The Sit Down with Jeremie Albino
After years slinging veggies at a farmers’ markets in Toronto, Jeremie Albino embarked on a journey performing on the city’s streets and beyond, busking throughout Europe and trading songs for lodging. The latest and most significant marker on this journey is his recently released album “Our Time In The Sun” which is his fourth offering but first release through Easy Eye Sound.
Working closely with GRAMMY-winning producer Dan Auerbach on the project, who was mesmerized by a chance encounter with Albino’s music online, the two spent time together digging through Auerbach’s collection of 45s in Nashville - and quickly discovered a mutual love of artists like Irma Thomas, The Charmels and George Jackson.
Jeremie recently concluded his European tour which included UK stops in Glasgow, Manchester and London, where we spent some time getting to know Jeremie and talking about the new album.
Working closely with GRAMMY-winning producer Dan Auerbach on the project, who was mesmerized by a chance encounter with Albino’s music online, the two spent time together digging through Auerbach’s collection of 45s in Nashville - and quickly discovered a mutual love of artists like Irma Thomas, The Charmels and George Jackson.
Jeremie recently concluded his European tour which included UK stops in Glasgow, Manchester and London, where we spent some time getting to know Jeremie and talking about the new album.
It’s great to have you here and welcome to London, or welcome back as you’ve been over here in Europe a couple of times before.
I guess I've done two tours here before, once in 2019 and again in 2022, plus I travelled here before that time without doing the music, but it's nice to be back. I’m playing a lot of places I have played before headed to a new spot in the Netherlands and playing in Paris for the first time. I have travelled to Paris often, but I've never played there so I'm looking forward to that because growing up in Canada my mom’s side id French Canadian. I can speak French but I don't speak it as often as I used to when I was growing up, I always enjoy being in France and speaking French, but it's always a bit of a different thing speaking in French on stage and not really having a conversation, but just being like, hey, what's up?”
Your backstory is quite interesting, you said your mother is French Canadian so I’m guessing from Quebec and you have different heritage on the other side so even as far as Canadian artists go it’s a very different perspective to a European audience. That is something we definitely see more and more now over here with people like Julian Taylor and William Prince coming very often, so it is almost a feel from the outside looking in that European audiences are more similar to Canada and more accommodating than in the US to Americana or Canadiana artists.
“I don't know, I feel like a lot of parts of Europe in general, really have a love for roots and Americana music so I think that's really why we come for it. I remember maybe the first time I ever toured out here, I played a show in Germany and there this guy who came from Spain to catch a show. He played in like a folk band or a country band and I think they do well in Spain but I guess they can't recreate like with the singing in the same way. Like if you’ve got an accent and all that, it's a little harder to sing the y’alls but I don't know, it’s just it's just different. I think people are just hungry for music that they hear from North America.”
The people over here seem to have been really digging this latest project that you have put out.
“I think so, I mean the shows has been great. The first time I came out here was in 2019 with Shovels & Rope which was right before the pandemic and then the second time was 2022 for just a little headline run. We did London, went through Scandinavia and played The Great Escape in Brighton, so came over for that and tied in a few things. Even though that was around my second record and right now I'm still hustling, trying to get my name out there but at the time I was even more so, not as many people knew who I was and this time around, I come out and I'm like, oh, wow, people have been found my record somehow or all of my records. I’ve played Glasgow then in Manchester and last night I was asking who was here at my last show in Manchester, which was 2019 and no one was there for my last show, but somehow everyone's been singing all the songs off my first album to my latest album. It was really special to have that happen and then the same with Glasgow, I had played there with Shovels & Rope in 2019 and there was just like one guy who was at that show. It felt like such a lovely show, everyone was just singing along and just felt special.”
I guess that's quite cool a way because when you are touring around Canada, your first record is telling people who you are, your second record is this is what you’ve got to say and so on but here, people are just digesting all the projects together. You're trying to push the latest record, but you can go out thinking I haven't played this for who knows how long and I feel like doing this tonight.
