‘It takes a lot’: Vance Joy‘s big regret about hit song

It was the song that catapulted his career, but Aussie singer Vance Joy has shared his one regret about hit single Riptide – and he didn’t make the same mistake on his new album.

Aussie singer Vance Joy has just one regret about his globally chart-topping song Riptide.

A launch pad for his successful career, the 2013 single quickly became the longest-charting song in ARIA chart history and saw him tour globally and with the likes of Taylor Swift and Pink.

He was walking off the beach in Ibiza, Spain, last year when he heard a busker playing the song on ukulele as he walked past.

“It still happens, people will be somewhere and there’ll be a video of the song in a random location, it’s cool,” said Joy, whose real name is James Gabriel Keogh.

Aussie singer Vance Joy ahead of his Nova Red Room performance in Brisbane on Monday. Picture David Clark

“It casts a big shadow over all your songs, but it’s also the reason I can do what I do, and it opened so many doors. It still does that. My only thing is that it’s so high.

“Every time I‘d play that song I’d think, oh man, I wish I put it in a lower key, because it’s just so high that it really takes a lot.”

Joy concedes it’s not a song he can drop from his setlist anytime soon, although fans might notice the songs on his new album, out now, are slightly lower.

“It is actually a bit lower,” he laughed.

“Missing Piece is much more comfortable. I’ve probably taken the pressure off myself a bit, and it still works.”

Joy was in Brisbane on Monday to perform live for Nova’s Red Room.

Having moved to Barcelona in 2020, he is back in Australia promoting his third album, In Our Own Sweet Time, which was created predominantly via Zoom session during the pandemic.

“I’m proud of them all,” he said of the new songs.

Vance Joy performs at Nova's Red Room in Brisbane.

“Nothing was lost in translation. In a cool way the songs are probably a bit different to the first album. It’s more eclectic.

“Naturally your taste changes over time and so your songs change as well. It feels like me but it’s just a little bit different which is cool to have some evolution.”

Joy said he didn’t feel the pressure to replicate the commercial success of Riptide or conform to popular music trends.

“I’m living within a team and a label where there’s not much pressure to conform or stay relevant, which is cool,” he said.

“It’s good to get pushed into new situations. I’ve done a few sessions with songwriters I wouldn’t have thought of myself but it ends up making a cool song, but you don’t want to cut yourself off from what your fans loved in your music in the first place.

“It’d be awesome to have music like Riptide that everyone likes but I don’t want to chase that so hard that I alienate the people that have listened to the whole stuff and have followed me along.”

He added: “It would be cool to make a great club track, though. I don’t even know what that would sound like.”

Vance Joy will bring his The Long Way Home Tour to Australia from September 17

Originally published as ‘It takes a lot’: Vance Joy‘s big regret about hit song