Biography
• DEBUTED AT #1 ON CJSR (University of Alberta Radio, Edmonton)
• REACHED #24 ON NATIONAL "EARSHOT!" COLLEGE RADIO CHARTS
• Toured across Canada (Alberta to Newfoundland) in March 2007
• Feature interviews on CBC Radio (Edmonton, AB); CBC Radio (St. John's, NL); UMFM Radio (U of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB); CityTV (Edmonton, AB); Rogers Television (St. John's, NL)
Nick would probably argue that songs aren’t really meant to be sung alone. Sure, there are times when quiet personal introspection is needed, but what better way to find a splinter of joy than to hear it in the midst of a choir of friendly voices singing along with you? At some level, every song is a message, a plea, a sermon from the artist to the audience… but in his heart the artist is hoping you will agree, and join him in trying to communicate with those who don’t. Nick is no different. Singing songs inspired by the people, places, and events of his own life, he is still able to write in a way where the specifics don’t matter, the spirit does, and hopefully anyone who hears will feel invited to join in.
With a musical heritage rooted in the churches of Newfoundland, Nick started by singing in the children’s choir and gradually progressed (or regressed) to a simpler and much cooler job of drumming in the orchestra. While the dynamics and variety found in church music was a great place to learn, it’s not always the best place to grow into a creative musician. And while garage bands aren’t much better, they’re often the only thing a young musician has. So for the rest of High School he was in and out of a number of groups, creating a pattern that went well into his University years and beyond. It was only after the most promising group broke up that a devastated and tired Nick decided that he wasn’t going to wait for another band to come along before he would start making music again.
Drawing on memories of childhood piano lessons (which he hated at the time) and recent guitar lessons from friends (whom he was jealous of), he started writing songs on his own. A lover of proverbs and clichés, lyrics were fairly easy to come by, even if they swung from self-deprecation to faux-arrogance. And being an unfortunately habitual lover of uninterested women didn’t hurt either, providing an endless supply of subject matter but a terrifying lack of optimism. Soon the lyrical themes began to settle into place: moving and standing still, unity and duality, faith and doubt, love and fear, confusion and excitement, desire and… desire.
While currently interested in and inspired by a wide variety of music ranging from old-timey country to modern indie rock, Nick’s songwriting influences are a little harder to pin down. The roots of his love of the pop song could likely be traced back to the AM radio playing in the car on the way to school. From there it evolved into a fascination with the records that his parents re-bought as CDs when the first family CD player was purchased. The late teens were filled with the usual assortment of grunge and alternative bands, before hitting a stride where he bought hundreds of records each year, with the majority having been made before he was born. In that phase, his ears were filled with instruction from Leonard Cohen, CSNY, Randy Newman, The Beatles and the rest of the usual suspects.
Now he’s reached a place where the songs are catchy yet unexpected. Like pop music that hasn’t shaved in a week… recognizable, but a little rough around the edges.
Instrumentation
Nick Perreault - Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Rhodes
::: sometimes with :::
Chris Budnarchuk - Drums, Vocals
James Murdoch - Bass, Vocals
Krispian Schmidt-Paborn - Guitar, Mandolin, Banjo, Harmonica, Vocals
Discography
LP (2006) - The Good Intentions
EP (Fall 2008) - tbd
Links
| http://www.myspace.com/nickperreaultmusic |