Midnight Riders interview #4: Josh DeCosta

June 30, 8:04 PMBoston Pro Soccer ExaminerL.E. Eisenmenger

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Josh DeCosta

Josh DeCosta, alias HW, is a rapper who performs frequently around Boston and Providence and when not touring is a Midnight Rider and passionate fan of the New England Revolution. DeCosta, of DelusionalRecords, works with DJ Emoh Betta of the Deck Demons out of Boston.

LE: Where do you perform?

DeCosta: Everywhere. I just came back from a Mid-West tour a couple weeks ago and in April I was in Canada on tour. My next big tour, hopefully, is April of next year and I’m planning to go to Europe for the month.

Leeds Entertainment out of Boston books me once in a while, but I book all my own shows with a close group of friends, artists that perform and have certain venues that have good reputations so we just do shows here and there. I’m doing a show tomorrow in Lowell, part of an art gallery exhibit.

I won’t do typical rap music, I’m not talking about shooting anybody. My music is pretty depressing actually, I just rap about ex-girlfriends, issues like that, it’s emotional music. If I could play the guitar well I’d probably be playing acoustic music like Jack Johnson or Bob Dylan or Bright Eyes. I just know how to rap so that’s what I do.

I play the Middle East in Cambridge, I play at McGann’s, I played at Hoffa’s which is now closed – it was in Harvard Square, I’ve played O’Brien’s in Alston, I’ve played a good amount of shows in Boston, but more in Providence. I’ve played most major cities on this side, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit, Montreal, Windsor, I’ve played a lot of shows for someone who’s virtually unknown.

I travel with a small amount of people - two, three, because the more people, the less money. I usually tour extensively with Brzowski out of Portland Maine who just won the Portland Phoenix Best Hip-hop Act, which is great and feels great to be recognized for your talents.

I just started writing a soccer song, which I’ve never heard in rap music at all minus Clint Dempsey, [Deuce] and I didn’t even realize he was a rapper until yesterday.

LE: What does HW stand for?

DeCosta: Hazardous Waste. I came up with that name when I started rapping when I was 14, I was influenced by some awful things. I had it for so long I just dropped it to initials and when people ask I usually make up a new name every time, it stands for whatever I feel like at that moment. I should have put my real name on twitter.

photo courtesy of Midnight Riders

LE: On Saturday [June 21], after all three teams had been struggling, the USMNT, Revolution, and the Breakers all won and you tweeted, ‘revs, usa, and the breakers win. i still wish i could give you this feeling.’

What did you mean, what is that feeling?

Decosta: I feel that as far as soccer and America goes, the whole world is against you. The whole world just hates [USMNT] maybe because we dominate a lot of the other sports. Soccer is catching on but it’s not as well established here as it is in the rest of the world. I have friends that hate soccer, they say it’s boring and I just don’t understand. It’s 90 minutes. Do you know how hard it is to run for 45 minutes back and forth? Extremely hard, I’ve tried it.

I saw the US win and watched the Brazil game at the same time at CBS Scene, all of us. My friend Kyle Santos, who’s a part of the Riders too, had said before the game, ‘If they win tonight, I’m buying everyone a beer.’ So Brazil went up three and I looked over and he said, ‘It’s great, but it’s not because I’m about to lose so much money.’

And he did, he kept to it.

But so many people said the US is not going to win, no way, they’ll play awful. My roommate from Morocco, he’s lived here for two years, said there was no chance we were going to win [vs Spain]. Nobody believed it but we came through, it was a gritty win, but I’ll take. And I watched the Italy game and I honestly think we had a really good chance against Italy.

We were super underdogs. Egypt had been playing their hearts out the whole entire time and much respect to them, but they lost and they lost bad. We came back and ended up second place in our group above Italy. The north side of Boston must have gone nuts last night, and I wanted to go there with flags for Brazil and America to spite them, but there was a good chance we would have been mugged and beat up pretty bad.

You need to support your country’s team. [Some friends] are like, “I’m Portuguese so I support Portugal,’ and I’m like, ‘No, you’re American, you were born here, Portgual really doesn’t care about you that much. You don’t live there, support here, we need you more than them.”

LE: The Revolution have had a hard time lately, what do you think sparked the change in the win Sunday night versus Santos Laguna?

