A few years ago, as he tells it, he found himself embroiled in a personal struggle. He turned to another solace, nature, and, out on the beach, asked himself a question: If he only had one year to live, what would he do?
He arrived at the answer that he’d make an album, one about finding hope and emerging from difficult times more whole. The result is "Canyons and Waves" (Impropriety Records), which spotlights his distinct voice as a musician and writer via songs such as “Holiday,” “Climb a Tree,” and the titular track.
Moreover, his penchant for musical adventure is on full display, whether the hard-driving “She Plays with Light,” the blues-based “Marie Marie,” or “Stained Glass Eye,” which features a seemingly improbable confluence of styles and influences but, like the rest of the record, is seamless, flawless in its execution.
Peters, who has recorded and performed with artists such as the Mike Keneally Band, John Mayer, Bryan Beller, and Nina Storey, graduated from Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music with honors and is the founder of Hilltop Frog Recording Studios in Escondido, California.
He recently spoke with KMUW about all matters regarding "Canyons and Waves."
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Jedd Beaudoin: I understand that nature is deeply important to you as an artist.
Griff Peters: It’s been a lifelong draw and I really do feel my power and my center when I’m outside. The beach really is one of those very, very important places for me because it’s always being renewed. The wind, the tide, the sun. You can’t hang out there with your laptop all day. It’ll scrub you away. It’s very pure. Everything’s always in flux, so there’s this beauty there and this preciousness. For me, as an artist, that’s where I do my best work and get most of my inspiration, my strategic downloads.
What was some of the first material that started coming to you for this record?
I had a weird dream that I did notate somewhere in my voice memos. It was a bizarre dream that I woke up from and immediately put down. [There was music in the dream.] There was a beat and a groove that was a roots-blues, kind of plaintive song [in that dream]. The core vibe of it came through. The voice was coming out of a picture on a wall in a honky-tonk. I developed that into the song “Marie Marie,” which is the last song on Side B of the vinyl. That was the first tune to come out.
I grew up with blues. My mom, in particular, was always playing old records by Howlin’ Wolf or Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Sly and the Family Stone. That had all seeped in since infancy. I knew that I could start with that blues framework. Guitar, bass, drums, Hammond organ. I knew that I could put something out there and not worry too much about how to actually play the part. I thought, “I can do this, I’m not worried about that. But how do I record this to my satisfaction?”
There is a sense of eclecticism on the record. Has that always been part of your musical journey, to pull a little bit from here and a little bit from there?
I had been exposed to a really wide range of musical genres and styles and experiences, really early in life. It was not unusual for me to hear my grandparents play old-time music on banjo or fiddle or saxophone. In the liner notes for the vinyl [edition of the record] there’s a picture, a montage of the circle of time in the development of my life as it pertains to the musical journey on the album. It’s got a picture of my dad at the piano when he was a small boy, then his parents were behind him, accompanying him. My grandpa on guitar and my grandma on saxophone. That kind of arcs around to where I’m eventually playing for my two boys.
Lyrically, there’s a sense of coming out of darkness and into hope.
At the time I was writing, it was from the point of view of a person who was just coming out of that tunnel of difficulty. The songs speak of that challenge from a multitude of different points of view. One is kind of a snarky, “I’m not going to buy into your b.s.” and another one is, “I really miss my loved ones,” just a pure heartbreak kind of thing. One is more about triumph and celebration. Another one is dreamier and existential. There’s a hope and a knowing, a sense of, “I’ve made it through the hardest part and now that I’ve found a way through, I would really like not to waste this message of how this one traveler has gotten through. I would like to share that message with whomever it may be useful to.”
The healing intent and the role of music as a service to fellow mankind is big to me. It’s not about, “Hey, everybody, look at how awesome I am!” The world really does need healing. I mean that sincerely. If you can find that healing or that upliftment in a song or a picture or painting or a poem or whatever, then that’s awesome.
You made this available on vinyl in addition to streaming, download and CD.
Vinyl, to me, has an undeniable winning combination of sound quality and longevity. It also has an unmatched aesthetic appeal. We can remember the stoke that we had when we bought [a particular] album with our own money. [Then we got it home] and pulled it out and looked at the liner notes and the pictures. You can look at Led Zeppelin III and say, “Wow! Look at all the cool stuff that you can do!” It was like a toy, like something you could meditate on while you listened to the music.
I do a lot of photography and I do a lot of nature art, where I’ll got out and do sculptures and rock balancing with whatever I might find on location. I really wanted to present that all within the album and get a bigger picture of what’s going on and put a love of nature and beauty and the joy of family and connection into the album. I think that can give the audio stuff an extra value that listener can glean from the overall presentation.
Vinyl, to me, allows for the best artwork. I have 24-page booklet that goes with the record with lots of neat photography that I did and some notes that I’ve done. Some of it made it into the CD as well. But I do like the vintage appeal [of vinyl].
