Congressman Andy Biggs said Tuesday that if elected governor he’ll eliminate the income tax. Temperatures are finally beginning to cool off after an extremely hot summer in Phoenix. Amazon is launching a two-year effort to raise $100 million for water conservation around the Colorado River. ASU researchers say this year the Cactus League added nearly half a billion dollars to Arizona’s gross domestic product. Plus the latest Fronteras Desk, indigenous affairs, metro Phoenix, and education news.
Transcript
TIARA VIAN: This is KJZZ, your news and information station in Phoenix and across Arizona. I’m Tiara Vian, and here are this week’s stories you don’t want to miss.
This is the podcast that’s designed to catch you up on some highlights from around the region. Thanks for listening. Here are a few of the stories for the week of September 21st, 2026.
Congressman Andy Biggs said Tuesday that if elected governor, he’ll eliminate the income tax and it will actually increase the state’s tax revenue. Camryn Sanchez reports.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Biggs is running for governor against incumbent Democrat Katie Hobbs. He plans to gradually eliminate the state individual income tax, which accounts for more than $5 billion in the state budget. But Biggs says the state can afford that without having to raise any other taxes or cut any state government services.
ANDY BIGGS: I have every confidence that as we manage it and we incrementally bring this down, you’re going to see more economic activity, which will result in more tax revenue coming into the state.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Biggs says he’ll also get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse in state government, which will further offset the elimination of the income tax. Camryn Sanchez, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: In science news: Temperatures are finally beginning to cool off after an extremely hot summer in Phoenix. That extreme heat came with a toll. Maricopa County is on track to see a significant increase in heat-related deaths this year compared to last. Katherine Davis-Young reports.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: On a 106° morning in late July, the cooling center inside the First United Church of Christ in downtown Phoenix was busy with people trying to escape the heat, like Jonathan Nelson.
JONATHAN NELSON: I come in every day because the heat is really, really bad. I’ve been in the hospital because of the heat. I’ve been in kidney failure because of the heat.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Like most visitors here, Nelson is homeless. He’s spent other summers living on the street, but he says:
JONATHAN NELSON: Heat this year is by far the worst year ever here in Phoenix, Arizona, and I was born and raised here. It is horrible.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Data backs that up. 2026 is on track to be the hottest year on record in Phoenix. Heat-related deaths could be close to a record high this year, too. The county has confirmed 230 heat-related deaths so far in 2026, 60% higher than at the same point last year. More than 500 deaths are still under investigation. The apparent increase comes after two years of decreases in these fatalities. Last year, heat-related deaths in Maricopa County were down a full 30% from the previous year.
KELLY DONLEY-WILLIAMS: We were really happy to see that decrease, knowing that every single one of these deaths is preventable.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Kelly Donley-Williams is Maricopa County Public Health deputy director. She says efforts to expand access to heat relief sites across the county helped reduce those numbers. Similar resources were available again this year. But this year, extreme heat arrived earlier than ever. The Valley hit triple digits for the first time in mid-March. Donley-Williams notes most cooling centers across the county aren’t available until May.
KELLY DONLEY-WILLIAMS: And so when we see those temperatures that early in the year, it’s dangerous.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Maricopa County has confirmed nine deaths related to the record-shattering March heatwave, an unprecedented count for so early in the year. And it wasn’t just an earlier start to the heat season. We’ve also had long and intense heatwaves in 2026.
JEFF JOHNSTON: It seems to be those overnight lows that aren’t getting below 90, particularly on consecutive days, that seems to be riskiest.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Dr. Jeff Johnston is Maricopa County chief medical examiner. He says the biggest surge in heat-related deaths his office has ever seen came in July 2023. Temperatures were above 110 during the day and above 90 at night for most of that month. The National Weather Service issued a 29-day extreme heat warning, Phoenix’s longest warning ever. This summer brought the second-longest extreme heat warning, which lasted 18 days from the end of July into August.
