A life on the road is often the consequence of becoming a musician. For J. Seneca, it was the genesis. Born Joe Angileri, he began using music in 1998 to deal with the stress of constant travel, opting for empty hotel ballrooms in lieu of cramped hotel bars, dusting off their grand pianos to play in the dark for nobody but himself.

Like many aspiring musicians, J. Seneca grew up playing the keys out of his parent’s garage. It was the mid-1970’s; a time when a career in music was notably counter-cultural. As the pressure to go to college mounted into a deal to keep his band’s studio space, J. Seneca was pushed into degrees in business and law. He spent his professional career working as a consultant, commuting many of those years between Detroit and the coasts. It was with the sudden passing of his colleague and best friend, an avid choral singer, that his passion for music re-emerged in 1998: A Simple Song, a piano eulogy, marked J. Seneca’s first performance for an audience since his twenties – and his debut as a songwriter.

Fast-forward several years. The pianos were no longer dusty, but J. Seneca found them tough to find on the road and difficult to play with regularity. A chance encounter at a music store on Broadway & 57th compelled him to pick up the guitar. It was there that he discovered his music could travel with the help of a portable Traveler Guitar that fastened onto his carry-on luggage. Now he could turn the loneliness of the road – the time away from family, the flight delays, and the evenings free – into song. J. Seneca continued to write and perform for family and friends, but it wasn’t until after he left his full-time job that he began to consider the potential of himself as a musician. In 2016 he pursued a degree from Berklee College of Music. Unconvinced that he could become a virtuoso at any one instrument, he gravitated instead towards the beautiful complexity of production, which would allow him to record independently and make his music archival.

With the exception of a few choice collaborators, much of J. Seneca’s music continues to be a solo act. He writes, performs, records, and mixes everything in his own studio in Birmingham, Michigan. The dust from his travels has since settled, but he still finds much of his inspiration at night, when he’s able to calm a restless mind: “The operating, analytical side of my brain can finally shut off and I’m able to channel a more emotional state,” says J. Seneca. No longer relying upon a single event to motivate his songwriting, he instead turns to the discipline of routine authorship, taking inspiration from the narrative thread of living itself with lyrics that span across the personal, the topical, and the embellished. As evidenced by his trajectory as a musician, J. Seneca’s passion is persistent and omnipresent: “I can’t sit down to relax without thinking about different chords and riffs. It’s a blessing that I can make music, but a curse that I can’t shut it off,” says J. Seneca. “I didn’t choose music; It chose me. It’s a constant presence in everything I do.”

July, 2020