Joe Pug

Musician Joe Pug’s rise to popularity has been as improbable as it has been impressive. After dropping out of college and working as a carpenter in Chicago, Pug started his musical career creating CDs for friends and fans to pass around. After performing a number of sold-out shows and testing out a few different band configurations, Pug finally connected with a group that he “knew this was going to be [his] band.” Pug went on to play over 400 shows in the following years, including Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo.

Through a series of pressures and experiences in 2013–2014, Pug decided to step back from touring and settled in Lexington, KY, to work on a new album that includes some of the best songs he has ever written. While his music has collected plenty of comparisons to Bob Dylan over his career, the record released in 2015 has more contemporary influences like Josh Ritter, Ryan Adams, and M. Ward. Over the last 8 years, Pug has released Messenger (2010), The Great Despiser (2012), and Windfall (2015).

About Naked Soul

Naked Soul presents performances from some of the country’s top singer/songwriters without microphones or amplifiers, as if the music were, acoustically speaking, naked. The musicians in the series draw upon the universal themes inherent in Himalayan art—spirituality, peace, tolerance, wisdom, compassion—on select Friday evenings.