Interview: Santiago Periotti

Angie Moon: How did you get your start playing music?

Santiago Periotti: That was 23 years ago, I was 13 years old and I was fascinated by the Aerosmith music (my first band ever) and one day I tried a guitar and I though: “It would be great to play an Aerosmith song with this…” and that was the begin of everything, like two years after that I could learn a song of that band, was so hard!

Angie: How would you describe your sound?

Santiago: I have a strong Blues root in my music, but you can find different colours on it, some Soul and Classic Rock as well… but the main thing behind is Blues of course.

Angie: What brought you to England?

Santiago: Music, definitely London it’s the main place for music in Europe. I lived in Italy for a while and all my colleagues from the musical scene said the same thing “man, you should go to London… that’s the place for you”.

So I came recently and there’s no doubt about it, you can breath music everywhere, so many venues, bands, incredible musicians, and a musical history behind the scene. All the biggest artist started here, especially my number one guitar hero: Jimi Hendrix. So, definitely it feels like the right place for me.

Angie: Musically, how different are England and Argentina?

Santiago: Argentina and Latin America are full of incredible music and talented artists, they are everywhere which is so amazing. So, in that way both countries are amazing, I think the difference [is in] the styles. My music goes on the “Blues/Soul/Classic Rock” way and the most part of the Argentinian music goes on a different way. So I can’t say that one is better that the other, they are just completely different things, and my profile suits better in England I guess.

Angie: Who are your favourite rock musicians from Argentina?

Santiago: We had an incredible guitar player, his name was “Pappo’s Blues”, he was a huge influence in my early days when I was learning guitar and I still think that is one of the best guitar players in Latin America. His first albums sounds like the old “Fleetwood Mac/Peter Green” Blues style with some “John Mayall And The Bluesbreakers” as well. He was the first musician to play that blues music in Latin America. Really good.

Angie: What do you like best about being a musician in London?

Santiago: I think [it’s] the incredible high musicians level that you can see everywhere, so many musicians and they are so good. In some way that can be hard, especially to get in the musical scene, but on the other hand it’s the perfect environment to learn and get better as a musician and songwriter. It’s a challenge, but I really likee that.

Angie: What was recording Soul Therapy like?

Santiago: Writing songs and record music is the best part of being a musician in my opinion, this album was really special to me in so many ways. It’s my first album with a full band in my solo career and was a challenge to produce and record everything by myself.

I really enjoyed the process but [it] was hard work, especially because I wanted to release the album this year and the time ran so fast on 2019. [In] 2017, I made myself a target: release [an] album [a] year, and it means a lot of work, but till now I could do it. Actually right now I’m working on my new songs, by February it would be great to start to work on the pre production of my 2020 album.

Angie: What music inspired Soul Therapy?

Santiago: A lot of different things, about my guitar I can tell some names like Peter Geen, Albert King, Robben Ford, Keb’ Mo’ and so on… Talking about songwriting, there’s something that it’s gonna be with forever I guess: Paul McCartney and The Beatles. There’s something big behind those songs that still today is a huge influence to write songs.

I love what Doyle Bramhall is doing with his music, but I can’t compare my music with Doyle’s music. He has Blues roots as well, but I think in Soul Therapy [the blues roots are] stronger in that way.
I can keep telling names for hours, influences are important for musicians but we have to work really hard to have our own sound…. which [is] so difficult today, but I believe that it’s possible. In some ways, I think that Soul Therapy has something special behind each song.

Angie: What are your favourite songs on the album?

Santiago: That’s a good question, in general, my favourite songs are not the people’s favourite ones. I choose: “I’ll Find My Baby Someday”, “Keep Me On The Right Way Now” & “Better Give Yourself to Someone Else”… but now I can see that people chose “I Still Look at Your Photo”, “Love Taker”, and “Loosing All Trying To Love You”. So it’s difficult to pick a song for my next single, let’s what happens.

Angie: What are your goals for 2020?

Santiago: Make a new album, tour Europe and do some gigs in USA. I really wanted to open that door since many years ago, so let’s see what happens. I’m working on that with a good friend of mine of Argentina, Ruben Tissembaum, he’s the drummer [on] Soul Therapy and he has some good contacts to go through that door.