“It's really fun because people seem to just really want to hear all of the songs. I'll play a lot of the new record and then people often get quite sad and to not hear some of the old songs, so I'm just happy to do it. Even in North America I've had quite the following and people have been just really kind and love all the records, want to hear from the range of it all so, it's just nice to be able to do that. Now I've gotten to a point where it's starting to get hard to pick what songs to play, because you just can't be playing all of them so I'll make a set list and especially when I'm touring with the band, it’s pretty rigid or when we decide what the set is, I'll just stick to it. You still hear people yelling out songs that they want and I guess that's just a normal thing for musicians that have been around for a bit, but it's just kind of new to be because now I've got a library of albums, or like not a library, but bigger than what I used to have. What I was going to say is that this tour has been nice. I mean, this is just the third show, but I've gone in with a bit more of an open mindset, I know there's songs that I definitely will play, but I've just been going like, what do you guys wanna hear? They’re such intimate venues that we're doing and it's just me with my guitar so like in Glasgow, people shouted out songs that I never would have thought of playing and then they all just sang along to them. I was like wow! I really should play this one more often. With this record, I've I had some more eyes on it than my previous records and I'm still so proud of my old records and I think they're good, I think they're up to snuff, you know? So, it makes me excited to think that and I hope that people if they first discover me with this latest record and enjoy it, they will also dig back and find some of my old records too.”
I guess I've done two tours here before, once in 2019 and again in 2022, plus I travelled here before that time without doing the music, but it's nice to be back. I’m playing a lot of places I have played before headed to a new spot in the Netherlands and playing in Paris for the first time. I have travelled to Paris often, but I've never played there so I'm looking forward to that because growing up in Canada my mom’s side id French Canadian. I can speak French but I don't speak it as often as I used to when I was growing up, I always enjoy being in France and speaking French, but it's always a bit of a different thing speaking in French on stage and not really having a conversation, but just being like, hey, what's up?”
Your backstory is quite interesting, you said your mother is French Canadian so I’m guessing from Quebec and you have different heritage on the other side so even as far as Canadian artists go it’s a very different perspective to a European audience. That is something we definitely see more and more now over here with people like Julian Taylor and William Prince coming very often, so it is almost a feel from the outside looking in that European audiences are more similar to Canada and more accommodating than in the US to Americana or Canadiana artists.
“I don't know, I feel like a lot of parts of Europe in general, really have a love for roots and Americana music so I think that's really why we come for it. I remember maybe the first time I ever toured out here, I played a show in Germany and there this guy who came from Spain to catch a show. He played in like a folk band or a country band and I think they do well in Spain but I guess they can't recreate like with the singing in the same way. Like if you’ve got an accent and all that, it's a little harder to sing the y’alls but I don't know, it’s just it's just different. I think people are just hungry for music that they hear from North America.”
The people over here seem to have been really digging this latest project that you have put out.
“I think so, I mean the shows has been great. The first time I came out here was in 2019 with Shovels & Rope which was right before the pandemic and then the second time was 2022 for just a little headline run. We did London, went through Scandinavia and played The Great Escape in Brighton, so came over for that and tied in a few things. Even though that was around my second record and right now I'm still hustling, trying to get my name out there but at the time I was even more so, not as many people knew who I was and this time around, I come out and I'm like, oh, wow, people have been found my record somehow or all of my records. I’ve played Glasgow then in Manchester and last night I was asking who was here at my last show in Manchester, which was 2019 and no one was there for my last show, but somehow everyone's been singing all the songs off my first album to my latest album. It was really special to have that happen and then the same with Glasgow, I had played there with Shovels & Rope in 2019 and there was just like one guy who was at that show. It felt like such a lovely show, everyone was just singing along and just felt special.”
I guess that's quite cool a way because when you are touring around Canada, your first record is telling people who you are, your second record is this is what you’ve got to say and so on but here, people are just digesting all the projects together. You're trying to push the latest record, but you can go out thinking I haven't played this for who knows how long and I feel like doing this tonight.
