In 2009, James Keogh was a promising player in Australia’s Victorian Football League. He also played music, and, taking an alias from a Peter Carey novel he was reading, put himself into rotation in the Melbourne open mic scene as Vance Joy. He released his indie debut EP, God Loves You When You’re Dancing, in March 2013, and by the end of the year, Joy had topped global charts with the catchy, unavoidable hit, “Riptide,” signed a five-album deal with Atlantic Records and caught the ear of Taylor Swift, who put him on her 1989 tour.
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