A Chat with Duncan Pelletier (17.03.21)
Following approximately 20 years of providing songs for musical projects, Duncan Pelletier embraces a solo career with original material’. We speak with the US-based singer-songwriter about the debut album Gone Soon, musical achievements and phobias.
OSR: What can you tell us about your upcoming album Gone Soon?
Pelletier: It’s an album I made in my bedroom in the spring of 2020. The whole country was filled with anxiety and stress and I needed something to pour myself into wholeheartedly instead of sitting in my room and refreshing the news. I’ve done albums with bands and little acoustic projects before, but this was the first time I tried to do something bigger and cohesive with only my songs.
OSR: What was the writing and recording process like?
Pelletier: I went for it in earnest once quarantine really started last March. They were songs I had mostly already demoed and so I sent them to my friend and collaborator Ned Rich who had offered to try mixing them and adding some stuff.
OSR: What challenges did you face when producing Gone Soon?
Pelletier: I’m not great at getting things perfect, I get frustrated pretty easily and will just move on. So it was a challenge to actually scrutinise everything I recorded through the lens of “I’m going to actually put this out”. I’m also just not very good at the tracking itself but Ned knows his stuff so he can make me sound better.
OSR: If you could change one thing about the album what would it be?
Pelletier: While it was fun, kind of being alone in my room doing everything, obviously I would have rather tracked the album in a room with a big band full of all my friends.
OSR: What do you hope people take from your music?
Pelletier: This is an album about trying to understand your past, which is a pretty universal theme. I hope people can connect to the lyrics, but if not, I hope they can just bob their head or hum along.
OSR: What inspires you to make music?
Pelletier: Other music mostly, but also thinking about people and the terrifying unstoppable passage of time.
OSR: What is your greatest musical accomplishment to date?
Pelletier: I have been writing songs for 20 years and every time I write a song that I don’t immediately hate it feels like a big accomplishment. I actually still like all the songs on the album, which is strange for me!
OSR: If you could be any animal what animal would you be?
Pelletier: I’m fascinated by bears. I find them beautiful and terrifying. I even have a Google alert for “bear attack” (and I get emails more often than I’d like). But come on, I’d be an eagle or hawk or some sort of big and fast bird of prey. Who doesn’t want to fly?
OSR: Do you have any phobias?
Pelletier: Uh yeah, bears!
OSR: What are your plans for the future?
Pelletier: Keep writing, recording, collaborating and branching out!
Thanks to Duncan Pelletier for speaking with us. For more from Duncan Pelletier check out his Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Spotify.