“It's really fun because people seem to just really want to hear all of the songs. I'll play a lot of the new record and then people often get quite sad and to not hear some of the old songs, so I'm just happy to do it. Even in North America I've had quite the following and people have been just really kind and love all the records, want to hear from the range of it all so, it's just nice to be able to do that. Now I've gotten to a point where it's starting to get hard to pick what songs to play, because you just can't be playing all of them so I'll make a set list and especially when I'm touring with the band, it’s pretty rigid or when we decide what the set is, I'll just stick to it. You still hear people yelling out songs that they want and I guess that's just a normal thing for musicians that have been around for a bit, but it's just kind of new to be because now I've got a library of albums, or like not a library, but bigger than what I used to have. What I was going to say is that this tour has been nice. I mean, this is just the third show, but I've gone in with a bit more of an open mindset, I know there's songs that I definitely will play, but I've just been going like, what do you guys wanna hear? They’re such intimate venues that we're doing and it's just me with my guitar so like in Glasgow, people shouted out songs that I never would have thought of playing and then they all just sang along to them. I was like wow! I really should play this one more often. With this record, I've I had some more eyes on it than my previous records and I'm still so proud of my old records and I think they're good, I think they're up to snuff, you know? So, it makes me excited to think that and I hope that people if they first discover me with this latest record and enjoy it, they will also dig back and find some of my old records too.”
One of those things that did help with putting some more eyes on this most recent project was working with Dan Auerbach, who is widely regarded as a musician with The Black Keys and also in the chair on projects like Lana Del Rey’s “Ultraviolence” in particular. How did you and Dan get introduced and what lead to the two of you working together?
“I mean, growing up, you hear The Black Keys all over the place, you know but Dan just reached out of the blue, like he just found me. He says that he found me through like an Instagram video and he never actually told me what it was but he ended up reaching out my team because my agent in States is the same Early James. I guess through that, he reached out to him because they already had a relationship and then they hit up my team. I was touring doing some festivals at the time and I was like, oh, Dan's interested in playing, like that's kind of crazy. I had known a bunch about the Easy Eye records, I knew that he was just an amazing producer and musician but it wasn't really until I met him that I realized that he’s such a knowledgeable individual, can play anything and is just an amazing songwriter as well. We met when The Black Keys were passing through Toronto, we just went out for dinner, had some food and Dan was doing a DJ set, so wanted to catch that and then also caught the show but we just got chatting and had a little get down to see if we vibed, then not too long after that, I ended up just flying down to Nashville and doing some writing with him. That trip to Nashville, we wrote half the record like right off the bat and maybe a year later I went back down and wrote the rest of the record then not too long after that, we just got in the studio and just cut the record. It was, I don't know, just a quick little, it kind of came together over time, but if you think about how much time we worked on the record and how much time we had known each other, it's not that long.”
That’s really cool with how it was like a very old organic coming together because a lot of the time it's where, you know, people that have worked on a lot of projects like he has, there are ways where people try to bring people together and stuff. He’s obviously a fantastic songwriter and one of the best musicians around which surely helps with the artist-producer relationship, but beyond his talent as a writer and a guitarist, what’s the best thing about working with him? What made it such a good relationship in the studio and the writing room?
“I think it's a bit of everything, but honestly, I've said this before but I feel I've personally grown as a musician to a place where I think I would be able to work with him, because I think on my first record, I would have been like so, I don't know, just like scared to just speak my mind or just not even know what I wanted out of something. I remember when I made in my first record, I don't actually know what I wanted, I just had these songs. It's partially that, just like having grown as a musician and being able to communicate with Dan, but I think Dan also just really got me. Over the years I've worked with different songwriters and producers, where I think growing up in Toronto, where a lot of people come from like the Indie Rock world and it's just hard doing co-writes or even just coming from a bit of a different angle, not that it's a bad angle or anything like that. Great music can come from it and great music has come from it, but it's always a bit more work to just like to find out where you're going on this path. When I got in the studio with Dan, we would just listen to records and get inspiration, then just start working on music. For example, sometimes I would be working with an Indie person and I’ve kind of got a vision of where I wanted to go but they would be coming at it from a different place, they don’t know the roots world. They didn’t grow up with the same music that I did, so they’re coming from a different angle so it takes longer to get to the same point. Whereas with Dan, we grew up with a lot of the same music so, we took the same road pretty easily and it really felt like that in the songwriting and in the studio, it just like just felt right and were able to go on the same path for the most part.”
