Joe Popp

Joe Popp was born in East Hanover, New Jersey. His family relocated to Jacksonville, Florida in 1977 and at the age of 12, he began to play guitar and write songs. Popp served as the front man for the bands One Minute Father and Ant Farm before relocating to Tampa, Florida in 1990. While in Tampa, Popp was the front man and guitarist with two punk trios, dogs on ice (Allied Records) and his eponymous band Joe Popp (Space 44 Records). His bands opened for national acts Cheap Trick, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Blink 182, Green Day, and Mike Watt. Tampa was fertile creative ground for Popp. He also wrote and performed rock music for theater and his adaptation of Macbeth still holds the attendance record for American Stage's In the Park series. He was also hired as an actor for a series of television commercials, performed spoken word, appeared on billboards and performed as a solo artist. Popp was also a member of the Busch Gardens marching steel drum band, Sounds of Steel. Joe Popp relocated to New York City in 2000. He continued his work in theater and collaborated with Rinne Groff on several productions, the most successful being In The Bubble, co-composed by Michael Friedman (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, The Civilians), and directed by Michael Greif (Rent, Next to Normal, Dear Evan Hansen). Popp rekindled his love of skateboarding in 2004 and began shooting a documentary titled Joe Popp Skates Again! but never completed the project. In 2007, Popp returned as a front man and guitarist with his long time collaborator Tylor Durand and formed The Hornrims. The band performed in New York City and released two albums before disbanding in 2012. He would go on to perform with several more projects including the experimental band Plasma in the Ukraine and the acoustic rock duo Lost Axis. Working in the audio and music recording industry lead Popp to be selected as one of the recording engineers on Joseph Bertolozzi's Tower Music album. Working with the composer, Popp spent two weeks in 2013 on the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France recording samples to be used on the project which was released in 2016 (Innova). A motorcyclist for most of his life, Popp came up with the idea for a web series in 2014 where he would tour as a singer-songwriter on a motorcycle called Popp Over America. He raised money through crowd funding and shot a pilot episode of the series. After shopping the pilot and receiving no production offers, Popp set out on his own in the summer of 2017 and shot the series himself. He began releasing episodes of Popp Over America in March of 2018. Joe Popp relocated to Fort Lee, NJ in 2017. He has served as the Technical Director for the Sonic Arts Center music recording program at The City College of New York since 2002.