José González (born 1978 in Gothenburg, Sweden) is a Swedish indie folk singer-songwriter and guitarist (of Argentinian extraction). In 2003, he released his debut album, Veneer, in Europe. The album has since been released in the UK, on April 25, 2005, and in the United States on September 6, 2005. González is also a member of the Swedish band Junip, along with Elias Araya and Tobias Winterkorn. The song Crosses, from Crosses EP and the later Veneer, appeared on the finale of the second season of the popular American television comedy-drama The O.C.. His cover of Heartbeats (also from Veneer) was used in a popular Sony BRAVIA TV commercial featuring coloured bouncing balls in San Francisco and an episode of Zach Braff's Scrubs His song Far Away was also prominently featured in the Rockstar video game Red Dead Redemption. His trademark sound is solo acoustic guitar with soft melody. His work, although mostly original, does include acoustic covers of great hits such as Love Will Tear Us Apart, Born in the U.S.A., and Teardrop. González also appears in the Zero 7 album The Garden, in which he sings on three tracks and on a re-worked version of Crosses.
