In the classrooms on the second floor of West Penn Hall, part-time animation professor Eric Joseph teaches sound design and production for animation students. With experience in the advertising industry, video editing and web development, being a musician outside of the classroom may be the last thing you’d expect his favorite pastime to be.

While Eric Joseph has been with several bands spanning decades, he is a blues musician who currently plays in The StreetSide Saints – a band that he, some friends and his brother created. Before that, Eric Joseph has performed at many venues, from Louisville, Ky. all the way to Tokyo. His band has also seen radio play on 91.3 WYEP in Pittsburgh in the 1990s.

In The StreetSide Saints, Eric Joseph, who plays guitar and sings, is accompanied by keyboardist Michael Nelson, vocalist Dave “DJ” Joseph (Eric’s brother), drummer Denium Knight and bass player Dave “Sergeant” Stultz.

Eric Joseph is no stranger to both sound and animation – after all, he taught a very similar sound design for animation class at Pittsburgh Technical College for 21 years before it closed in June. As for adjusting to a new campus and different community, Joseph hasn’t had any issues.

“After you teach 20-something years, it’s just transitioning into a new system,” Joseph said. “I don’t really get nervous about that stuff, because I’m used to improvising a lot of my life anyway.”

In his classes, Eric Joseph mostly teaches upperclassmen animation students about sound techniques such as the use of foley, automatic dialogue replacement and having a sound bank for their animations at their disposal. Students create their own sound banks by going around campus and recording sounds they hear such as pigeons cooing, people walking or cars honking.

While this is not Eric Joseph’s first time teaching a class like this, it is his first time being part-time instead of full-time. While he plans on teaching at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School in Midland after this semester, he is happy with his experience at Point Park so far.

“My students, you couldn’t ask for better,” Eric Joseph said. “And if I don’t come back next semester, some of these guys, they’re going to be graduating. I even told them, let me know so I can come and check out [their] portfolios because I really enjoy watching this crew.”

As for his interest in music, it all started when he was nine years old and learned to play guitar. After his interest waned throughout the years, his cousins got together to form a band with him.

Joseph’s love for classical guitar never went away, but going to Duquesne University for jazz made him appreciate the genre even more. But Eric Joseph and the StreetSide Saints go beyond just one genre, as they have created originals ranging from surf guitar to pop and reggae.

The band’s name pays homage to the Joseph brothers and Nelson “busking” with their guitar cases open on streetside corners for people to put money into. The group was inspired by musicians in New Orleans doing the same thing.

Even though busking is part of the band’s founding, Eric Joseph said that it soon just became part of the band’s history.

“We thought, ‘you know what, since we’re all kind of busking, we’ll do a busking band and busk as a trio,’” Eric Joseph said. “Well, that was short-lived because we picked up our drummer and our bass player, and now it’s a full-fledged band.”

Pittsburgh’s music scene has changed in the last two decades, both with the public’s changing music taste as well as a loss of longstanding venues. Coffeehouses and clubs that commonly hosted musicians such as The Beehive on East Carson Street and the 31st Street Pub in the Strip District have closed, leaving a hole for rock groups to jazz musicians that isn’t easy to fill.

Despite this, Eric Joseph and The StreetSide Saints still manage to find places to play, such as the Dorothy 6 Blast Furnace Café in Homestead and The Parkway Theater and Film Lounge in McKees Rocks.

But where does Point Park stand in all this? It’s all about encouraging students to perform and support each other.

Eric Joseph hopes to not only start playing with his band at places close to campus, such as Yuzu Kitchen on Wood Street and Forbes Tavern, but also talk to the Allegheny County Chamber of Commerce to get some money into Pittsburgh’s music scene and uplift it.

“All these young people have talent,” Eric Joseph said. “There’s no place for them to express themselves. If I’m part time in the spring at Lincoln Park, I’ll have some time to promote that and try to work on that.”

Eventually, Eric Joseph hopes to potentially work with Pioneer Records with recording music and maybe even getting his band at Point Perk.