Joshua Bassett's Goal Is To Stay As True To Himself As Possible

Joshua Bassett, musician and actor from the hit Disney+ series, "High School Musical: The Musical: The Series," recounts his journey with songwriting and writing his debut single, "Common Sense."

Video Transcript

- So I mentioned it earlier. Let's get to it. So why this track is the first one I think fans have been following you. They know like, "I'm Still in Love With You." They know "Do It All Again." I think "Sorry" was another one. Why was "Common Sense," with all the songs that you have in the locker, in the back pocket, ready to go, why was that one the one for you to like, that's the one I want to put out?

- Yeah I mean-- that tends to be-- well first of all, that song means a lot to me. And writing that song wasn't saying that--and I think I mentioned it in the article you were referencing earlier. But it was kind of like, it just hit me. It was one of those songs that like, I was literally driving and it just came to me. And I was like, oh my. It's brilliant. And I just like, I record-- I couldn't keep up with myself. It was as if the song was already written. And I was just like, trying to get it out. And then I pulled over in a Westfield parking lot and in my car, just pulled out my guitar and finished the song. And it was like, whoa. It was insane.

And a lot of times, I would like, show people some of my songs. And they would always go like, what was that "Common Sense" one? Go back to that one.

And again, it was my first original song that I posted on Instagram. And just felt like the right-- it just felt right. It was like--

- It's a circle moment. Yeah.

JOSHUA BASSETT: Yeah totally. Full circle is the best way to put it.

- Yeah.

JOSHUA BASSETT: Fun little fact. I don't know if anyone caught this the first time around. I saw a few people, actually, on Twitter tweeting about this. But I-- right before we sent in the song to get remixed and mastered, I listened to my Instagram version again. And I was like, those birds sound sick. There's birds in the background while I'm playing. And I was like, that sounds really great. So as a little bit of a nugget, I actually had to re download that song from my Instagram, rip it illegally off of my Instagram. Get the audio, put it into my music program, and cut down just to where the birds are. I put them in twice in the first like, 15-ish seconds of the song.

And so if you go back, you can hear the birds. And that's from the Instagram page. That's a little callback to all the OG people who were there from the start. I thought that was a little fun.

- That's awesome. That is so much fun. When you can put little like, Easter eggs like that in your own stuff, man, that's pretty amazing. You know, someone who has so many songs written, what is-- how do you see this in your head? Like, do you already know like, what the track list for your first album is going to be? Are you still figuring all that sort of stuff out?

With so much stuff written, I feel like you had a lot of these like, plans in your head that you had for years. Like, you've been waiting for this moment.

JOSHUA BASSETT: Yes. For sure. Yeah. I have a lot of plans in my head. I have a lot of ideas. I'm always like, thinking ahead. And, you know, I think the most important thing to me is being as true to myself as possible. And I think the people who have enjoyed my music so far, it would feel-- it would feel disingenuous, I guess, to make my music anything other than what it is. And that's why I think "Common Sense" is a perfect example of how I took what the song is and just slightly elevated it to kind of, you know, bring it up just a notch.

- Right.

JOSHUA BASSETT: But still keep it true to its core. And I think that's my favorite thing about songwriting, is like, you can do all the production. You can do all this stuff. But you strip it away, and is the song good? Is the meat of it-- right.

And so if you do have that, then you can dress it up if you want. But my goal is to just take like, the songs that I already have, and elevate them to a point where I can still have my artistic like, input on that. But where it still feels true to the song and not like I'm putting on this front and being someone who I'm not. Because that just wouldn't be--

- Yeah.

JOSHUA BASSETT: That's just not authentic. And the goal is to be as me as possible. And I think-- I hope that that resonates with people. So, you know.

- For sure, man. Well--

JOSHUA BASSETT: We're figuring it out.