“Juha is a funky pie bursting at the seams with irresistible beats and attitude.”
- Neva Chonin, San Francisco Chronicle
“What a gift! Juha is a brilliant little genius. There is no one quite like him.”
- Marc Almond
In 2003, Juha’s Polari album was released by Agitprop Records. Fusing elements of Middle Eastern, Hawaiian, and punk music over a hip hop back-drop - with themes including Palestinian dislocation, rap bigotry, and the necessity of hunting Ted Nugent for barbecue - it scampered to #1 on the Outvoice chart. The Grooms of God followed in 2007, for which Juha declared: “I’ve become a three-headed Gargoyle perched on the steps of Motown.” Calling the new sound “Gothic Soul,” he also flirted with Middle Eastern disco, electro-classical, and dub, and told stories of man-eating tigers, male prostitutes, and his own account of the mid-90’s AIDS Crisis - while not forgetting to throw in more than a few goofy rhymes about his dick.
The sound of Prince and Rick Springfield french-kissing, Juha's "Stomach" EP is out. The funk-pop vibe of the title track is followed by Juha covering three 80’s classics: an exclusive dancefloor-friendly remix of "Ain't Nothin’ Goin’ On But The Rent,” the Gwen Guthrie-penned song that he first remade on 'The Grooms of God' (with its slight rewrite transplanting Gwen's original lyrics into a world of male prostitution); "Goodbye To You,” Juha's a cappella doo-wop version of Scandal's new wave hit; and "Steppin’ Out,” in which Juha tips his hat to Joe Jackson.
As a singer, Juha is a vocal shapeshifter, in one moment a whisky-throated rock daddy, in the next a smooth soul diva - often within the same song. What may sound like a gospel choir behind him in fact displays his “little vocal armies of me” - his own character singing layered on top of itself.
As an actor, Juha’s one-man shows have found him playing everything from a white neo-nazi to a black drag queen to a green lab monkey to a lost member of the Jackson 5. He’s been awarded a Fellowship from RISCA, a Threshold grant, a Horizons grant, and a Jon Sims Center residency. Juha makes his feature film debut in Kanch Wichmann’s
Break My Fall, which premieres at the 2011 Berlin Film Festival. He has since decided that he should be the next James Bond.
Juha is currently gearing up to tour his one-man
Rock N Wrestle Road Show - part rock concert, part character-driven theater.
Born in the USA, Juha is now based in the London UK borough of Hackney, where he became one of the East End Boys that the Pet Shop Boys sing about in “West End Girls.”
Taking his name from a character of Arabic folklore, a lot of folks get confused about how to wrap their tongues around "Juha." Pronunciation-wise. Wanna give it a shot? Try a French "Je" (as in "Je voudrais coucher avec toi, Juha") and then a "ha" (as in "Ha ha ha - My, but that's rich!"). That's a decent approximation. Your pronunciation is not totally accurate at this point, but yr pretty damn close.
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