Victoria’s Jesse Roper strutted barefoot on stages all over Vancouver Island this summer playing his eclectic music. And although playing live as The Roper Show is what he loves to do, Roper says it’s very difficult to get recognized without traditional radio airplay.
“Mainstream radio is, from what I can tell, the best way to get out there, still,” says Roper from his van, parked just outside of Banff. “The internet is good, but it is very saturated.”
As a result of his music finally making it on the radio this past year, Roper was accepted to play almost every notable music festival on the island last summer, including Rock the Shores, Tall Tree, Rock the Woods, and Vicfest. Roper’s bluegrass-rock song “Yukon Girl” was a popular request, he saysÉ thanks to radio play.
“When my stuff came out on the Q, it was night-and-day difference from before,” says Roper. “All of a sudden people knew the song, and people were really looking forward to hearing the song when I played it at shows.”
Even though radio play is a goal, it isn’t always that easy to make music that follows the criteria of the typical successful song. It can be an arduous process of balancing one’s inspirations and what others want to hear, says Roper.
“I get told all the time, ‘Write a hit!’” says Roper. “If I could just do that, I would just do that. I don’t know how to write a hit.”
True to his bohemian style, the less-catchy song “Redbird” is the opposite of everything that he has been suggested to do. Redbird is also the title of his upcoming album, due in early 2015, and it should be full of surprises, as Roper chooses to throw caution to the wind and just write what he wants.
“This is all for me; that’s why I’m doing it,” says Roper, still groggy from an unexpected late-night show. “I wrote ‘Redbird’ so that I would have fun playing it. It’s definitely not something that plays on the radio… it’s not really catchy and hooky, but I kind of like it for that. It’s just a real expression of how I like to play.”
It’s likely Roper’s fans will continue to see the poncho-wearing guitarist stay true to his Metchosin roots by pursuing his career in a way that makes him happy. It’s a lesson for everyone to do what they love authentically, and to have faith in the creative process, he says.
“It’s hard to fight inspiration,” says Roper. “You kind of have to go with whatever’s coming into your mind at the time, or else it all just sounds, I don’t know, fake.”