JEFF JOHNSTON: August 1st hit us with a really intense surge.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Johnston says the increase in deaths this August was almost as high as during that record 2023 heatwave. With so many cases still under investigation, Johnston says it’s too early to interpret demographic trends among this year’s heat deaths. But compared to years past, a larger share of this year’s confirmed fatalities happened indoors. Those are typically cases where someone can’t afford to run their AC at home or fix it when it breaks. And this has been a particularly hard year for lower-income households, says Jessica Berg with the charity St. Vincent de Paul.
JESSICA BERG: Folks are really struggling.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Nearly half a million Arizonans have lost SNAP food assistance this year. Gas prices have soared, utility prices are up.
JESSICA BERG: We’re just seeing that decrease in folks’ ability to get food for themselves, and they’re having to choose between food and rent and utilities and medical bills and transportation, all of it.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: As need increases and temperatures rise, officials say Maricopa County may need to scale up its response to extreme heat in years to come. Here’s Kelly Donley-Williams with Maricopa County Public Health.
KELLY DONLEY-WILLIAMS: We are going to continue to have conversations again community-wide with all of our partners about what next year looks like. And next year is going to be very different resource-wise.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: She says most funding for heat relief efforts across the Valley in recent years has come from pandemic-era federal aid that expires in December. Meanwhile, 211, the crisis hotline that served as the operator for the county’s heat relief network, is set to run out of state funding in early 2027. Back at the First United Church of Christ, Jonathan Nelson says the need for continued heat relief resources remains urgent. If this cooling center hadn’t been available this summer, he says:
JONATHAN NELSON: I’d probably be dead. Honestly, I’d probably be dead because of the heat. And I know it’s killing a lot of people out there, too.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Katherine Davis-Young, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: In politics news: Democrats Clara Pratte and Jonathan Hill are trying to flip two seats on the all-Republican Arizona Corporation Commission. But even if they both win, Republicans would still maintain control of the state’s top utility regulatory agency. From the politics desk, Wayne Schutsky has more on what is at stake in the race.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Pratte and Hill are running against incumbent Republican Commissioner Kevin Thompson and state lawmaker Ralph Heap. But even if both Pratt and Hill win, Republicans will keep control of the five-member commission, which regulates many of the state’s water, electricity, and gas utilities. So, what will change if one or both Democrats win seats? “Not much,” says Thompson.
KEVIN THOMPSON: In the event that we do end up with one of the Democrats on there, I don’t think a lot’s going to change because I think everyone’s smart enough to realize the consequences of not having baseload generation.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: That came after both Democrats acknowledged during a debate that Arizona needs a diverse mix of energy sources, including natural gas, to make sure the state has enough electricity to serve a booming population. That stance mirrors a position held by Republicans. But that acknowledgment from the Democratic candidates came with the caveat that Arizona’s utilities should be prioritizing renewable energy in the sunniest state in the country, as solar becomes the fastest and most affordable energy to bring online. Here’s Pratt.
CLARA PRATTE: If we can backfill with solar and wind and other non-polluting forms of energy that we create domestically without having to import and rely on external fossil fuels, then we ought to be using the cheapest, cleanest form of energy first.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Hill said that increasing the state’s solar capacity would make Arizona more self-sufficient, and he criticized Thompson and the all-Republican commission for getting rid of pro-clean energy policies, like a renewable energy mandate on the state’s utilities, while backing a new natural gas pipeline from Texas.
JONATHAN HILL: That puts us subject to some really wild swings in those markets. The price of solar is very reliable. You can predict what it’s going to be years ahead of time.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: The two Democrats say that Heap, Thompson’s fellow Republican candidate, would make matters even worse, because he says the commission should prop up coal, a dirtier and less economical fuel source. Heap did not respond to an interview request. He has largely disappeared from the campaign trail as he faces allegations he broke state campaign finance laws. But here’s what he had to say when he launched his campaign last year.
