Raphael Roberge, a Montreal-based artist, has just released his new single “Break my own heart”.
During the pandemic, Roberge was sharing covers once a week and singing live on Facebook. Now he’s focusing on original music. After writing many songs, he’s heading to the studio this month to bring some of his favourites to life and put them on his upcoming EP.
“The EP is really centred around love, which is a topic that is a little cliche, but I think I have some songs that kind of have a nice twist on stereotypes and stuff like that. I think “Break my own heart” was really interesting because it’s like you don’t want to hurt the other person, so you’d rather break your own heart than to break his” Roberge said.
His songs take the topic of love into new, vulnerable directions. Now he’s currently deciding which songs to cut, which ones to record, and which ones to release next.
He’s really grateful for the collaboration that his song’s lyrics go through. He’ll go to a songwriting session to pitch an idea and work on it with others.”One time I went into a session and was like oh, I kind of want to write a song about how my ex is dating someone who kind of looks like me,” Roberge said. His ideas are creative and bring on new, unexpected perspectives.
He’s planning to focus on English songs but wants to release a couple of French songs now and then.
“It’s weird because I’m a francophone, but writing in English is so much more natural to me. It’s easier. I’ll get ideas more in English more than in French because I feel in French it’s really easy to be cheesy. I also think the type of music that I want to make it more suited for English than for French. That’s a really big decision. I also want to broaden my horizons and try maybe Toronto, or Vancouver and why not the United States, you never know […] but I’m not turning my back to French.
When Roberge was 9 or 10, he was inspired by Kirsty Swanson, after watching Buffy ‘The Vampire Slayer’, and wanted to become an actor. His parents signed him up for an agency, and he’s been acting ever since. He acted in the newly released movie ‘The Exchange’, as a French Student. For his role, he had to fake a French accent in English. You can see him in many French Quebec TV series as well.
“I definitely like to mesh the two [singing and acting] together” he said.
Roberge also started singing from a young age. When he was 12, he started taking vocal lessons and has been training off and on since.
A couple of years ago, he played Peter Pan in a children’s musical. He also likes to sing live and although most venues are closed due to COVID restrictions, he recently sang live for a retirement home.
“In the future for sure I’d like to do musicals, and maybe act in my music videos too. I think that would be really cool. For now, I’m really focusing on music, but I still have auditions, and I still do self-tapes for movies, TV series and commercials. I’m definitely working hard on both fronts, it’s just that music is something that I can push myself, while acting is something you get hired to do” Roberge said. “Music is something that I can move forward myself.”
In this upcoming year, Roberge has big plans, including live shows and EP song releases. This November he’s recording an upbeat pop song, that’s name has not been released yet. The song will be released in April next year and he’s hoping to create a video for it as well,
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