 Photo by Moose Hurskainen. Hailing from Helsinki, Finland, Larry Peninsula recently released his debut album, Country Music Only, whose title track was #1 on Country Music Life's chart for 9 weeks in a row. Here, Peninsula answers his Essential 8 and talks about movies as inspiration, Nashville's honky-tonks, what he's listening to, and more. Where do you draw inspiration from when writing? It varies a lot actually. Anything can inspire me, it’s sometimes a movie that I’ve seen or something I hear someone say. My song “I Rather Die With My Boots On” is based on a movie Dallas Buyers Club. Movies are usually a great source of inspiration. I’m always looking for song titles. If I find a great song title, it feels like the song writes itself. When/where do you do your best writing? At evenings or night-time and usually at home. I write with my acoustic guitar and the best ideas come when I concentrate on something else other than the songwriting itself. The melodies are hovering in the air and somedays it’s easier to catch them. I always tend to record the ideas on my phone or make a quick demo at my home studio. What’s the best advice to give to a musician just starting out? Listen to all kinds of music with an open mind. Try to find friends who you can play with and later on form a band. Just explore the world of music and you’ll find eventually what’s your style and what is the kind of music you want to make. There’s not just one way in becoming a musician or an artist. I see myself as an old school guy who likes to learn music by ear and do everything by myself. What’s your dream venue and why? Honestly, that would be any honky-tonk bar in Nashville. Tootsie’s or Robert’s Western World would be a dream come true. I’ve visited both of them and there’s really a unique atmosphere at Lower Broadway. Young Willie Nelson used to play at Tootsie’s too. Broken Spoke in Austin is definitely on the bucket list too. Why did you choose to anchor the album with the songs you did?
My debut album was a long time coming. I worked on this album for about 3 years, heck I even moved 3 times during the recordings. The track listing changed a lot and I kept writing on new material until the album was finished. This album consists of the best songs I’ve written, in my opinion. There’s an instrumental western song “Dead Renegade, rockabilly style “Walk The Talk” and one song in my native language Finnish called “Saimaa”. The most personal song on the album is "Cowboy Heart". It's based on my life as a country artist living far away from the rodeos of Texas. Who would you love to collaborate with? I enjoy collaborating with other musicians. Last year I recorded a song “Kantriäijät” with Mikko Alatalo who is a well-known Finnish songwriter and artist. It would be interesting to record music with international country artists. You always learn something new when working with other musicians. It really goes both ways. Which song of yours gets the best crowd response? "Country Music Only" is always a great song live. People also recognize that song and sing a long to the chorus. The song has gotten a lot of radio play all around the world. I’m happy to see that audiences enjoy my original songs. Is there a recent release you cannot stop listening to? I’m always in search of new music. I’m not that genre-oriented, I just look for songs that I enjoy. It’s definitely mostly country but give me some Latin or Swedish dansband music and I’m all into it. On my Spotify playlist right now: Old Crow Medicine Show - Volunteer Joshua Hedley - Mr. Jukebox larrypeninsula.com facebook.com/larrypeninsulaofficial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGK4-NYTs58
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