RALPH HEAP: Coal gives us the baseload power that we need. That’s one of the most efficient sources of that baseload power.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: According to federal data, Arizona’s use of coal power has been on the decline for more than a decade. It now makes up a small fraction of the state’s energy mix. Meanwhile, the percentage of Arizona’s energy that comes from renewables like solar and wind has nearly doubled since Thompson came into office in 2022, going from just over 8% to around 16%. Arizona remains heavily reliant on natural gas and nuclear power, which combine to make up 72% of the state’s electricity. Thompson says that shows the commission is doing a good job making sure Arizona has a reliable, diverse grid.
KEVIN THOMPSON: We want everything that can generate power to go into the grid to keep it reliable and resilient.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: But the Democratic candidates have argued the current commission is too deferential to Arizona’s power utilities when it determines that energy mix, and too willing to approve rate hikes. As APS and Tucson Electric, two of the state’s largest utilities, seek sizable increases for the second time in four years, Arizonans have only elected four Democrats to the commission since 2000. The commission’s critics say that means voters only have one party to blame for rising utility costs: Republicans. But Thompson says utilities are allowed by law to recover their costs, and the current commission has done its best to cut out the fat.
KEVIN THOMPSON: The utilities are allowed to recover their cost to provide service. It states that in the Arizona Constitution. So, it’s not simply saying no. It’s how can we make sure that it’s just and reasonable?
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: The Democrats challenge that argument, pointing to the hundreds of millions of dollars in profits APS has reported annually. If they win, Hill says he and Pratt would have some power to work with Republicans to further cut costs, even as the GOP maintains majority control of the commission.
JONATHAN HILL: If the existing commissioners see two of their incumbents lose their seats in a single election cycle, I think they’re going to get a wake-up call and be much more willing to negotiate.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: If that doesn’t work, Hill said every commissioner has the power to subpoena utilities, meaning the Democrats could force them to disclose more information about their finances.
JONATHAN HILL: Sunlight is the best disinfectant. We’ll be dragging all sorts of documents into the public view.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: If Pratt and Hill win, it will give Democrats some momentum heading into 2028, when three seats will be up for grabs, providing an opportunity for Democrats to take control of the commission for the first time since the mid-1990s. Wayne Schutsky, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: And this is the Stories You Don’t Want to Miss podcast. Thanks for listening.
The Spot 127 Digital Media Center’s after-school program for high school students is happening very soon. Learn digital photography along with video and audio editing and entrepreneurship skills in this free award-winning program. The in-person classes start October 1st. For details and how to apply, go to spot127.org.
TIARA VIAN: In education news: The Scottsdale Unified School District held a public hearing earlier this week as it considers three possible plans for consolidating or closing schools. From the education desk, Bridget Dowd reports.
BRIDGET DOWD: More than 80 community members spoke at a meeting that lasted over three hours. Linda Byrd is a member of the Desert Canyon Elementary PTO. She asked the board to choose Option C, which she says saves the most money, optimizes facilities, and causes the least disruption for Scottsdale families.
LINDA BYRD: Based on the district’s estimates, Option C provides a one-time savings of more than $2.7 million compared to the 1.3 and 1.6 million for the other two options.
BRIDGET DOWD: Like many other districts across the state, SUSD is facing enrollment declines. In 2010, the district had more than 26,000 students. It now has around 20,000. A final decision is expected to be made on October 6th. Bridget Dowd, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: In Fronteras news: We’re closing in on the last day of Constitution Week. The annual celebration began on September 17th with Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, commemorating the historic document’s signing in 1787 and all those who have become U.S. citizens. From the Fronteras desk in Tucson, Alisa Reznick looks at how that process has changed under President Trump.
ALISA REZNICK: It’s a hot morning at the Tumacácori National Historical Park, just south of Tucson. A small group is set up on folding chairs in front of one of the site’s main attractions: a striking mission-style church made of pale stone and brick. This historic O’odham homestead once hosted Yaqui and Apache communities and Spanish mission settlements. 14 people from four different countries are here today to take their oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution. It’s the final step in the citizenship process.
