DIY ethic and beautiful music
Damien DeRose, aka Peasant, is a 20-year-old musician with something to say and the drive to succeed in saying it. I first met Damien on Myspace, when I started my most recent productions company, world-at-large.productions. I was looking for singer/songwriter types for a showcase I wanted to do and Damien sent me his first CD, “Sow and Scatter”. It didn’t wow me, but I thought his sound would be well-recieved at the showcase I was putting together, so I gave him a call.
The showcase was not well-attended and unfortunately the lineup order was poorly chosen by the dumb kid who ran the show (yeah, that was me!). But Damien won over the few folks who go to see him play that night and even though he didn’t make much (if any) money that night and only played to a few kids, he was happy to share a part of himself with those of us who were there. He gave us all burnt CD-R copies of a new release he was working on. After he played, he thanked me several times for letting him play and assured me that I would like his new CD better than the last one. He was right, “Fear Not Distant Lover”, though it was not the final pressed version and the packaging was virtually non-existent, is a great album and is set to be pressed and finalized shortly (NOTE: Expect a Crap Filter review in the coming months).
It’s not just that he is maturing as a musician and artist that strikes me about Damien. It’s the fervor and DIY (Do-It-Yourself) mentality that has drawn me to him. Damien plays shows as often as possible, and anywhere that will have him. If you gave him a call and said, “Hey, would you come play at my house for a picnic?” He’d say, “Sure, where is it?” That’s just the kind of guy he is, passionate about his music and longing to share it with anyone who will listen.
Peasant’s music is progessively getting better, the production quality on his releases is so far is so-so (but better than most for this point in his career), and his lovable demeanor wins people over whever he goes. Keep your eyes open and your ears peeled because Damien is a hard-working kid who is bound to hit the national scene hard in the next few years. Easily comaparable to a young Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst, Damien knows where he wants to go and has what it take to get there. Though I am not sure that Damien has been writing music since such a tender age as did Conor, he has that same DIY mentality and determination that set Bright Eyes apart from the scene that he was a part of. Passion about life, politics, and most of all their music, is what sets people like Conor and Damien apart from the masses. Even if Damien makes millions on his music someday, it will never be about that; it will always just be a kid pouring his soul and heart out to anyone who will be kind enough to listen.
Check Damien out at iampeasant.com or myspace.com/peasant.
December 12th, 2005 at 10:13 am
[…] Already featured once here on Crap Filter (“DIY ethic and beautiful music”), Damien DeRose, aka Peasant, has officially released his follow up to his June 2005 debut, “Sow and Scatter”. Only six months later, this release marks a much more mature Peasant, who seems very comfortable in his folk-drenched singer/songwriter style. […]