Vance Joy

Named after a character from Peter Carey's darkly comic novel Bliss, Australian singer-songwriter Vance Joy found fame with an intimate acoustic folk-pop sound inspired by the likes of Bob Dylan, George Harrison and fellow Aussie Paul Kelly. Born in Melbourne, Victoria, James Keogh initially aspired to be an Aussie Rules footballer, and played for the Coburg Football Club in the Victorian Football League while studying for a law degree at Monash University before switching his attention to music. Following a brief stint in a Bloc Party-esque indie band, he decided to pursue a career as a lone troubadour, and after adopting his Vance Joy moniker, began playing open mic nights across the Melbourne area. After releasing his 2013 debut E.P., God Loves You When You're Winning, Joy achieved his mainstream breakthrough with its lead single, "Riptide," an indie-folk coming-of-age love story which gradually rose to number six on his homeland's ARIA Singles Chart, became the first song to top influential station Triple J's Hottest 100 Countdown without a parent album, and later peaked inside the US Top 40. The record's slow-burning success eventually led to a five-album deal with Atlantic Records, and after heading into the studio with producer Ryan Hadlock, Joy's first full-length studio effort, Dream Your Life Away, arrived in 2014. Featuring the singles "Mess Is Mine," "First Time," and "Wasted Time," the album was promoted by festival sets at the likes of Glastonbury, SXSW and Bonnaroo, and a support slot on the North American leg of Taylor Swift's "1989" world tour.