We were lucky to catch up with L.J.P recently and have shared our conversation below.

L.J.P, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?

Since I am a part time musician/songwriter and work part time as a cook I no longer wonder if the grass is greener. Both jobs, (being a independent solo artist is non stop work) give me creative freedom, well music gives me 100% of freedom, but both are creative outlets which is good for my head. Cooking obviously is way more stressful and harder on the body and these days everyone with a phone is a food critic, which has its downside. Would I rather do music full time? 100%!!! That grass is greener, but we all have to make a living so might as well do as many things to make that living that you actually enjoy.

I am very happy being the artist that I am. I don’t have to answer to anyone and have a great community that allows me to just create without any borders.

L.J.P, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I was born in Warsaw, Poland, and lived there till right before the wall fell. My parents emigrated to Canada and I pretty much grew up here. Somehow, somewhere, I cannot recollect the specific moment I really got into Elvis. I mean this was the 90;s and I was a young teen, why Elvis? I wanted to sing and have cool hair and I wanted to play the guitar so I could perform Blue Suede Shoes (even then I was never shy to be in front of people). Eventually I got a little cheap, which was super hard to play cause the strings sat so high. Anyways, I learnt BSS in like 10min and had no idea what was next. Next came AC/DC, Metallica and Iron Maiden as my older brother had all the records. Trying to be like Angus Young was a logical step since I went to a uniform school…I was half way Angus.

I got heavy into guitar. I mean heavy as in see ya later friends, lock my door, blindfold myself so I didn’t need to look at the neck and did that for about a year. All I remember was just playing guitar for like a whole summer.

Where things really took off was when I was introduced to Eric Clapton few years later, at that time it was the Grunge bands that was playing on my stereo and looking at this “old” guy in a suit playing guitar didn’t really appeal to me, but something hit a note (pun indented) inside me with this playing.
So I started researching Eric, this is before we all have internet and no I’m not that old, it wasn’t that long ago. And I went backwards to Derek and the Dominos, early solo albums and when I hit Cream that was it. I became obsessed with blues and started listening to the old original Delta blues men. Yes I’m sure you’ve heard this story before, just like many before me we all find our way back to the Delta blues.

I became a guitar players guitar player, most of my song ideas (at this stage I had a local band that was a mix of Grunge with shared love for Cream, The Beatles and Zappa, so imagine that) were always based around a riff and not chords. We wrote a lot of music in our late teen years to early 20’s. We just wrote what and how we wanted the music to sound.

I never saw myself as a song writer till my mid/late 20’s. Just around the time things shifted in the band, like they do and we had to change a singer and slowly went from a well know local all original band that would fill clubs, to a really good cover band with less original songs in sets that still would bars.

I never wanted to play other peoples music. The cover gig thing slowly made me hate being in a band and half the time I would just go through the motions. If I was gonna pack my gear, drive, play 3hrs a night, tear down, drive back, get to bed late and do it over again 6days a week (with working a full time job) for a few hundred bucks what was the point. I wanted to create music.

Long story short, I ended up in Ireland for about 6yrs and somehow in a really good all original band that needed a lead player. We were well know, played some big festivals all over Ireland and the UK, even did SXSW, CMW and CMJ in US and Canada. But like all good things it came to a sharp end.

I was pretty broken after that, we were so close to that “golden ticket”. I kinda gave up playing guitar and music for a while.

Eventually maybe not even a year later I started doodling on my guitar and a song was written here and there but I never did much with them.

It’s only in the last 5 or so years that I started to record my music and actually do something with it. Just as the pandemic was coming to an end a friend suggested I try live streams on Twitch. It’s been a year and half and it has been a game changer.

I never knew this existed. I had no real following, sure a close friend or 3 might have listened to my song on Spotify but I was starting out at a true zero. It has taken hard work, adjusting, sticking to my guns (I DO NOT play covers) learning new tools and ways of reaching people. I got really good at making visual overlays, you should see some of them haha.

It’s never easy to give yourself a pat on the back, or realize how far you’ve come when you’re always in it and always judged by numbers. But, when I take a step back and see how far I’ve come in 2 years it does give me huge joy. I’ve recorded and released 25 albums (singles, EP’s an Instrumental album, full lengths and even 2 live albums)

I write all my own music. I play mostly everything on my recordings (unless I can get one of my Twitch friends to play a bass, drums, piano or even a backup vocal). I record, mix and master things myself. I even make my own videos now, not gonna win an Oscar for cinematography anytime soon, but they are fun.
Most importantly I have 100% creative freedom and support from my community.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I think its pretty simple. And I’ve only realized this in recent years. There doesn’t need to be this competition between small indie artist. This is why I stared to invite other musicians to play on my songs. It helps me not having to play everything and adds a new vibe, and it helps them to be on a recording especially if they themselves don’t have any music out there.

Twitch has showed me that its about sharing the music community with each other, and honestly the community shares us the artists with each other. I have found so many great musicians through the people in my chat, and they will go tell other streamers about me and its just goes around and around. It’s quite beautiful.

I wish it worked like that out side of Twitch, maybe it does, I don’t know. What I would ask if I had the power was for society to simply just share music, you don’t need to share the big guys, cause we all know about them. If you find someone small, just post about it, do it over and over. Send them a message if you can, drop a like, check out their other links.
All that free stuff we can do sure helps us small rock stars.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

To be honest at this stage I just want to write as many songs as I can. But I don’t force them. Because I write so much these days any idea that comes out, and a lot of the ideas happen live on stream, I keep them all. And the more I seem to release the more it seems people listen.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ljpmusic.bandcamp.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/l.j.p_music/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/l.j.pmusic
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lucaspaluch
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyR47C6FiHNt60R-PKUZdTA
• Other: Merch Store https://ljpmusic-shop.fourthwall.com/

Image Credits
L.J.P