DeCosta: I don’t miss a game unless I’m out of the country or out of the state, I actually route my touring around the Revolution schedule. I wasn’t sure. After I read your tweet about Shalrie Joseph not playing I thought our midfield is going to be so awful, I had no idea who they were going to play. Nyassi is great for speed and I think Mansally is really good on the wing, but I don’t think he plays as well up front as he does on the wing.

After they were down by one at the half the steam was out and I thought they weren’t going to pick it up. I’m not really sure what happened, but honestly, I think it was Heaps. He was so pissed, he always gets really pissed and sometimes he gets results and he did. I really think he should just play midfield or forward because he goes up there all the time - “You guys stay here, I’m taking the ball and I’m going.” And I love that about him. He came through and he did it, more so him than anybody else on the field to me.

Josh DeCosta

LE: How did you come to be fan of the Revolution?

DeCosta: I love the Revolution, it’s become quite a religion for me. I went to a game a long time ago when I was 13, Benfica vs. Revolution, my uncle brought me and he was rooting for Benfica and by the end of the night I was rooting for the Revolution. I didn’t go to another game until early last year and started going with my friend Missa [Melissa Drumonde] and she’s a huge supporter of the Revolution, been for years, but never had anyone to go with.

I had fallen out with my ex-girlfriend, so I was sad and depressed and had a lot of time to fill. I had watched a few games over the years and wanted to go but never had anyone to go with. MLS soccer is not exactly big in this country, which is awful because the league is not as bad as everyone says it is, it is not that awful. Everyone says the standard quality of play is crap, but I say, ‘No, it’s not that bad, just because you watch Premier League doesn’t make you an expert on anything.’

So anyway, to get to the point, to cancel the void I went to SuperLiga, the second game, and they were playing amazing, it was ridiculous, and I couldn’t understand why people didn’t come out and watch this team, so amazing, so solid. I loved it and I just kept going. I bought tickets for every game after that and then I bought season tickets, stupid early.

I was in a waiting line before the waiting line existed. I was just like, ‘I need season tickets!’ and they said, ‘Well, we can’t sell them to you right now,’ and I was like, ‘But I want to buy them now!’ and they put me on a waiting list, and I said, ‘I don’t care where I sit as long as I’m closest to the field, I want to be as close down as possible, I want to be able to yell at the opposing bench as much as possible.’

And they said fine.

And I waited and got really good seats, like row 3, section 111, amazing for me. Every year I’ll probably change because I want to get as close as possible. Hopefully, well, I don’t hope people don’t keep their season tickets, but I hope they exchange them and I get their better seats. That’s what I’m holding out for.

But I really love the team and it breaks my heart when people insult them.

LE: What’s the one thing the Revolution should do to improve?

DeCosta: I’m dying for a soccer stadium in the Somerville area. I used to live right where they were going to put it and if they ever did put it there, I’d completely move right back. I’d love to be able to hear the atmosphere better. I sit in the mid-section and a lot of people call that ‘the morgue’ because trying to start a chant there is impossible, and I always try and I always fail. Fort chants are very hard to follow at the same time because there’s no way to get a unison chant in Gillette going because when they’re saying it, by the time we’re hearing it, they’re already starting their next one. People on the field are probably hearing two different chants at once, which is annoying to me.

I try to go with them and I’m watching their movements, their hand movements, and I’m hearing the clapping five or six seconds after their clapping is done and I’m thinking, ‘this is not going to work, it’s going to sound awful.’

LE: How are music and the soccer the same?

DeCosta: That’s an amazing question, I’ve never thought about that at all, ever. In a business sense, it’s hard to be passionate about music or soccer when so many people doubt it and don’t support it. It’s very difficult to try to survive off that kind of dream. Including monetarily. Larentowicz makes something like $35,000 or something ridiculously low, I make more money than him, that’s awful. But he still does it. I don’t know where he lives, but if he lives in Boston, you can’t afford rent unless you live with a gang of people. I found out that some of these guys live with families, but these people are like stars to me.

When the pieces come together it’s like a well-written piece of music, well-orchestrated. I can think of Nicol as a conductor and when he finally delivers the message it works out well.

LE: What do you think about bringing bands into Gillette Stadium before the match or at halftime?

DeCosta: I think it’s a shot in the dark as a cross-promotion, maybe at the half, but it’s only 15 minutes. I love the idea of music and soccer colliding in a sense.

See Josh DeCosta HW perform live at the Middle East club in Cambridge on July 29.

Read other Midnight Rider interviews with Evan Whitney, Chris Camille, and Monty Rodrigues.

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