After this European run what's the summer looking like back home? Is it a busy summer? I know you are still in the cycle of this record, but with the time span of that vortex of how the music history really works, I guess you have at least one eye looking forward towards the next bit, because, you know, everyone's favourite songs, the song you wrote yesterday.
“I’ve been on the road basically since January and not had that much time off until I came out here so, I'm taking a bit of time off once I get home after this trip as I don't really have many gigs until June and it’s the start of festival season. Like you're saying, I'm really trying to write and just start working on the next one, because the record in itself, the days of work that went into it was like four days of writing, plus whatever time it takes in the studio with like a week of cutting the record, you know? So, I'm just trying to keep the momentum going.”
Is that typical in your process with how you've done your other records? From the way you said, you basically wrote for the record in two blocks. Are you someone that kind of goes right, I need to sit down, I'm going make something or are you just constantly working and eventually things come together?
“I think I used to be more like that, but that's why it was so special with this this record. I found a different way of making music and I honestly loved that way of creating because it's just such a really nice energy. When I first went into the studio, we had we had been writing, we wrote a bunch of songs that were some of my favourite songs I had written yet where it was just a really great energy and the creative juices were just flowing. After the two days, I was like, man, this has been so much fun, so awesome then Dan was like, I told you, this is what we do. We work on the road and it’s a lot of hard work that is fun, but we come home and this is the reward of just being able to be creative and make stuff. I really held onto that and just really want do that because it is really hard to write on road. I basically don't really do it, if I get ideas, I will and I've got been a time I will, but it's really hard to do, and so it's nice to just be like okay, let me set aside some time and just be creative to make this thing. It's really freeing to do that so, I'm kind of I'm doing a bit of both these days.”
So, you’re not one of those people that has like eight hundred thousand voice memo’s on your phone then?
“I do have that and I do that, but it's funny because when I went to the studio with Dan, I brought a couple of song ideas but it was fun to just like create a song just because we wanted to, you know. It's like it really works your muscle, your writing muscle to do that, because sometimes it's easy to just lean on the songs that you know or you've been working on and I think it's just really fun, it takes a lot of pressure off some reason for me at least. It's just like, let's write a song for the fun of it, we’ll listen to records and just get inspired where this is amazing record, it feels good and let’s see what comes from this. It takes a bit of the brain, like the long term thinking of it you know, where it's like sometimes there are songs and I'm like, yeah, I really wanna get something out of this but then I'll just slowly work on them until they're done. Whereas when I get in the studio yeah, I'll bring a couple ideas, but it's really fun to just start with something brand new, because there's no expectations.”
“I mean, growing up, you hear The Black Keys all over the place, you know but Dan just reached out of the blue, like he just found me. He says that he found me through like an Instagram video and he never actually told me what it was but he ended up reaching out my team because my agent in States is the same Early James. I guess through that, he reached out to him because they already had a relationship and then they hit up my team. I was touring doing some festivals at the time and I was like, oh, Dan's interested in playing, like that's kind of crazy. I had known a bunch about the Easy Eye records, I knew that he was just an amazing producer and musician but it wasn't really until I met him that I realized that he’s such a knowledgeable individual, can play anything and is just an amazing songwriter as well. We met when The Black Keys were passing through Toronto, we just went out for dinner, had some food and Dan was doing a DJ set, so wanted to catch that and then also caught the show but we just got chatting and had a little get down to see if we vibed, then not too long after that, I ended up just flying down to Nashville and doing some writing with him. That trip to Nashville, we wrote half the record like right off the bat and maybe a year later I went back down and wrote the rest of the record then not too long after that, we just got in the studio and just cut the record. It was, I don't know, just a quick little, it kind of came together over time, but if you think about how much time we worked on the record and how much time we had known each other, it's not that long.”
