Joe Bartel

“Don’t chicken out!” So begins the inspiring opening track on Joe Bartel’s newest album, American Poison, due September 2024. Alongside plenty of compositions across Joe’s catalogue, “Don’t Chicken Out!” urges listeners to push up against everything keeping us down and to get at the wild heart of life. In earnest expansion on a DIY folk punk sound, Joe’s incendiary songwriting rejects the social and ecological ills forced on all of us by the bastards at the helm.

Joe Bartel’s core messages are sincerity and fearlessness. He writes about death. He sings about love. He questions and criticizes masculinity (one’s bravery, one’s beard, one’s balls) head-on. A true romantic just barely underneath a gruff surface, Joe Bartel refuses the trite in favor of tirelessness.

Joe is an artery connecting the nationwide DIY bloodstream. Lovingly recognized within the Twin Cities community as a gracious host promoter of local shows, Joe has hosted dozens of artists at DIY space Badger's Den, and formerly 319 Club.

Joe Bartel has earned comparisons to iconic rock and folk songwriters like Jeff Rosenstock and The Mountain Goats. He draws sonic and lyrical inspiration from The Clash, Jeff Buckley, Blur, and Leonard Cohen. The compositions on American Poison range from heartwrenching ballads and lighter-swaying anthems to hardcore breakdowns and showcase Joe's trademark punchy lyricism.