Meet Luke Paluch

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

Luke, so happy to have you with us today. You are such a creative person, but have you ever head any sort of creativity block along the way? If so, can you talk to us about how you overcame or beat it?
I use to try and fight it. I always lost. In the last 2 years or so I also changed my opinion of that “writers block” means to me. Sure if I have all the music done and can’t come up with lyrics, that is a block, but its a block on THAT specific song. That doesn’t mean I can’t pick up the guitar and write something new just for fun. So as I maybe stuck on that original song, I am not actually stuck on creating. Now I just leave those road blocked songs and go back to them later. I don’t force it anymore.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Before I make this short and sweet, but probably still too long. I released a Live Album in January (out on all streaming platforms) and as I have done for the past 3 years on my birthday, I will be releasing an EP on March 4th. Ok, lets dive in;

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 recall 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. 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, as they always do. We had to find a new 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 that would still pack 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 27 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.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Figure out what it is you want out of what you’re doing? Why are you doing this? Are you doing this for others or for yourself? Once you decide on that, stick to your values and stick to this decision.
I’m also a chef, not sure if I mentioned it before. Music or cooking, learn how to do it at the basics before you jump in to the advanced. Learn how to do it right before you start using fancy equipment or tools that can help things go faster.
What I’m trying to say, and I’ll use cooking as an example; learn how to sear/cook a protein properly before you start using the sous vide method. Learn things the proper way and practice.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
I LOVE to collaborate with others. Doing music by myself for so many years gets little meh sometimes.
I have so far collaborated and featured over 20 other artists on my songs. That’s just in the last 2 years.
Hit me up people!!!

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