Joe Talbot (musician)

Talbot has released two full-length studio albums and many EP's and singles with Idles.[4] His music has been described as punk rock,[5] and post-punk,[6] especially due to its passionate nature and political lyrics, which have criticized right-wing news networks such as Fox News and The Sun,[4] and outlined social issues such as depression, white privilege,[7] and toxic masculinity.[8] However, Talbot has rejected all of these genre labels. In 2017, he was quoted saying: "We're not a post-punk band. I guess we have that motorik, engine-like drive in the rhythm section that some post-punk bands have but we have plenty of songs that aren't like that at all."[9] At a 2018 concert in Manchester, he said: "for the last time, we're not a fucking punk band".[10]

Talbot was born in Newport, Wales and raised in Exeter, England. He met Idles bassist Adam Devonshire at sixth form college in Exeter, before moving to Bristol alongside Devonshire, where they studied at the St Matthias Campus of the University of the West of England and decided to start a band.[11] Following university, they went on to open the now-defunct Bat-Cave Night Club in Bristol.[12]

At 16, Talbot's mother had a stroke and was paralyzed, and after the death of his step-father, he became her primary carer, until her death in 2015. Her passing was followed two years later by the stillbirth of his daughter Agatha Talbot.[13] Talbot's mother and first daughter are primary subjects of Brutalism and Joy as an Act of Resistance respectively.

He is married to Beth Talbot, with whom he has a daughter.[14]

He cites The Strokes, Thom Yorke, Battles, The Walkmen, Joy Division, The Horrors, and The Fall, as influences.[15][16]

Talbot appears on the track Wish on Anna Calvi's fourth full-length album Hunted.[17] He is also the subject of the song Blood Brother, by Bristol-based band Heavy Lungs, whose vocalist Danny Nedelko is the namesake and subject of the fourth track on Idles' second record Joy as an Act of Resistance.[18]