Al Perez is a singer/songwriter who hails from Vancouver, Washington (not to be mistaken for Vancouver, Canada).

A captivating singer/songwriter and soulful performer, Perez has played all over the world with his seven-member band or as an acoustic performer. Perez has performed at some amazing locations such as USA, Mexico, Jamaica, Bahamas, Costa Rica, and Aruba.

Perez’s singles “Love Revolution,” “Let The Player Play,” “Women Powers,” and “Shirley Sweet” have received support on numerous playlists, radio, and press outlets (see Look What People Are Saying section). Plastic Mazagine says, “Al Perez proves why he is considered on of the most captivating singer-songwriter of our time.”

A varied list of genres in his music, Perez is an artist for everyone. His most recent album Love Revolution (via Warrior Records) blends a combination of genres so beautifully that the album is like a piece of art that is honest and thoroughly enjoyable.

We caught up with Al Perez to discuss the album, his touring life and more!

Enjoy!

Hi- how are you?

Al Perez – I am great thank you!

It’s so great to speak with you. I have been reading up on you of course and one thing that stood out is some of the amazing places you have performed at such as at The Bahamas. What places have been stand out moments for you?

You know everything is a different timeline in your life. Now I mean this with all my heart, but I had never played in Europe or London before – so coming to London last year, almost exactly a year ago was the first time I had the opportunity to play in England. I know it sounds cliché and I’m not saying it because you’re from there. My brother came with me, he plays guitar with me – we felt connected, it’s one of our favourite places. We enjoy the culture, it’s very different- whether it be the audiences who are amazing, you still have great music venues. People are very receptive to new music and blind performances and it reminded me of L.A 30 years ago.

I am planning on coming back to the UK and performing again!

Oh good!

It is one of my favourite places. I have played all over. I have been to The Bahamas, Costa Rica and all different places. I always combine travelling shows with vacations. You will notice that my resume has lots of cool vacation spots because I am like “if I’m going to be there, I may as well play some music” because odds are, I’m going to have a guitar with me anyway. I have been very fortunate to combine performing and vacations and I love it. I love Costa Rica and I always tell people this because you see Monkeys. I grew up in Long Beach, California so just outside of L.A and when you see a wild Monkey for the first time, not in a Zoo but a Tree, it’s about the most craziest thing you could imagine and that your life would take you there.

I agree! I had a similar experience in Africa and the locals are so used to it but I was freaking out!

I get it! We take for granted what is different where we live! Like for instance, I live exactly one hour from where you could be skiing in one of the world class skiing resorts in the mountains and I live one hour from the coast -I live right in the middle. I could be on top of a mountains skiing or at the coast on the beach in an hour. I also live very close to the forest. I live one mile from one of largest rivers in the United States and probably half a mile from a Lake so I have the best of all kinds of- City life, country life. I could be skiing, I could be in the Ocean. I have an international airport 20 minutes from my house. I love Vancouver, Washington, it’s home to me. I wouldn’t live anywhere else. I call it the big small town.

That’s amazing and you’re right, in a way we do take it for granted and have to stop and think like you have just done now and realise how lucky we are! But different places amaze me, for example and you will probably laugh at this, when I was in the US I was freaking out over seeing a Raccoon. I was so so happy!

A Raccoon? Get out of here! They’re everywhere haha! Do you know what mine was when I was in London? A red fox! My head was exploding! You guys think nothing of it and I live close to the forest but I have only seen one fox my whole life but people there were like “oh they’re everywhere”.

I think it must be because of being in a city when you saw it! For us out here in the countryside, it isn’t exactly a regular occurrence to see a fox but I definitely think Urban foxes are more common to see than one in the countryside as I rarely see them and would be excited too haha!

So I have been listening to your album Love Revolution which is brilliant!

Thank you!

Could you tell me a little bit about the process behind it?

Love Revolution, that was a fun album to make! I have done lots of albums in my life, I am always writing. Love Revolution, the idea behind it was, when I started down the route of that album we ran out of budget so it’s a shorter album than I wanted. There were plenty more songs than what made the album. I knew one thing, I didn’t want to do a concept album, I didn’t want to do a genre. I just wanted to release a piece of material to really be its own thing. I wasn’t trying to go all pop, rock, country, R&B. I really tried to make every song different “ this one’s more soulful, this one’s more R&B, this has a more Rock vibe” and I think the album did that.

One of the reasons it was nice is that I think the culture we live in today with music, all these new platforms, everyone is more about singles. Everyone listens to the songs they want to listen to. For instance Beyonce right now has a country song. So here is a perfect example of a Pop Icon and she’s African American and doing something completely out of her genre and killing it, KILLING IT! I think the boundaries have all crossed and have all gone away and you can be a soulful R&B artist and come out with a country song. That is how I felt about the album, I wanted every song to be its own thing and I was right and it keeps proving me right in the sense that you listen to ‘Let the Player Play’ – very R&B kind of vibe and then there’s a song called ‘Woman Powers’ on the same album which is very Rock, more big voice and I just wanted to do music. Now I feel that way, very strongly in writing my new album. I am just going “you know what? Every song is its own piece of work” I love old motown albums, old Rock albums, concept albums but I feel I want to be eclectic.

