Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Peter Miles. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Peter, thanks for joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

Growing up, I loved music. I could never stop singing around the house, jamming out to my favorite bands on my ferry commute to school, and taking control of the radio in the car with my family. I sang in my highschool choir and dabbled with songwriting but never delved into music seriously. When I got to college, I knew that I wanted to sign up for voice lessons. I had always enjoyed singing, but didn’t have much musical experience, so lessons were an exciting new step out of my comfort zone. I auditioned for the voice studio by singing one of my original songs while accompanying myself on the guitar. When I showed up to the first day of lessons with my new teacher, I realized that — unbeknownst to me — I had somehow gotten myself into classical voice/opera lessons. I thought, why not give this a shot? At the very least it would make for an interesting story, especially as someone who liked to joke that opera was for big dudes with beards. I quickly found out that I actually really enjoyed opera singing and that I wasn’t half bad at it either.

After two years of classical voice training, my teacher encouraged me to attend the Mediterranean Opera Studio and Festival in Caltagirone, Sicily. There, I made friends from all over the world and spent six weeks singing, performing, eating good pizza, and falling in love with music even more. During that summer, I realized that if I could pursue music professionally, my career could be spent doing something that brought me immense joy. Not only that, but I could express the emotion carried through music to others. I could help people feel the things they needed to. I could use my passion to benefit others.

I had grown to love opera when I came to this realization, but also knew that opera is not the most accessible form of music. In order to share the emotion that music conveys with everyone, I was better off performing in a more popular style. After that summer, I turned to songwriting and began to write, record, and perform my own original music as much as possible, and I haven’t looked back since!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Peter Miles and I am a singer/songwriter currently based in New Haven, CT, originally hailing from The Pacific Northwest. I’m passionate about writing songs, drawing inspiration from the world around me, my family, friends, and faith. I also have a background in classical voice and opera performance singing roles as a baritone, such as Papageno in Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) and Don Giovanni in Don Giovanni.

Taking my passion for music—my art—and turning it into my profession is both my greatest dream and nightmare. It is simultaneously exhilarating to do what I love for as long as possible with my career and terrible to feel like I have to produce unique art that other people will enjoy in order to keep afloat. I’ve been told that in order to be a professional songwriter, you need to feel like you have something to share. What sets a musician apart from other performers then becomes less about an objective measure of one’s “product” – their songs – and more about the writer’s story. What sets me apart from other artists is not some elevated nature of the music that I’m writing, but my expression of the unique life that has been given to me. The joy and connection that other people find in listening to my music is solely in response to my expression of who I was made to be and their connection to that life within me.

I’m very excited to have released my first and self produced EP, “Slow Down”, on streaming platforms after a year of recording projects. I’m looking forward to continuing to gain experience as a performer, build community with other musicians, and record more of my songs.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I grew up bringing my emotions to music and living inside the songs written by my favorite artists such as U2, Colony House, and Mumford and Sons. As I got older and began to develop more of an understanding about the lyrics of the songs that I knew and loved so well, my life completely changed. Maybe their songs were never intended to be interpreted in the ways that I discovered, but it didn’t matter; my own interpretation of their songs was an emotional safe haven, a place where I could learn about myself and come alive to both joy and pain. Someone else was able to express exactly how I was feeling and share what I needed to hear across many different moments in my life. The memories I have of my darkest and brightest days are tied to the songs that helped me process the complexity and beauty of those moments.

It would be such a joy to be able to offer music to others that helps them in the same way that I have experienced over time. As I continue to write and perform, I hope to build more safe havens where others can bring their emotions, and all by the means of something that I love to do. And maybe when people need it in the day to day, I hope that my music will be there to simply entertain them!

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Though I have only just begun performing my original songs in public spaces, it’s clear to see that songs I wrote specifically about my own experiences can touch the hearts of people I’ve never met.

One of my songs, “You Deserve More”, is about the death of my cousin. The song came to me in one sitting after a long car drive conversation with my dad. I wrote about growing up with my cousin and my grief associated with his early passing with details entirely specific to my own experience. And yet, when I have performed this very personal song in front of strangers, I have watched them enter into their own worlds, reliving their own experiences, or sometimes just feeling the emotion of my song without knowing anything about my story.

Of course, writing these songs for my own sake is meaningful, but knowing that there are people who could be moved by my music is the most rewarding part of it all. And for the vast majority of people who hear my music, I may never know if, how, or why my songs were impactful to them.

But maybe that’s the best part of the whole process: pursuing something I love, benefiting others with my work, and not having my left hand know what my right is doing throughout the journey. Certainly, the beauty in this work is in part the music actually created, but more importantly, it is in lives touched in ways that I may never see.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peter__miles/
• Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/65GJH3ImB7SpfGw0cQxFdQ?si=eH583TXOQ2OX1fDTJBZOyQ
  Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/peter-miles/1720829161
  Linktree: https://linktr.ee/peter_miles