OATH OFFICIAL: All persons who are taking the oath, please rise and raise your right hand and repeat after me the oath of allegiance.
ALISA REZNICK: A special oath ceremony happens here at Tumacácori every year in honor of Constitution Day and Citizenship Day.
OATH OFFICIAL: Congratulations. You are all now citizens of the United States of America. How about a round of applause?
ALISA REZNICK: For Nancy Navarro, the ceremony marked the end of a yearlong process and nearly three decades in the U.S.
NANCY NAVARRO: Y representa mucho para mí y para mi familia.
ALISA REZNICK: “It means a lot to me and my family,” Navarro said. She’s originally from Guanajuato, Mexico, and was undocumented before becoming a permanent U.S. resident. Her husband and two daughters were all born here. She gets teary-eyed talking about what it means to finally be at this moment.
NANCY NAVARRO: Libertad. Libertad de caminar aquí. De tener voz.
ALISA REZNICK: “It represents the freedom to walk here, to have a voice,” she says. To live without fear. For Navarro’s daughter, Elizabeth, watching her become a citizen is a relief.
ELIZABETH NAVARRO: So in many ways, I think the last year felt like a renewal of the fear that I felt when my mom was undocumented.
ALISA REZNICK: She says under the second Trump administration, permanent residency no longer seems like a guarantee of safety.
ELIZABETH NAVARRO: I don’t always feel the safest because of what I look like. I don’t always feel the safety for my family either, because of what they look like.
ALISA REZNICK: The process of becoming a citizen has changed under this administration. Data shows Citizenship and Immigration Services is processing far fewer naturalization applications and rejecting people more frequently than it did under President Biden, even as fewer applications come in. Applicants were denied roughly twice as often between April and June of this year than they were during the same period of 2024. Applicants now face ramped-up screening processes, increased English language proficiency requirements, and an expanded civics test. USCIS says reforms are needed to ensure citizenship is reserved for those who qualify.
ELIZABETH TAUFA: And I think that that’s the difference, is the previous administration said naturalization is important, so we should make it accessible. And this administration is saying naturalization is important, we need to make it as hard as possible for people to get it.
ALISA REZNICK: Elizabeth Taufa is an attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. She says at the same time, denaturalization efforts are up, where the government petitions a court to strip someone of their citizenship. 50 such cases were filed in July, the highest monthly total on record.
ELIZABETH TAUFA: We’re really seeing the administration be really hostile openly to the eligible to naturalize population and also naturalized citizens, to the point where people say, “I don’t know if it’s worth it to naturalize.”
ALISA REZNICK: Karime Rodriguez helps community members fill out citizenship applications as an organizer with the political action group LUCHA. She’s also in the process of applying, herself. She says she understands the fear.
KARIME RODRIGUEZ: It has crossed my mind once or twice before as well. But I just want to be able to participate civically, and it’s something that I also try to encourage our members about.
ALISA REZNICK: Back at the oath ceremony in Tumacácori, that’s a mindset Nancy Navarro knows well.
NANCY NAVARRO: Un sueño para mí era votar desde que llegué a este país. Nunca pensé que me iba a hacer ciudadana, realmente.
ALISA REZNICK: “Being able to vote has been a dream of mine since I arrived in this country,” she says. “I never thought I’d actually be a citizen.” When we talked, she had just come from registering to vote with Pima County. Alisa Reznick, KJZZ News, reporting from Tumacácori.
TIARA VIAN: In water news: Amazon is launching a two-year effort to raise $100 million for water conservation around the Colorado River. Alex Hager reports they’re starting with $20 million to fix leaky pipes and make tribal farms more efficient.
ALEX HAGER: Amazon says it’s trying to alleviate some of the imbalance between supply and demand on the Colorado River. Will Hewes, the company’s water sustainability lead, says threats to the long-term water supply are a problem for its business and the communities it works in.
WILL HEWES: Companies that benefit from being in that basin have an opportunity and really responsibility to help solve those problems.
