We were lucky to catch up with Ethan Joffe recently and have shared our conversation below.
Ethan, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
I always knew I wanted to be two things: an artist and a humanitarian. Art runs in my family—my mother, cousins, uncle, and grandfather all pursued it in their own ways. From an early age, my mother taught me to see beauty in unexpected places. She’d pause to admire the “stunning art” in whatever video game I was playing or album I was listening to, showing me that entertainment could be art.
My uncle’s passion for music and the stories my cousin told of touring with his bands made the life of an artist seem natural, even inevitable. Still, I hesitated. The pressure to make money and “change the world” loomed large, and for a time I believed that was the point of it all. Through trial and error, I learned that chasing money alone was hollow, and that trying to change the world was a recipe for frustration. The real goal, I realized, is not to let the world change you. Life is about growing and planting seeds along the way.
I’ve also always felt a deep responsibility toward animals. Growing up with two loving dogs convinced me they are too pure for the human world, and it’s our duty to protect them. One of my biggest motivations for succeeding as an artist is to give back to nature. Without that cause, I’d have little interest in chasing financial success at all.
Over time, I saw the limits of being strictly literal. Facts and arguments can only reach so far. Some truths live beyond the edges of language. Life is chaotic and often unfair, and poetry can often speak louder than debate.
So I learned to balance my intellectual curiosity, my need for stability, and my creative drive. My purpose is to make art that explores life’s big questions and gives a voice to the voiceless—work that grows from the heart, stays true to my values, helps people to be brave and plants seeds for something better to bloom.
When my uncle died, I felt the fleeting nature of life in a way that no intellectual reasoning could explain. At his funeral, after a series of speeches filled with stories from his life, his son picked up a guitar and played a song. The song had four words in it, total. He sang “we shall meet again,” and I was stunned by how those four words carried more weight, tenderness, and truth than all the spoken tributes combined. In that moment, it had finally sunk in for me that music could be a pathway to a kind of spirituality that transcends the literal.
A short while later, seeing Queens of the Stone Age live for the first time gave me another kind of revelation: the power of staying true to oneself. Watching Josh Homme command the stage with authenticity, conviction, and a sound that felt entirely his own raised the bar for me in a way that got me excited about music in a way I hadn’t been since I was a kid. And it made me want to chase the mantle. That final experience showed me that there is a way forward, and that it’s worth pursuing with everything I have.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I’m the lead singer and lead guitarist for two bands that share the same lineup but have very different missions.
The first band, which is currently active and touring is Little Sister: a Queens of the Stone Age tribute band that’s all about capturing the energy, grit, and precision of their live shows. I’m a self-taught guitar player who learned how to play by watching my heroes’ hands, so this project began as a fun way to simply learn about the craft of rock and punk rock in a hands-on way. It’s not meant to be a casual exploration though. It’s meant to be a deep dive for everyone in the band. We don’t just play the songs; we study their tone, their dynamics, and the subtle ways they create tension and release. For me, the most exciting part is recreating that raw, hypnotic feel in a way that feels authentic but still leaves room for our own personality as a band. I love throwing original twists on the songs and getting to improvise with the band during long jam sections in certain songs.
What makes this project special is the level of detail we put into it. We dig into everything from pedalboard setups to drum tuning, because it’s those details that make a performance really transport people and take a rock show to a level that I think the casual hollywood strip concert-goer isn’t used to. I’ve always been drawn to the challenge of pulling something off technically while keeping it emotionally powerful. I am passionate about creating a sound composition and the kind of performance that makes a crowd feel locked in from the first note.
Beyond Little Sister, I’m working on original material that channels the same kind of heavy, groove-driven rock but pushes into more experimental territory. It’s still in the early stages, but I’m excited about blending that tight, riff-based structure with atmospheric elements and deeper lyrical concepts.
As for what’s next, we have shows lined up that will take us into new venues and bigger crowds. We’re writing, road-testing original material and experimenting with new sound-comps.
If there’s one thing I want people to know about my work, it’s that it’s driven by obsession in the most positive way possible. Every moment on stage is an opportunity to make people feel like they’re part of something real. When everyone is in a moment together it’s the most beautiful thing to me. I feel like there’s not enough of that in the world these days. Just being together in a moment is priceless, even if it’s with strangers. There’s something beautiful to me about how getting into a groove can provide that. That’s the magic I’m chasing every time.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The most important quality in life in my opinion is authenticity. To not be authentic with oneself creates a barrier between the mind and body and is a recipe for eventual despair. The most useful skill that I have is to set goals and problem-solve until I’ve met them. And the most important piece of wisdom that I have ever gained is to simply be nice to oneself, embrace the screw ups, look for the beauty in everything, and enjoy the journey of becoming wise.
What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
Over the past year, the biggest area of growth has been the way our band has evolved as a unit and grown closer as friends. I met some of my best friends in this band, and it has reflected positively in both the quality of the product and my quality of life as a whole. Alex Barcenas is a former member of the band who had a tremendously positive impact on my journey as an artist, and he remains one of my closest friends. Drew Guerra and Kevin Katich have been in the band for 2 years now, and I’m grateful to have been able to play with and learn from such experienced and talented players. This year, Nick Geracie and Colin Deas were brought into the lineup and it marked another turning point. Not just because we transitioned from a 4 member band to a 5 member band with 3 guitar players in it— one of whom is a multi-intrumentalist, but because they’re passionate musicians and are in it for the love of the craft. Everyone in this band is immersed in, and is spiritually benefiting from the process of meditation via creation and the camaraderie that has created. It has pushed all of us to play better and think bigger. It’s been incredibly gratifying to watch the quality and fidelity of our sound improve as we’ve built trust and chemistry. The more we play together, the more we lock into each other’s instincts, which has opened up all of this exciting new space for creativity. We’re constantly coming up with new ideas for songs and reimagining our set lists, not because we have to, but because the energy is there and it feels exciting.
For me, that’s been the growth: moving from just playing the parts to really owning the music together and letting our connection as artists shape the way the band sounds. And taking that into our original music— which will hopefully strongly convey our shared ethos.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/little_sister_official/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIuxHJYIqGn8o9_D42FnDIw
Image Credits
Image Credits: Austin Bourdages, Jessica Magana, James Pratt
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