He will be releasing his third music project Random Roads on April 5, which he noted is about “real life” stories. “I write about the human spirit. This project is a little more intense in that it deals with other people’s journey in life not just my own. It’s a more uptempo project. I’m a big military supporter. My song ‘The Last Walk Home’ was written about a soldier who shared his father’s military story and history with me while in Iraq on a USO Tour with Kellie Pickler,” he said.
“My song ‘The Great USA’ was inspired by an Army Veteran I met in New York outside of Madison Square Garden while on tour with Taylor Swift,” he explained. “I named the project Random Roads just because it’s from different roads and stages of my life. It’s all stories about life.”
He acknowledged that his latest single “Joe’s At The Bar” took him nearly two years to write. “While on tour, I met a gentleman at a bar in Massachusetts. We were waiting on our hotel room keys and this stranger who was previously mumbling to himself just started talking to me. He told me about how he was a young attorney in Louisiana. That after passing his bar exam he met and married his girl Marie and they had a little girl.”
Perdieu continued, “Joe told me about how they liked to vacation in the Islands. Then he told me about that accident coming home from their last vacation. Joe said ‘I lost everything’ so I thumbed my way north and ended up here. What I thought was amazing was that Joe said he really didn’t start living and feeling again till right after he forgave God and that other driver. It’s one of the biggest stories of forgiveness I ever heard. I sincerely thought Joe’s story may just save someone else’s life. I just felt I had to do the very best I could to tell Joe’s story.
The musician noted that by talking to Joe, “forgiveness” is the most powerful tool. “We, as people in many cases, choose not to forgive throughout our entire life rather keeping the mental destruction of lost trust, faith bottled up inside us forever. It prevents us to ‘live.’ Forgive and move on. This album did all that for me. I’m simply blessed,” he said.
On his musical inspirations, he said, “I’m a piano player and I love storytelling. The experience of life. The human desire to live. There’s the good and there’s the bad. It’s life.”
Regarding his future plans, he said, “My team is currently putting together my very first radio tour in April. I will start playing shows in May throughout the summer. I will end my year with Country Cruising in November on a cruise ship and share the stage with a lot of Artist that I worked with back when I was a tour manager.”
Digital transformation of the music business
On the impact of technology on the music industry, Perdieu said, “I really have mixed emotions about it. I mean it has changed the landscape of the music industry. You can pretty much listen to any song you want today for free or for a very minimal price. You really have to get creative to earn a living in the music industry. I wrote a book about the lyrics and the stories behind my songs so that I could get into bookstores just to be in front of an audience to present my music. I mean we really don’t have music stores any longer. I miss those.”
Perdieu continued, “I knew financially it was the beginning of the end for record sales and will be the extinction of the common CD disc. And financially it would devastate everyone from the labels, artists and songwriters. The only positive for me is that it’s forced me to be more pro-active in the music business. Technology is forcing me to pay attention to the trend. I am listening to what the fans are saying.”
Regarding his use of technology in his daily routine as a musician, Perdieu said, “My iPhone is my best friend. From recording voice memos, lyrics and hook ideas. Even recording musical ideas to my phone from playing my piano or simply humming the idea into my phone. I used to have what I thought were pretty catchy ideas but quickly they would escape my memory. Not anymore. I love being able to virtually travel anywhere in the world on my phone or computer and see things that I would never be able to reach physically by travel. It all mentally helps me with my songwriting, recording, and research for live concert ideas and concepts.”
To learn more about singer-songwriter and pianist Danny Perdieu, check out his offical website.