ALEX HAGER: Amazon’s announcement is part of a trend as a number of large companies have started funding water-saving work. But much more money is needed to help the depleted Colorado River. Business and environmental groups called for $2 billion from the federal government to help the region adapt to dry times. Alex Hager, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: And this is the Stories You Don’t Want to Miss podcast.
In Indigenous affairs: Arizona’s smallest land-based tribe was recently home to a joint human trafficking operation conducted by the State Attorney General’s Office in tandem with local, federal, and tribal law enforcement partners. Gabriel Pietrorazio has new details from the investigation, which led to multiple arrests.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: This joint undertaking took place during the annual Payson Pro Rodeo weekend at the Mazatzal Casino in August. It was Tonto Apache Police Chief Hilario Tanakeyowma’s idea to use the tribal casino as the sting’s setting. He estimates half a million vehicles annually trek through the town along the Beeline Highway, a rural corridor conducive for human traffickers who could prey upon Payson and Tonto’s 110 or so tribal members.
HILARIO TANAKEYOWMA: It does get concerning, and I want to make sure that they’re protected. And this is one way of trying to say, “Hey, look, you can come up to Rim Country and have fun, but not that kind of fun.”
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: At least four unnamed individuals were apprehended. Gabriel Pietrorazio, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: In business news: ASU researchers say this year the Cactus League added nearly half a billion dollars to Arizona’s gross domestic product while drawing the most attendance in almost a decade. Matthew Casey reports.
MATTHEW CASEY: The Cactus League has long commissioned ASU to study the economic impact of spring training, when half of Major League Baseball calls Metro Phoenix home. Researchers interviewed thousands of out-of-state visitors at games to measure new money flowing into the state. They concluded that the event added roughly $496 million to Arizona’s gross domestic product. Bridget Binsbacher is executive director of the Cactus League.
BRIDGET BINSBACHER: And those fans spend time and money visiting other areas of Arizona, so the impact is felt far beyond the Cactus League footprint, and we’re really proud of that.
MATTHEW CASEY: Spring training drew roughly 1.8 million people to Cactus League games, which is the most since 2018. Matthew Casey, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: And finally, from Original Productions, a deep dive with a musician and his ailing father. Here’s the show co-host, Lauren Gilger.
LAUREN GILGER: During the pandemic, musician Joshua Hill returned to his hometown of Flagstaff, Arizona, to help take care of his dad, who was suffering from dementia. He began playing music with him and discovered he could sing and that the music seemed to calm him. Their collaboration turned into a project called Song Cycle and culminated in Hill on stage with his ailing father, improvising a song in front of hundreds of people. At the same time, Hill was writing music, his own music, that turned into his newest album, Cowboy Dream, out this month. I spoke with Hill more about the album, his dad, dementia, and music, and it’s today’s Deep Dive.
JOSHUA HILL: My father’s dementia and the pandemic at the same time really was like a reckoning of reality for me, and I think for a lot of us. I mean, I can’t believe all the time I’m just like, we had this global thing happen, everybody. It seems like we’ve sort of moved on. But I’m still kind of catching up to that.
LAUREN GILGER: I think a lot of people have that feeling. So, it was like a moment of crisis and reckoning in many ways, it sounds like. I mean, talk more about that writing process and the way that you conceptualized these songs, right? It sounds like you almost reverse-engineered it. Like you’d start with a sound first. Was that sort of starting with an emotion first for you?
JOSHUA HILL: I mean, it could be anything. One of the songs, “I Am Tree,” was literally me walking up to a pond and looking at a tree every day.
“A tree sits at the edge of a pond, and it sees itself in the still water.”
And then I would take photos of it, and then I would kind of turn the photo around, turn the photo upside down, and then depending on what the reflection looked like, sometimes it looked like it wasn’t upside down, or sometimes it just had like a characteristic. And so I’d kind of go and walk up to a tree and then walk home and then kind of futz around with sounds, and then that would become something.
