Meticulously honed vocals and a passion for performance ignite the flames for Medway soul singer Apostol

With a voice sent from the heavens and iconic influences ranging from the likes of Aretha Franklin to Amy Winehouse and Donny Hathaway to Sam Cooke, you could say that Apostol fits his name perfectly.

Delivering his soul-filled message, Joseph Apostol (@apostolmusic_) had us sitting up and taking notice from the first bars of his emotive track To The Fire. It’s not surprising to us that he is currently courting 15k monthly listeners on Spotify, or that leading track Found It All has bagged 1.2 million plays to this point. But, despite these milestones, Apostol is humble about his initial successes.
“I’m just surprised, like, I’m thankful that people are listening,” he says, speaking to us from his home in Gillingham. Having moved to London in 2019 and first started releasing music, the pandemic forced a return to Gillingham and to his mum’s house, but rather than a negative this has allowed a renewed focus on his music that seems to be paying dividends.

“I want to really focus on this,” he explains. “I have savings and stuff like that, but then also my mum is supportive and she has seen a bit of a step-up. So she said ‘Go for it’, you know?”With similarities to Rag’n’Bone Man in that it has a modern edge to it, Apostol describes his style as “straight soul music” but does concede that multiple genres find their way into the production process of new EP Satori.
“I’ve worked with a producer that’s working with a band named The Pylons, and they’re quite indie. And I feel like we’ve kind of merged influences in this EP, you know, with the rock,” he says.
“I feel like my delivery of vocals is soul and then the production is kind of a mixture. There’s some R&B feel to it as well.”

“The music that I make is soul that makes you feel”

— Joseph Apostol

Spending his early years in the Philippines, Apostol grew up with the country’s love for ballads, which is where he first found his voice.
“When I was six, back in the Philippines, ballads were played everywhere,” he says. “Whitney Houston, Celine Dion and Mariah Carey, all that stuff. So I think the first time I listened to it was the Celine Dion song from Titanic.
“That song kind of started me off. I started listening to it and just kind of hummed the sound. And it kind of opened an interest in me for singing. I had a lot of, you know, dynamics modulation and stuff like that - at the time I didn’t know about that - but I was just really interested in how she was doing that in her voice.”
Moving to the UK aged nine, Apostol was introduced to soul and R&B with the likes of Lauryn Hill, Destiny’s Child and Usher, while he also started going to church and discovered gospel music.
“That’s where I started performing in front of people,” he says. Now 31, which he believes is on the older side of the ‘new artist’ spectrum, he is more determined than ever.

“You know, I’m still fighting for it. Right now, I’m still in my early stages, but to be in a position where I’m making an EP and releasing it takes time and I’m still finding people who believe in me as an artist, you know what I mean?”
But it’s not like there aren’t offers to move to the next step.
“Right now, I’m independent, but I’m being helped by someone,” he explained. “I’ve been in talks with quite a few managements that are handling quite established artists, but I’m still kind of deciding. I’m just trying to find the right people at the moment.
“But I’m just happy to be releasing music and promoting it right now.”

Finding subject matter for his tracks hasn’t been difficult, with the highs and lows of modern life forming the narrative of his songs.
“It’s either my experiences or the experiences of the people around me. For instance, the song that I wrote, Chains, at that time I was really low, but the thing that helped me was my faith… I had to overcome what I was going through. I want to make sure that the people listening to me would feel a sense of hope and encouragement.”

With the likes of BBC Introducing in Kent’s Abbie McCarthy picking up and playing his tracks, Apostol seems to be getting decent airtime for his records to hit home, but it is his live performances where the artist is looking to add to his reputation in the coming months and years.
“I want to be at festivals and gigging a lot,” he says. “I feel like my main strength is obviously my voice - sorry, I’m not being big-headed. But, you know, I’ve been working with my vocals for most of my life. I’ve been honing it pretty much, so my strength will definitely be live music, so I want to gig.”

He airs on the shy side during our conversation and I was interested to know whether or not he still gets nervous before performing.
“I do. I do,” he says. “But once I start singing, that’s when I get confident and then after singing I’m going back to getting nerves. Actually, I don’t think it’s nerves. It’s more like adrenaline.”
When you hear an Apostol track, you can hear the passion and the power behind it. So it’s not surprising that a few nerves are around.
He says: “The music that I make is soul that makes you feel.”
He’s got that right.