Derek Piotr shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Derek, a huge thanks to you for investing the time to share your wisdom with those who are seeking it. We think it’s so important for us to share stories with our neighbors, friends and community because knowledge multiples when we share with each other. Let’s jump in: What are you chasing, and what would happen if you stopped?
I think about this a lot, actually — good question. With my Fieldwork Archive, I’m constantly chasing undocumented songs in the hopes of preserving them. My work with music in general is a very very specific process of internal references and inside jokes to myself – things I nerd out on by myself, I guess. I feel very blessed that the press gets like 60% of the joke and is usually extremely understanding of what I’m conveying with my solo work — most artists go a majority of their career being totally misunderstood and miscast in the media but I feel lucky to say most of the time, the press is in my universe. The Archive is just constantly about finding individuals who remember obscure old song – and they pass away all the time, sometimes extremely soon after our meeting. I think my record was 8 hours after someone was recorded by me, they ended up passing away. So I think the answer is obvious if I stopped — the songs would die with their sources. This creates perpetual urgency.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Derek Piotr and I run The Derek Piotr Fieldwork Archive. https://fieldwork-archive.com
I established the Archive as a web repository in August 2022. The Archive contains over 1,500 audio recordings collected from March 2020 onward, and preserves diverse representations of folklife; ballads, hymns, tales, poems, children’s songs, and interviews among them.
The focus of this collection is on the “non-singer”; in other words, someone with no background in musical performance who can nevertheless relate a song or folkloric memory. However, the Archive features a wide variety of informants, including professional singers, descendants of musicians, laypeople, and ballad scholars. The vast majority of the recordings in the Archive showcase unaccompanied vocal performances. In 2025 alone, with the help of field agents, the Archive collected over 600 songs.
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
I think honestly political statements are the single most polarizing path of discourse nowadays. I feel compelled to call a lot of aspects of modernity out (mostly – and I will take a mini moment here – AI religion! Jesus Chatbots?!) but I feel that the minute you use your platform for any kind of political stance, there is immediate alienation and frustration. The thing that sews it all together is always music. As I get older, I get more and more amazed that 2,000 people can go to a concert arena, an eighty year old from Puerto Rico, a teenager from Arizona, a cattle rancher from Alberta, all with completely different agendas in life, but can all bow their heads and unite under song. It is a miracle.
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
I think about this a lot. It’s kind of an unspoken rule that life is full of suffering, isn’t it – but also, it’s a matter of perspective and gratitude in every moment, and that is the challenge/gift — to see that, despite a situation seeming sorrowful, it’s also an opportunity to grow or flourish, or maybe isn’t as bad as one makes it out to be. Hitting the bottom always reminds one that momentum is necessary and that there is so much life just above the water’s surface. Now I’m waxing poetic!
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. Is the public version of you the real you?
Very much so, but very much not. You couldn’t ascertain my “day job”, my family life, my favorite foods, or my hometown from any of my online presence, and yet my digital persona is where I feel I platform all my nuances and innermost references, observations and agendas, so in a way you’re getting more of me than you might in a daily situation. A lot of my closest friendships are built around food, co-creation of clothing, gardening, and syncretic folk religion. All my musician friends kind of exist in a different hallway, I truly feel.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
Absolutely I feel I am doing what I was created to do. I never get stage fright, for instance — I always feel I am stepping inside the storyline lain out for me, that is mine alone to complete. It’s a kind of inner piston that never quiets.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://fieldwork-archive.com
- Instagram: @derekpiotr
Image Credits
All photos by Ryan Lavine
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