“And the birds start drinking, and the fish start swimming, and the tree can no longer see itself. And it says, ‘I don’t know why. I don’t know why.’”
LAUREN GILGER: And as you’re saying this is happening as you’re watching your dad go through dementia, which is so I think difficult for so many people who have experienced that kind of caregiving role. Can you tell us about your dad, Joshua?
JOSHUA HILL: Oh, yeah. So Greg Hill, he was a painter, and he lived in Flagstaff, Arizona. And he would tell you the first time he met you that he was born in Oklahoma, and at the age of 8 he moved to Roswell, and then he would tell you his whole life story the first time he met you. And he was a very charismatic, just really full of life person, a very complicated person, too, you know. But just much loved. He was an engineer for most of his working life, and then in I would say in about his 40s or so, he started painting. And painting became the rest of his life, really, up until memory loss, till dementia came in in 2020. And kind of around the time that his diagnosis came on, that’s kind of when I discovered that Greg had this secret talent for music.
LAUREN GILGER: So he became a musician very late in life, it sounds like.
JOSHUA HILL: Very late in life, but it’s like he always kind of wanted to do it, but maybe just didn’t have the discipline to learn to play guitar or something. I started playing guitar because he had a guitar hidden in the closet that he had bought in the ’80s and then never could quite get the chords figured out.
LAUREN GILGER: Right. Well, so this brings us to this kind of really innovative and very beautiful project that you created with him as he was suffering from dementia called Song Cycle. You and your dad performed this together. He came out on stage as part of this performance and played and sang with you.
JOSHUA HILL: All right, let’s give it up for Greg Hill, everybody! How you doing, Dad?
GREG HILL: Okay. How about you?
JOSHUA HILL: Okay. I heard you have a thing in your pocket. A piece of paper. I heard you have a—we’re always looking for a starting place here. Let’s see. What do we got here? Ah. “Life is what you make it.”
GREG HILL: “Love is what you make it.” Or whatever.
JOSHUA HILL: “Life and love are what you make it.”
“Love is what you know. Light is what you give it. Love is what you know. It’s what you’re given. Love is what you know and make it.”
Really, the origin of that is I discovered when I was in my mom’s house taking care of him, that when I could get him to sing, that he would kind of release a lot of emotion, or it would just kind of almost like calm his body. And he was just kind of able to express, and it didn’t always make logical sense, but it seemed powerful.
“How can I know if I’ve made it?”
“You don’t.”
And so I was able to, there’s a short film I put out called What Would You Say. That was really the first time he ever sang. And then that led to applying to some festivals, and probably the most prestigious performance was at REDCAT, which is in the Walt Disney complex in downtown Los Angeles. It’s a kind of ragtag 200-seat theater down there. And we got into a festival, and yeah, I worked with a team, and we kind of built this show. And the whole idea was that there would be a moment where Greg and myself would go on stage and we would improvise. And we started the show by saying, “Okay, we’re being careful. We don’t want to exploit this person, but here’s what’s going on. You know, I think we’re going to be okay.” And we were really careful that he was dignified in his performance.
LAUREN GILGER: Absolutely, yeah.
JOSHUA HILL: But we basically just had this performance where it was kind of like there was a framing around it of documentary footage I had shot and stories and poetry my mom had written, and then this kind of improvised performance.
GREG HILL: I’ve been some of the people in the last year or two that, some of the illnesses, we didn’t even know about it, and I didn’t know about it, and I still kind of don’t know about it. And like I can’t drive my car anymore and that sort of thing. And at first, I just cried a lot, you know, and that didn’t seem to do much. So, so I’m crying again. But I just know that there are a lot of people that have needs that they didn’t need to have, and hope that everyone gets whatever need they need to have that.
“Life is what you make it. Life is what you make it. Life is what you make it. Sing if you want. Fly if you want. It’s gonna be alright.”
Thank you.
JOSHUA HILL: So my dad, never a musician, basically his first show is for a couple hundred people, and he’s getting a standing ovation, and he loved it. He was so happy.
