In the adjacent room of Mr. Habereder’s music production classroom at Poly High, Brandon Joseph spent his entire senior year teaching himself drums and perfecting his guitar technique. The teacher had given him unusual freedom after recognizing skills the teenager had developed on his own.
“Basically for the whole school year, all I did that year is just play guitar in class,” Brandon told The Raincross Gazette in an exclusive phone interview Friday, his voice lifting with the memory. The 27-year-old alt-R&B artist, who performs simply as “Brandon,” was calling from Phoenix, but his thoughts kept returning to Riverside—the city that shaped him and continues to anchor his identity even as his career ascends.
That rootedness challenges an industry where suburban artists routinely claim Los Angeles, regardless of actual ZIP code. Brandon’s debut album “Before You Go,” released in May on respected indie label Secretly Canadian, represents a different kind of authenticity: 11 tracks written, produced and recorded entirely in his Riverside home studio by an artist who refuses to obscure his Inland Empire origins…