie influences from Avett Brothers & Mumford and Sonsto Bright Eyes and Arcade Fire. These influences have always been subtly present in The Briggs' music but given an open canvas Joey takes us deep into his seemingly boundless musical imagination.
It's clear that Joey Briggs is a project that stands on it's own and is not just another "side project" of a dude in a band. With help from his brother and long-time partner in crime, Jason LaRocca, behind the controls and a couple of close friends from Old Man Markley, Joeylets us know exactly what's on his mind and gives us something very much lacking in music today, honesty.