LAUREN GILGER: It’s really amazing to watch, honestly.
JOSHUA HILL: Yeah, thank you. Thank you.
LAUREN GILGER: But it says so much about this link that I think has been well researched now between music and memory, right? And how powerful music can be in dementia. What did it mean to you, not just to get to kind of do that with him, which I’m sure was really moving for you, but also to watch music impact him in this way in this time in his life when he probably needed it?
JOSHUA HILL: You know, it’s interesting because I think the fact that we were able to share that experience together, I mean, music has always been my primary language. Like, I’d be much better just playing this interview on violin to you or something rather than talking.
LAUREN GILGER: I’m sure it would be great.
JOSHUA HILL: But basically, I think the fact that he was really able to just kind of take a stand for who he was and express himself, I think that was so important to him as an artist, and as an artist who just, I think he just really needed that. And I needed that, too, because just to be able to kind of step onto the biggest stage that I had been on and to have him with me there was honestly one of the greatest honors of my life. And I think it also was just something that we could do up until the end, you know, even if it was. There was a certain point where I decided I was going to stop filming him, and I was going to just kind of do it, like just play music with him and kind of just have it be private. And even until his passing, like the day of his passing, I mean, it’s like music was part of that, you know. And it often is at the end of life. Music is something that affects us and it just kind of calms us to our core. And it just explains the unexplainable.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. That’s a really good way to put that. I like that.
JOSHUA HILL: Yeah.
LAUREN GILGER: So your dad has since passed away, as you’re getting at there. And now you’re out with this new album, which is kind of full of these songs that you began exploring as you were caring for him. Was producing, getting this album out into the world, was this part of your grieving process?
JOSHUA HILL: I mean, I’m still in it, you know. I think definitely. I mean, I think the thing that really happened when he passed, and I’m sure happens for anyone who loses a parent or someone so significant, is it’s like you have to kind of rediscover your life. You have to just find a new energy and flow for how you’re going to navigate the world. And so I just feel like I’m ready for a new chapter, and I really just wanted to put out this, you know, just kind of throw my hat out into the ring of like, these songs are what my experience has been, and it’s kind of helped me through this valley.
“We gathered in winter, gathered as one to welcome the longest night and bury the sun.”
The kind of arc of the album is that there’s this transformational, it’s like a sunrise. It’s almost like it goes all into a deep valley of difficulty and facing a lot of dark truths, but then you kind of wake up out of the dream and there’s another day. And I think a lot of those lessons you learn through caregiving, that it’s so hard and it’s impossible. And I have to shout out my mom, who did the bulk of the caregiving, and she’s in Wales right now, like she’s having her life, you know. She’s doing it.
LAUREN GILGER: Good for her, yes.
JOSHUA HILL: Yeah, and I just, you want to just kind of not let that experience take away the fact that there’s going to be a new day. There’s going to be another chapter.
LAUREN GILGER: So is there a song we should end this interview on, Joshua?
JOSHUA HILL: Oh, my goodness. Why don’t we do “For a Little While”?
“This will be my home for a little while. This will be my home for a little while.”
There’s almost very few words. It’s almost like a mantra, and it’s just like, this is my home. This is what I have for right now. This is my body and my heart and my love. And this is, this is it. This is it. And that’s, like let’s make the best of it, you know?
LAUREN GILGER: Okay. All right. A good note to end on. Joshua Hill, multidisciplinary musician and artist, joining us. Thank you so much, Joshua, for coming on the show. Thanks for telling us your story, and congrats on the album.
JOSHUA HILL: Thank you so much, Lauren. Really appreciate you.
“This will be my hands for a little while.”
TIARA VIAN: And this has been the Stories You Don’t Want to Miss podcast, made possible in part by the Catena Foundation, BASIS Charter Schools, Palo Verde Generating Station, SRP, and the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust. Thank you for listening and for your generous support. I’m Tiara Vian. This is KJZZ. Listen more, learn more online and on the KJZZ mobile app.
