Everybody wants Mr Nice

By REBECCA BARRY

Josh Kelley is a laidback southern guy who likes going out drinking and "jammin' man". He also likes to work. Despite still touring his debut album, For the Ride Home, the American singer-songwriter has written about 80 songs for his next.

"I wrote a song like, three or four days ago about my mom actually," he says, on the line from Sydney, a few days before heading here for his second New Zealand visit. "How weird is that?"

Not very, considering his proactive foray into the music industry. Kelley famously spammed email users and routinely put songs on Napster, flanked by the line, "If you like Dave Matthews, try Josh Kelley".

His self-belief came to fruition when he co-incidentally reached A&R rep Eric Clinger at Hollywood Records. Things took off so quickly a friend suggested Kelley write himself a note to keep him grounded - instead he wrote a song.

But if Everybody Wants You sounds like an ego-trip, Kelley comes across more as the boy next door than a rock star, the Mr Nice Guy behind the rootsy, easy-listening hit single, Amazing.

"It's so weird to freakin' talk about yourself ," he insists. "It's like I'm self-freakin' absorbed or something. I don't want to sound like those dudes that I hate."

Not that his family would let him, anyway. As the middle child of seven, Kelley says his flesh and blood are his biggest fans, and that growing up with them in Georgia was "pretty rockin' man".

"Thanksgiving and Christmas and dinner time is definitely full of a lot of fun. I've got a younger brother who's a great drummer and singer, an older brother who is a solid guitarist, a solid bass player and a really solid singer. We definitely had a hell of a lot of jam sessions."

Even so, he went on to university where he excelled at golf and art. He still paints, he says, but music was always the goal rather than sport. Now a typical week is spent writing songs or at the beach with friends, the situations in which he finds his muses.

"It could be like, two people holding hands or fighting or whatever. Whenever the inspiration hits, I kind of go with it."

Which could make it easy to pan him. The majority of his loose, folksy, guitar-driven songs on the album are in a major key, giving the impression he was in a similar mood while writing them.

You'd be hard pressed to discover any songs lamenting his angst - the guy possesses the eternally happy demeanour exuded by someone like Jack Johnson.

"But all the new songs are mostly in a minor key," he says. "I think it's going to change, always. I'm never going to make the same record twice. This next record might be all minor or all odd-time signatures, you never know. Maybe I was just really happy at the time and I'm getting a little darker now."

So the critics who've criticised him as a bubblegum version of John Mayer have missed something?

"I'm more southern rock. There's a lot of rock and blues on the record. To tell you the truth, man, Your Body Is A Wonderland is probably a little bit more bubblegum than Amazing."

Like Mayer, Kelley is the first to admit a large number of his fans want to marry him and have his babies. And he always makes an effort to chat to them after his shows, which lately have been mostly intimate, acoustic affairs. When he plays tonight he'll be accompanied by just one other guitarist. He might even play some Radiohead.

"I don't know how many stories I can tell that are rated 'G' enough but I guess whatever happens on the road stays on the road. We have people drive some pretty long distances to see the shows. I can't really talk about too many crazy things without coming off like a freak."

On stage

* Who: Josh Kelley

* Where and when: The Studio, K Rd, tonight, 8.30pm