Love Revolution was a fun album to make, I am proud of it, I think it’s one of my best pieces of work and I had fun doing it! The songs are really personal to me. Good music is giving a piece of yourself to it and being an honest writer. I live in an area where we have fantastic musicians so the studio guys were just killer.

I love that you mentioned that we live in a world where it’s all about the singles because we aren’t really like that in the UK, we are album people. This is probably why you loved playing in the UK partly right?

Yes!!! I loved that over there! Everyone was so supportive about the album. I regretted that I didn’t have Vinyl to sell (when in the UK) because I would have sold them. I didn’t bring many CD’s with me because here nobody has a CD player but when I was in the UK touring, I blame my daughters as they said nobody buys cds and everywhere I had shows, I could have sold out of CD’s. Usually I take a suitcase full of material to sell but I didn’t do that as I thought everyone would be more digital. I will be more prepared next time!

You’re a ‘live music’ performer and have a seven piece band on tour at times. The album is so rich with instruments and instrumentals which I love. Is having a detailed amount of instrumentation important to you on both a record and at a show?

Absolutely! I have to say this, I love writing the music, singing it and performing it, but some of the production value – I think that producers and engineers, a lot of those decisions are made in a production idea. That producer becomes another member who says “you know what will sound good right here? A b2 organ with a woo-later spinning around” and you’re like “oh yeah ok sure”. They start making production decisions that help the song develop and I like it too. I can also hear things to add. My producer, who is a very good friend of mine Kevin Nettleingham, we have known each other a lot of years but we hadn’t worked together before this album. He had mastered a lot of my albums but not produced and he said “let me be the producer on this album”. He has a world class studio so my label said to do what I want. I could have recorded the album anywhere but I chose to do it where I live.

I want to do a live album. People go wild for live albums played elsewhere like “Live from London” there’s something cool about it. If you do it somewhere abroad, you are super cool haha!

Haha and yes – I love a live album so agree. When you write a song, do you typically write it on guitar first?

Sometimes. There’s lots of different ways that I write music. Thank you for asking. I am very visual and artistic. I always say it’s like a little polaroid picture. When something is happening that’s striking me, it’s like my mind takes a tiny little picture, a one dimensional picture of that moment and then it evolves into “I want to write about that”. I was playing guitar last night, it can come from guitar, piano, vocals, all of the above. Last night I had the opportunity to play with an artist who is a world class singer/songwriter from Nashville. He is a way better guitar played than me and I can hold my own but he is next level. I was sitting there playing with him and watching him and thinking “oh shit” .

This was a couple of weeks ago and I was thinking about it last night. So I was thinking more “how can I write a better piece of music acoustically, guitar wise?” And so I had a really nice guitar part, some sections and then I started adding lyrics and next thing I know, it’s midnight. Sometimes I may just have a feeling, sometimes it will just be a guitar part, a piano part. Sometimes I like to play my older music and it inspires and reminds me “oh hey, you were in that mode, there was a genre you were playing or some chords you were playing through” it can be anywhere, it can be music, an idea, a feeling, me trying to be a better guitar player because I played with someone who kicked my butt and made me want to be a better guitar player haha!

I love that and it’s so funny because as you have mentioned Nashville musicians, we often hear really well known songwriters say that everyone in Nashville is a songwriter or musician. They say they go into a restaurant and know that their server could likely be a better songwriter than they are.

Oh my gosh! The two guys that I played with a week ago, these two guys invited me as they had seen me (play) and I knew who they were and they live in my area. They commute back and forth to Nashville and one was a staff writer for Sony so they are writers. They said to me “yeah but you kick our ass singing, you’re an entertainer, a front guy”. They said they wrote a hundred songs last year! 100 songs?? S**t!! If I get one a month, I’m pretty happy with that! These guys are writing a hundred songs, I’m really shocked! It’s cool to write with them and to listen to their music. Nashville songwriters, their writing contact is more descriptive and not poppy. I’m a little poppy, I’ll admit it and a bit rock. Pop is a good sense of music, I mean The Beatles were pop!

Nashville roots, Americana and country music is imagery, the stories they are telling are pretty in depth. It’s impressive!

What was the biggest challenge making this album?

I think sometimes as a writer, it’s just so personal to you and you want people to like it. I have been around long enough where we couldn’t keep track of music. For instance, Spotify, I find myself watching how many plays I get and seeing if people are listening to my stuff. So the challenge is just remembering we do it for the art of it, to be expressive and to enjoy that part. The hardest part sometimes is that there is a business side to music and we can get caught up in it because we want to make a living out of it and we all need that approval, we want people to like it. I feel like it’s a great album but you always wonder how do we get it in front of more audiences? We don’t have the budget that Beyonce will have so we really count on everybody getting on board with it and hoping they like it! That’s the hardest thing, that business.

What song of yours is a family favourite?

My oldest daughter would probably say a song called Seven. My youngest daughter would probably say Stranger, she likes a song I wrote called Circles and Travelling Man. There’s also a song I wrote for their mum called Little by Little . I wrote it for their mum when we were young. The new album, we have a new single coming out called La De Da – it’s going to be brand new single and a brand new music video. It’s not on the album, it’s a brand new single. It’s a vacation song. When you go on a tropical vacation and everybody’s like “why do we have to go home? Let’s stay on vacation” we have all said that “let’s never go back, let’s stay here” so I wrote that song because I have travelled with many friends.

Check out Al Perez music here and his latest album Love Revolution here