Joel Martin is a new breed of singer/songwriter who is as business savvy as he is driven to carve out his place in music history. He graduated in Audio Engineering in order to engineer, produce and mix his own recordings. He then studied Entertainment Business Management so he could manage his own career. He's a prolific songwriter who's written over 100 songs and released 12 albums in 12 years. When a musician's first show is at an event that superstars like Avril Lavigne, Matthew Good, Alexisonfire, Theory of a Deadman, Default, Simple Plan and Bif Naked have been a part of, you can't help but expect big things from him in the future. Since that first show at The Ottawa Exhibition in 2001, he's been working relentlessly to spread his music to as many people as possible. His determination and relentless work ethic has earned him a reputation as "the hardest working independent musician" (Chelsea Miller - Live 88.5 Ottawa). Playing over 500 shows across Canada, including dates with Carly Rae Jepson, ill Scarlett, Default, Silverstein, Lights, The Arkells, George & Justin Nozuka, Buck 65, Dragonette, Brian Melo, State of Shock, Social Code, Wintersleep, The Cliks, People In Planes, The Mudmen, Cancer Bats, Dead & Divine, Hail The Villain, Bleeker Ridge and The Salads, has helped him sell 6000 albums independently. He's released 4 alternative/rock albums under the name Distant Society, 7 acoustic/pop solo albums under his own name and a cover album with award-winning singer/songwriter Selyne Maia. Within just a few years of releasing Distant Society material, he rose from complete obscurity to become one of Ottawa's biggest and most celebrated musicians. He played the biggest venues in the city, his single "The Cycle" was in rotation for over a year on the biggest rock station in Ottawa, he played a private show for the Prime Minister, DS was the "Band To Watch" alongside Thornley in the spring '08 issue of Umm Magazine (Canada's most popular men's magazine with over 400 000 readers per issue) and he won $5000 in the Live 88.5 Big Money Shot competition. In the much respected Ottawa Xpress Reader's Poll, DS was voted one of the 3 best local bands and their 2005 CD "The Reconstruction" was voted one of the 3 best local albums. Joel was also voted one of the 3 best singer/songwriters alongside Kathleen Edwards (Billboard's "10 Artists To Watch in 2003"). In 2007, Joel rose to fame with his show stopping appearance on Season 5 of Canadian Idol. He placed in the top 50 out of 15 000 and his acoustic performance of rap song "Baby Got Back" became one of the most talked about Idol performances of all time. His performance has been hailed the "best performance on Canadian Idol EVER!" by YOUTUBE. After reaching the top of the Ottawa music scene, Joel decided that to attain the lofty goals that he'd set for himself he'd have to move to a bigger music scene. He moved to Toronto in 2010 where he quickly surrounded himself with the biggest names in the music industry. By 2011, he had already worked with Rush, Triumph, Finger Eleven and Neil Young, he won the Tom Cochrane & Takamine Guitar Award for showing "Outstanding Promise as a Musician", he won a mentorship with the president of Universal Music Canada, he scored an internship at Warner Music Canada, he won a Mississauga Music Award whose past nominees include Billy Talent and ill Scarlet, he was asked by The Mudmen (EMI) to be their lead singer, he was part of a Guinness World Record for Longest Marathon TV Talk show where he performed one of his songs and his favourite comedian, Dane Cook, posted one of Joel's videos to his 2.8 million Twitter followers saying he liked his guitar skills. Recently, his ability to quickly write comedic songs caught the attention of worldwide Youtube celebrity the "Double Rainbow" guy whose videos have been viewed by over 70 million people. He's asked Joel to write the music that accompanies his videos to which he quickly responded by supplying 7 songs that have already been used on his Youtube channel. The next step in Joel's plan to expand his fan base globally is the release of his 12th album "The Tipping Point". The album was be engineered by Kevin Dietz (Silverchair/Three Days Grace/Billy Talent /Nelly Furtado) and Juno award winner L Stu Young (Guns N' Roses/Prince) at Metalworks (#1 Recording Studio in Canada) with a band consisting of members of the Arkells and ill Scarlett.