Interview with Peter Raffoul: ‘I think that there’s a trend in songwriting now for people my age to write with a super honest feel, pulling the sugar coating away’

Leamington, Ontario-born alternative singer-songwriter Peter Raffoul released his second single ‘Cigarette Holes’ last month, marking the second single from his upcoming debut EP due out around June this year.

‘I really wanted to make an uptempo song for this record, but didn’t want the subject matter to feel forced,’ he said. ‘Writing this song with Ian Scott and Mark Jackson made that happen effortlessly. We talked about real life experiences and told stories about those nights that get the best of you, and before we knew it the song was written. I have a bare bones set up to record in my room (he shows me). Mark and Ian were in LA, we wrote it over Zoom. We were getting to know each other and got something magical out of it. We had this guitar thing that loops throughout the song.’

The song also references his adolescence: ‘When I was younger, before Nashville – I’ve lived here for the last three years – I spent a lot of time in this shed at the back of the family home, it’s served every purpose (laughs). It was a party shed for a while. I fell down the steps and woke up there! The song’s also about beating yourself up for not doing your best.’ I ask him if he has actually destroyed jumpers by smoking: ‘Oh, for sure, I’ve destroyed several sweaters with cigarettes, it’s always your favourite ones, isn’t it? I used to smoke way more but I still sneak one.’

As the song goes: ‘Strike a match for the past, pour on the gas, let the ashes loose. But I keep going back, to the blood on the tracks, don’t know what else to do.’

‘You feel it’s all you, that nothing is keeping you from where you’re going’

in December last year, he released his debut single ‘Fucked Up Together’, a more pared back song with just the piano for accompaniment, which allows his gravelly, honest vocals to shine. He describes it as ‘as close to me as a song could get’: ‘I was sitting here in this room, I wrote it real late myself one night but I didn’t think it would get released,’ he said. ‘You feel it’s all you, that nothing is keeping you from where you’re going. It was genuine to how I felt at the time. It’s specific to one person – she’s very special to me, she’s a big part of my life – but the song is for anyone who feels like that. It’s weird because one of the things I’ve fallen in love with over the years, as a listener, is really honest songs that make you feel as if they were written for you, they feel so specific to you when you hear them. For me, that’s the coolest art in any form.’

As the track kicks off: ‘Wanna be young again, young again. Tell me you remember when, remember when we stayed up late on the week days, we were broke. Don’t wanna be caught up in all of this, all of the politics, arguments. We feel pain just so we can feel sane.’

His as-of-yet unnamed debut EP will come out around June and feature six tracks, including ‘Bad For Me’, ‘Cigarette Holes’ and ‘Fucked Up Together’: ‘I’m very excited about it, it’s been recorded over the last six to seven months. I worked on it with an English and Irish guy in a very small room (laughs). I like to think that all of the songs tell a story. Sonically, ‘Bad For Me’ sits between the first two singles. ‘Fucked Up’ is more stripped back, whereas ‘Cigarette Holes’ has synths and drums. ‘Bad For Me’ was written from a real place. It can be about a thing or person that’s bad. Sometimes, it’s easier to do worse than to do better. I think that there’s a trend in songwriting now for people my age to write with a super honest feel, pulling the sugar coating away. There are more truth-baring songs, less sun and rainbows. There’s always a bit of melancholy in my songs.’

‘My mom is a painter, we had a lot of self-expression going on as kids’

He comes from a musical family: his father, Jody, is a prolific rock artist and his brother Billy released his debut full-length album A Few More Hours At YYZ in 2020. ‘My dad has been at this for 35 years, he’s still getting better in lots of ways, it’s ridiculous,’ he laughed. ‘My mom is a painter, we had a lot of self-expression going on as kids, we had a template to copy from. People who have known us a long time say I sound like him at my age. My dad has always been amazing, doing four to five shows a week since I was a kid. His original music is my favourite that he plays but he does covers, too.’ He and his brother were bitten by the music bug at a very young age: ‘Billy is a year and a half older than me. He started on guitar, I started on drums. Billy wanted to be a singer-songwriter, you could tell that at a young age – he wasn’t gonna stop! By the time I was 17, I was like “What about the keyboard?” My dad made singing seem fun and my mom was always playing really cool music round the house, so I started piano and sneaked my way into that as well (laughs). Me and my brother and my dad have played together and written together a few times. If we’re back in Canada and my dad has a gig, me and Billy will show up and play with him, it’s the funnest thing – and my dad gets to knock off his set early and go and have a beer!’

Raffoul’s brother Billy has played a big part in his upcoming EP: ‘I wrote the song ‘I Just Want To Be Ok’ with Billy, he’s all over the record,’ he said. ‘He plays guitar on a few tracks and sings backing vocals. I spliced him into this record wherever I could.’ They grew up listening to an eclectic mix of music: ‘I grew up listening to a lot of hip hop and my mom played Parachutes by Coldplay a lot! It’s still in my Top 10 records of all time. With my favourite songwriters, I get so caught up in the lyrics. I love the poems that my mom writes and songwriters like J. Cole (an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer). I thought he was so cool, I love his honesty and vulnerability. For me, The Beatles is where it started. And Elliott Smith, my brother introduced me to him.’

We chat for a bit about having a visceral reaction to songs and how you can decide surprisingly quickly whether you hate a song or whether you think it’s magical: ‘It’s so true, it’s still a mystery to me. You hope to be that artist, it’s like magic when someone loves your music straight away. It’s so hard to know how that happens but if you focus on that, if you try too hard, it won’t work.’

‘The songwriting process, all the rules, they’re thrown out of the window’

His views about the music scene in Nashville have changed massively since he made it his home. ‘It’s quite crazy, like you, I thought it was all country but it becomes more diverse by the day,’ he said. ‘Here, the songwriting process, all the rules, they’re thrown out of the window. Locally, I have a lot of favourites, like Emily Weisband, she’s great, we’ve written together a few times. Connor, a friend I write with, he’s super musically diverse.’

If he could put together his dream-line up for the night, he starts rather endearingly with his dad and brother. ‘I’d be blown away by them, can the three of us count as one person, is that allowed?,’ he said. ‘The Beatles would kill me (laughs) but how can you not have them? Gotta have Mac Miller (an American rapper), I’m a big fan. I got upset at how early he left us. (He died of an accidental drug overdose in 2018 at the age of 26.) He was so good and super influential to me. Oh, this is crazy hard! Elliott Smith would be amazing. Maybe Coldplay? It’s weird but I think they could all tie into each other.’

He’s had some tough moments as a musician starting out but takes it all in his stride: ‘I was playing this bar one time, it was a super dead night, eight people in there. This guy came in to use the bathroom, I think. He was walking past me – I was fumbling my way through this song (laughs), don’t think I was finished and he said “You suck”. I thought, that’s nice. I hope he’d think I was a bit better now. I kinda laughed at it but when I look back at it, I wasn’t killin’ it! It was a long time ago.’

Refreshingly, he doesn’t have a very expensive wish list of pricey gear: ‘I don’t have a ton of desire for super expensive gear,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a Fender Rhodes piano. My favourite guitar is this acoustic guitar (he shows me) that a guy in my hometown, Sammy Ustef built, he makes amazing guitars. I could steal one from my bro or my dad but I love this. I walked past a guitar shop the other day and saw a $99 nylon string guitar that I’ve got my eye on. I don’t need it but I want it, you can get inspirational ideas from a new sound, create new things. I’m thinking about heading back there to play it. I love dinky things that aren’t valuable.’