That’s really cool with how it was like a very old organic coming together because a lot of the time it's where, you know, people that have worked on a lot of projects like he has, there are ways where people try to bring people together and stuff. He’s obviously a fantastic songwriter and one of the best musicians around which surely helps with the artist-producer relationship, but beyond his talent as a writer and a guitarist, what’s the best thing about working with him? What made it such a good relationship in the studio and the writing room?
“I think it's a bit of everything, but honestly, I've said this before but I feel I've personally grown as a musician to a place where I think I would be able to work with him, because I think on my first record, I would have been like so, I don't know, just like scared to just speak my mind or just not even know what I wanted out of something. I remember when I made in my first record, I don't actually know what I wanted, I just had these songs. It's partially that, just like having grown as a musician and being able to communicate with Dan, but I think Dan also just really got me. Over the years I've worked with different songwriters and producers, where I think growing up in Toronto, where a lot of people come from like the Indie Rock world and it's just hard doing co-writes or even just coming from a bit of a different angle, not that it's a bad angle or anything like that. Great music can come from it and great music has come from it, but it's always a bit more work to just like to find out where you're going on this path. When I got in the studio with Dan, we would just listen to records and get inspiration, then just start working on music. For example, sometimes I would be working with an Indie person and I’ve kind of got a vision of where I wanted to go but they would be coming at it from a different place, they don’t know the roots world. They didn’t grow up with the same music that I did, so they’re coming from a different angle so it takes longer to get to the same point. Whereas with Dan, we grew up with a lot of the same music so, we took the same road pretty easily and it really felt like that in the songwriting and in the studio, it just like just felt right and were able to go on the same path for the most part.”
After this European run what's the summer looking like back home? Is it a busy summer? I know you are still in the cycle of this record, but with the time span of that vortex of how the music history really works, I guess you have at least one eye looking forward towards the next bit, because, you know, everyone's favourite songs, the song you wrote yesterday.
“I’ve been on the road basically since January and not had that much time off until I came out here so, I'm taking a bit of time off once I get home after this trip as I don't really have many gigs until June and it’s the start of festival season. Like you're saying, I'm really trying to write and just start working on the next one, because the record in itself, the days of work that went into it was like four days of writing, plus whatever time it takes in the studio with like a week of cutting the record, you know? So, I'm just trying to keep the momentum going.”
Is that typical in your process with how you've done your other records? From the way you said, you basically wrote for the record in two blocks. Are you someone that kind of goes right, I need to sit down, I'm going make something or are you just constantly working and eventually things come together?
“I think I used to be more like that, but that's why it was so special with this this record. I found a different way of making music and I honestly loved that way of creating because it's just such a really nice energy. When I first went into the studio, we had we had been writing, we wrote a bunch of songs that were some of my favourite songs I had written yet where it was just a really great energy and the creative juices were just flowing. After the two days, I was like, man, this has been so much fun, so awesome then Dan was like, I told you, this is what we do. We work on the road and it’s a lot of hard work that is fun, but we come home and this is the reward of just being able to be creative and make stuff. I really held onto that and just really want do that because it is really hard to write on road. I basically don't really do it, if I get ideas, I will and I've got been a time I will, but it's really hard to do, and so it's nice to just be like okay, let me set aside some time and just be creative to make this thing. It's really freeing to do that so, I'm kind of I'm doing a bit of both these days.”
So, you’re not one of those people that has like eight hundred thousand voice memo’s on your phone then?
“I do have that and I do that, but it's funny because when I went to the studio with Dan, I brought a couple of song ideas but it was fun to just like create a song just because we wanted to, you know. It's like it really works your muscle, your writing muscle to do that, because sometimes it's easy to just lean on the songs that you know or you've been working on and I think it's just really fun, it takes a lot of pressure off some reason for me at least. It's just like, let's write a song for the fun of it, we’ll listen to records and just get inspired where this is amazing record, it feels good and let’s see what comes from this. It takes a bit of the brain, like the long term thinking of it you know, where it's like sometimes there are songs and I'm like, yeah, I really wanna get something out of this but then I'll just slowly work on them until they're done. Whereas when I get in the studio yeah, I'll bring a couple ideas, but it's really fun to just start with something brand new, because there's no expectations.”
