Starting out as a punk...rocker

- [Narrator] This is an audio course. Thank you for listening. (upbeat punk music) - [Instructor] Josh doesn't really fit the typical bill of someone who would end up working for a technology giant in Silicon Valley. As a kid, he was rebellious and unmotivated. We asked him about his adolescence, and his early relationship with his parents. - [Josh] I moved out when I was like 17. So, am I going too far back? - [Instructor] No, you're good. - [Josh] So I moved out when I was 17, and I was out of the house already and she goes, "Listen, if you want to focus on something, you have me and your father's support completely. If you want to continue down this road, skateboarding and surfing all the time, no more support." And whatever support meant, it's like, I started thinking about it like, "Well I don't need anything now, but the future..." (both laughing) And so anyway, I just like started to focus at that time and I was playing music already, got really focused on music, played in bands and started like actually making a living, playing in bands just, like, mostly local. And then the band... - [Instructor] So like the typical thing, like you'd maybe play at at a bar or some sort of gig like that. - [Josh] Totally. Yeah, mostly bars. - [Instructor] You doing covers or your own music? - [Josh] No, my own music, yeah. And then that band got pretty popular locally and it started, that was around the time that San Diego was the hot hotbed for music, so like early nineties, and they were signing a bunch of bands from San Diego. And so we had a lot of interest from record labels. So that really like got me focused more. And then that band broke up. Just like people, like a couple guys in the bands, it went to their heads. It's like, "Dude, what are you guys doing? You're just blowing it right now. Everything we worked for the last three years, you're just blowing it." So anyway, I remember we met with this guy from Trent Reznor's label and we're so close to signing a record deal and our guitar player just like went off the deep end. Like literally he went bananas. I mean, he was just like talking nonsense and everything was like, well, anyway. So I was like super bummed, and then anyway, fast forward I started playing another band, Fluff. We signed a major label record deal, started touring for like a decade, 10 years, 11 years. Played with like all our heroes, toured five Van's Warped tours. - [Instructor] Awesome. Give me a couple of your heroes - [Josh] Jawbreaker. - [Instructor] Okay. - [Josh] Fugazi. - [Instructor] Oh yeah. - [Josh] Def Tones. Rancid. - [Instructor] Awesome. - [Josh] Yeah, it was really great. Great time of life. Everyone in the band was like super focused. - [Instructor] And how old were you then? During this era? - [Josh] Probably mid twenties. - [Instructor] Okay. (upbeat punk music)