Introducing you to the lo-fi worlds of Classic Trucks
When I first spoke to Joshua Jarman in 2022, he told me that he couldn’t play the guitar because barre chords hurt his hands too much. Now, in 2025, he’s released his debut EP under the name Classic Trucks, where he stands, playing guitar, and it’s certifiably brilliant.
Look, Jarman is no stranger to leading the line for a band. Up until this point, he’s been the vocalist and drummer for Bristol outfit Langkamer, where he, along with his bandmates, has fine-tuned that DIY alternative sound. Brimming with collaborative joy and celebrating the essence of a band in a more traditional sense, Langkamer’s music has just made you feel a part of something. A part of a community.
But let’s not get it twisted. Playing drums and leading vocals isn’t for the faint of heart, no matter how much Jarman or the band sought to downplay their brilliance. While providing air-tight rhythm, most notably in the form of rim-struck sixteenths on feel-good hit ‘Humdinger’, Jarman always seemed to have a keen ear for vocal melodies. The sort that wouldn’t just piggyback off the structure of the entire song but instead weave in and out, providing a clear through line for twisting tales of intrigue to exist. If only he could get over his damn fear of barre chords, and maybe we would be treated to more.
Then, as the warm light trickled through the trees and last year’s winter finally bid us farewell, Jarman delivered us a spring-tinged treat. “A couple of years ago, I bought a guitar for £10 and started trying to learn how to play it,” he wrote on Instagram, under the moniker of his new solo endeavour Classic Trucks.
He continued, “I have a song out today called ‘Letting In Too Much Light’.”
Straight away, we could hear this was still Jarman of Langkamer. Jarman of Bristol’s beautiful music scene who knew how to thread old school West Country sensibilities, into a compelling new age of indie. This was the perfect track to usher in a new spring and with it, the promise of a new artist who finally unlocked his potential on an instrument that felt perfectly suited to his songwriting.
Because his songwriting has that essence of creativity that I am always drawn to. Sure, we can all pick up a £10 guitar like Jarman and bundle a couple of chords together, courtesy of Marty Schwartz’s teachings, but then what? What happens when you’ve learnt the four chords necessary to make a decent song? It’s not a given that with theory comes great ideas, and arguably, there is a point to be made that creating something so fine-tuned and so unique in terms of establishing an artistic voice, with few materials at their disposal, is perhaps the hardest thing of all.
The second Classic Trucks EP Clown Town just goes to show that Jarman has that knack. The one that allows him to string a tune out of anything he picks up and make it sound indelibly linked to his own ideas. If this is what he can do with a £10 guitar, then god help us all when he saves up enough for a Tele.
