You just never know what will happen when a youngster turns their hand to music.
Or, in the case of Australian Richard Perso – his hands, feet and lips…
Perso, like countryman Xavier Rudd, is one of those do it yourself, one-man-band types who writes his own songs, plays an array of guitars, has developed a battery of didgeridoos and keeps his feet busy with a pedal-activated drum kit.
Perso plays the 36th annual Canmore Folk Festival pub (Miners’ Hall) on Aug. 2, then will share an Aug. 5 workshop with Alex Cuba and host a show on Stage 3 at 2:30 p.m.
Last week, the Outlook caught Perso on the road between the Stan Rogers Folk Festival in Nova Scotia and the Ottawa Blues Festival, mid-way through a seven-week Canadian tour, which includes both the Calgary Blues Fest and Canmore Folk Festivals while he’s in Alberta. He then moves on to B.C. and the Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Festival before returning home.
“I’m really excited to be here in Canada and I’m really enjoying myself,” he said on July 11. “In 2010, I did just a small tour in Canada, so this is really my first proper tour.”
Perso, 22, and his entire entourage, his dad Chris Smith (manager, roadie, driver, booking agent, etc.), are flying and driving their way across the country, with Perso offering a didge-infused bluesy/folky/rocky sound.
“I got my first guitar when I was 13,” he said. “I wasn’t really into sports or video games and I’ve never been in a band; it was more just monkeying around on the guitar. I was given the guitar and had a drive for it. It was a beat up old thing that was ludicrously difficult to play.”
As is often the case, though, that first guitar, complimented by a few lessons for a kid who was a fan of AC/DC and the like, turned into a full-blown love affair with music that’s now carrying him to international destinations.
“I started performing at 16 by getting into some youth competitions, then I had a few first gigs, then I started really getting out and getting into it.”
At 16, Perso won a number of competitions and at 17 played the Adelaide International Guitar Festival and National Folk Festival. When 18, he played the Woodford Folk Festival in Queensland, added some New York performances and recorded his debut album (Out From The Shadows) there.
Not bad for a kid from the booming metropolis of Yackandandah, a town of 600 souls three hours north of Melbourne.
Once he got going on the guitar, admitted Perso, “I became obsessed with it. I also started writing some songs, a teen in love at the start, but I’ve tried to develop my own style and started writing about issues, places, things that motivate me. My music is like a stew of many things for me; it’s folk and roots infused, blues infused, rock infused.
“But because it’s a stew, I can go all over the place and play different venues.”
As he began to master the guitar, he incorporated drums and what many view as a symbol of Australia, the didgeridoo.
“I always loved it when I was a kid,” he said. “As kids we took cardboard tubes, painted them up and spitted into them until they disintegrated. I got my first one at 17 and now I have three on stage, all in different keys.
“It’s an iconic Australian thing, but it’s not all that common. The guitar is a world of its own, with different styles and approaches, and the didgeridoo has different techniques and can be played either aggressively or meditatively. I have mine mic’d and use an echo effect sometimes.”
In incorporating drums, Perso said a flamenco style drum “gives a nice driving beat. You can make a lot of music when you’re using all your limbs.”
Perso appears in Canmore after the release of his most recent effort, the 12-track Dreams vs Reality, released in March and also recorded in New York.
On stage, he said, some of his songs are “hell for leather, and some are stripped back. It depends on the venue and the crowd. Sometimes, you have to give it to them four on the floor.”
Even at 22, music is a full-time endeavour for Perso. In Australia, he is out on the road for about three months a year.
