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BiTS: When you perform now, what sort of music do you think you’re doing? Do you call yourself a

blues singer, a soul singer or Americana, or what? How do you describe yourself?

JP: It’s hard to put me in a box. I like Americana because I think Americana is very forgiving of
genre. You can get anybody from Chris Stapleton to Mavis Staples in Americana right now. I like
that because I do have so many different kinds of music that I love, but it’s all mostly American

roots. It’s all roots from here. What is that saying, blues is the roots, and the rest is the fruit? I’ve
heard that a few times and so it is very rooted in that music, but it definitely goes all over the map
and I like soul singing. I like that because I do, that’s me. Everything I do is soulful. Everything I do
is from my soul. Everything is real and authentically me, but I like Americana. It’s kinda hard to put
me in a box.

BiTS: When you first started with this band, really quite recently much to my surprise, was it

difficult? Did you find it
hard going out on tour
and that kind of thing?

JP: Well, the very first

band I was in we were
just local and a cover
band, but every time you
grow into something
different it brings its
challenges with it of
course and when I

started writing music
and decided that I
wanted to make
something of a career
for myself, yeah, I mean

it’s hard because I’m still
not in a position where I have an agent. I do everything myself. I don’t have a manager, so I and
Mark, my guitar player, who is my business partner, we do everything ourselves and so that’s
pretty challenging. I’m getting to the point now and hopefully more with this record where more
people know me, that they’ll start calling me more, but I’m getting to the point where more people
call me and I’m not out trying to do everything on my own. It is hard because you have a band of
guys who still, most of them, being a musician is not their main job. They also have the quote-

unquote, day job. They still do that and so touring can be difficult. This is my job. I’m available to
go and Mark has another job, but he works for himself, so we’re more flexible, we can travel more
easily, but having a band of guys who are great musicians but also trying to pay the bills, that does
get difficult. Yeah, that is challenging.

BiTS: Have you ever had a day job yourself?