Artist Story: Lawrence Peters

As a songwriter, musician, and bandleader, I always feel a pull between being a responsible adult—washing dishes, answering emails, following up on shows, brushing my teeth—and wanting to burrow into those dark and difficult places where the best songs live. 
I enjoy much of the administrative stuff of being a musician, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it, but the necessities of self-promotion and daily living constantly get in the way of my creativity, which can be frustrating.

The workaday tasks are fairly easy to accomplish: I make lists, and prioritize in order of urgency and importance. If I find myself overwhelmed by a list, I go back through and weed out all but the most necessary items. I’ll also farm out the things that I’m less skilled at—like writing press releases or band bios. I have bandmates and pals that are better at those things than I am, and they’re willing to help out (if I ask them nicely!)

Creating art is more like dowsing or alchemy—a mysterious process that is difficult to qualify or measure, and I haven’t found a perfect way to navigate it. Some of my songwriting friends set aside a regular daily time for writing. It’s an approach that makes sense, but it hasn’t worked for me. My songs tend to come to me in little pieces of lyric and melody, so I always have paper, pencil, and a handheld recorder with me. I get the initial part down, and come back to it whenever I feel that itch. A couple of times I’ve gone back to a song and found that I’d written the whole thing in little bits, and I just had to edit it down to a finished piece.

There’s a song that I wrote called “Bear Creek” about losing my mother when I was young. I didn’t want to go to the place where that song was waiting to be written, because I knew that it would be uncomfortable and probably painful. In the end, I had to trust that writing it would be worth the trade-off, and it was. It’s a very moving song, and I’ve connected with lots of people through it, but it took years to finish, as though I had to slowly inoculate myself against it. As a culture, we expect everyone to be socially dexterous and happy at all times, but writing a song, singing, and recording require a vulnerability and a willingness to untether all manner of “iffy” feelings and thoughts to make room for the honest material. Letting fly with the awkward and the messy requires particular strength.

It also take courage to maintain such honesty. I have a friend who recently stated publicly that he is no longer interested in “making it.” He said that he has chosen to put his energy into creating the best music he can, and if people want to hear what he is doing, they will have to seek him out. It is a brave and unusual commitment to put expression first and acknowledgement second.

Unfortunately, complacency is encouraged and fostered in our culture, distracting us from the pursuit of creative expression. It is infinitely easier to sit on the couch eating ice cream and watching TV than it is to challenge oneself to experience the bright, intimate stink of the world. I work everyday on unsticking myself from my own complacency. I have to challenge myself to do what matters to me and not what I think is expected from me culturally. This is easier said than done, since I’m a product of this culture, just like everybody else. But I don’t turn on the TV anymore, because it’s so easy to get distracted by the all the shiny new stuff that’s being offered for my distraction. I know I’m still going to do plenty of procrastinating, so I get the big obstructions out of the way. I surround myself with books, art, found objects, music, boxes of old photos—anything that might connect me to something deeper and more human. I still connect with plenty of popular culture, but I no longer allow it unimpeded access to my brain.

Music that committee-written to appeal to the largest number of listeners is similar to food that’s designed to make your brain crave more of it than you need. It’s enjoyable to fill up on junk food, and junk culture, but neither is sustainable. I’m encouraged by the Slow Food movement, and how it challenges us to know the sources of what we consume. We are finding out where our food comes from and who stewards the land it grows on. We are supporting local businesses. All of this is part of an effort to know more about the work that goes into sustaining us, to feel connected to something honest, something that has integrity. It is equally important to apply this to our relationship to music and other arts. Creating fearless, connected, earnest art and sharing it publicly can be a radical act.


Lawrence Peters is a singer, songwriter, drummer, and America’s preeminent electric washboard player. He has recorded or performed with dozens of bands, including The Lawrence Peters Outfit, Magnolia Electric Company, Plastic Crimewave Sound, Velcro Lewis Group, The Golden Horse Ranch Band, Eiren Caffall, Mar Caribe, and Tijuana Hercules. Lawrence’s main musical passion is deep-rooted American country music, but he also plays acid punk, swamp rock, Shaker-modern, and Western-pirate-surf music, and somehow gets away with it. Please look for The Lawrence Peters Outfit for all your honky tonk needs.