The Empty Pockets

The Chicago roots rock outfit the Empty Pockets distinguishes itself through adaptability while drawing on experience gained alongside established figures such as Dave Mason, Kenny Loggins, and Al Stewart. Cast members from a Buddy Holly musical assembled the ensemble toward the end of the 2000s; maintaining a fiercely independent outlook, they built a devoted audience with the 2011 release Introducing the Empty Pockets and the self-recorded 2015 album The Ten Cent Tour. During the later stretch of the 2010s the band sustained an active studio presence amid national tours, delivering multiple EPs and the full-length Tanglewoods in 2019.

Guitarist and vocalist Josh Solomon, who spent his formative years in Lincolnwood, Illinois—a suburb situated less than 15 miles from Chicago—established the project in 2006. He had already begun performing with childhood friends bassist Nate Bellon and drummer Danny Rosenthal; when Solomon landed the role of Buddy Holly in a Chicago production of Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, the pair assumed the parts of the Crickets. The three recorded an album of Buddy Holly covers, Not Fade Away, issued under the name Josh & the Empty Pockets while the show was still running.

Following the production’s close, Josh & the Empty Pockets worked the Chicago club circuit, mixing covers with originals after keyboardist and vocalist Erika Brett—another cast member from the same Buddy staging who sometimes appeared with the group—joined the lineup. Brett contributed to two tracks on the 2008 album Under the Bed, whose ten original songs later aired on various Nickelodeon programs. By the close of 2008 she had become a permanent member, the name had been shortened to the Empty Pockets, and the band had released the holiday single “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” b/w “Baby Please Come Home.”

A six-song EP, Introducing the Empty Pockets, appeared in 2011; the year ended with the five-track holiday collection A Holiday Staycation with the Empty Pockets. When not working in their personal studio, the Empty Pockets performed regularly, headlining clubs and opening for Bob Schneider, Dave Mason, and Dickey Betts, among others. They also served as the backing band for Kenny Loggins, Al Stewart, Gary Wright, Richie Furay of Buffalo Springfield, and Simon Kirke of Bad Company. The 2015 full-length The Ten Cent Tour broadened their Americana palette and registered on both the Billboard Heatseekers and Indie charts. The eight-song 2017 project Voices initiated a notably productive stretch that yielded the 2018 holiday EP Snow Day as well as the studio album Tanglewoods and the concert recording Live in Seattle in 2019.