After more than two decades of making music, Josh Canova is still less interested in chasing trends than he is in capturing something honest. His latest album, Days Unwind, was written during a period when nearly every part of his life was being tested, including family, health, work, loss and his sense of what the future might hold. Rather than stepping back from those experiences, Canova used songwriting as a way to remain present, make sense of the uncertainty and preserve the hope that better days were still ahead.
The result is a warm, cinematic collection shaped by reflection, storytelling and restraint. Across the album, ordinary moments become doorways into larger emotions, while humor and vivid details keep even the heaviest subjects grounded in real life. In this conversation with Idols 2 Rivals, Canova discusses the experiences behind Days Unwind, the emotional center of the record and the intuitive songwriting process that continues to guide his work.
I2R: After more than 24 years in music, what inspired the direction of your latest album, Days Unwind?
JC: Life did. I wasn’t trying to make an album that sounded current or fit into a particular category. I was trying to make sense of what was happening around me and inside me. These songs came during a period when almost every part of my life was being tested. Music became my north star—the place I could go to tell the truth, find some humor and keep sight of the life I still believed was waiting for me further down the road.
I2R: Why did Days Unwind feel like the right title for this particular collection of songs?
JC: The phrase comes from “Lion or the Lamb”: “Hope you find peace of mind, days unwind, weather’s fine.” It felt like the center of the record. Days don’t always unfold neatly. Sometimes they loosen, unravel or take you somewhere you didn’t expect. But they also pass. There’s something hopeful in that. You keep moving, and eventually the weather changes.
I2R: The album has been described as your most grounded and present work. What was happening in your life while you were writing it?
JC: A lot was coming apart at once—family, loss, work, health, identity and my sense of what the future would look like. I didn’t have the luxury of writing from a safe distance. I was inside it. The songs became a way to stay present without pretending everything was fine. Some days that meant writing something raw. Other days it meant writing something funny because you either laugh or start yelling at household appliances.
I2R: Was there one song that established the emotional or musical direction for the rest of the album?
JC: “Lion or the Lamb” probably came closest. It holds several opposing versions of the same person—the lion and the lamb, the sinner and the saint, the soldier and the horse. That felt true to where I was. None of us is only one thing, especially when life gets difficult. That song also gave the album its title, so it became the emotional center without trying to appoint itself chairman of the board.
I2R: Your songwriting often begins with real moments and lived experiences. How do you recognize when a personal experience should become a song?
JC: Usually when it won’t leave me alone. It doesn’t have to be a dramatic event. It might be walking the dog, picking up the mail or looking at my life in the middle of an ordinary afternoon and realizing something doesn’t feel right. If a moment carries emotional weight beyond what actually happened, there’s probably a song in it. The event is just the doorway. The feeling is where the song lives.
I2R: You have said that you let songs come to you rather than forcing them. What does that process look like when an idea first arrives?
JC: It usually begins with a phrase, a melody or a line that seems to know more than I do. I try not to question it too quickly. I record it, write it down and follow it. Sometimes the whole song arrives with a clear direction. Sometimes I get two good lines and three weeks of silence. Songs aren’t particularly concerned with my schedule.
I’ve learned that forcing an idea usually makes it sound forced. My job is to stay available and recognize when something honest has shown up.
I2R: How do you decide which personal details to reveal in your lyrics and which ones to keep private?
JC: I include the details that make the emotion believable. A dead fish, a broken-down dog, a burner left on or a trip to pick up new pills can say more than a paragraph explaining how someone feels.
At the same time, I don’t believe honesty requires exposing every person involved. I can change the furniture and still tell the truth. The emotional truth belongs in the song. Some of the evidence can remain private.
I2R: Your music exists somewhere between reflection and storytelling. Do you usually begin with a story, a feeling, a lyric, or a melody?
JC: There’s no fixed order. “Me for a Day” began with a very direct scene: breaking down in the middle of an ordinary day and not liking the picture I saw. “Pat on the Back” found its rhythm in the relentless details of family life. “Mexico” uses humor and escape to get at something more serious. Sometimes I begin with a character, sometimes a line and sometimes just a feeling I can’t name yet.
Whatever starts the song, I want it to take the listener somewhere. I don’t want to explain the emotion to them. I want to put them inside it.
I2R: How did you create the warm, cinematic atmosphere heard throughout Days Unwind?
JC: A lot of it came from restraint. We gave the songs room to breathe and let the arrangements support the stories instead of competing with them. I wanted warmth, space and enough movement for each song to feel like a place you could enter.
To me, cinematic doesn’t necessarily mean enormous. It means you can see something while you’re listening. A porch, a ghost town, a desert moon, a pharmacy, a crowded family car or somebody sitting alone at a bar. If the production helps those images come alive—and the listener feels like they’ve been somewhere by the end of the song—then it has done its job.
