Josh Hall was a cabinet maker in high school, and after graduating, worked for a company that customized tour buses. When the company got the chance to do the cabinetry work for tour buses including for bands like Metallica, and Johnny Cash, he was all in: “We did some really cool stuff!” he says.
As the drummer for a local band, This Fire’s Embrace, he also toured with his own band on weekends. “We were doing the weekend warrior thing. And then we got pretty serious, and we traveled throughout the country for a while.”
Things were going well, but like many people, during the Great Recession, everything changed. “I got laid off from my cabinet making job in 2009, when the economy got hit really hard. At that point I realized that I needed to start doing something else.”
He knew he didn’t want to pursue any kind of corporate 9-to-5 job. “I couldn’t do it. I could not do it.