![\"Jesse](\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Jesse-Roper-5_Credit_AlSmith_VIC42.jpg\")
<\/a>Roper\u2019s current tour is giving all proceeds from his new album, Food for a Day Acoustic Sessions<\/i>, to support Our Place, a homeless shelter in Victoria (proceeds from the sale of the album go to Our Place as well).<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, you walk around downtown Victoria and [homelessness] is obviously a problem,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd you can\u2019t ignore it because it\u2019s everywhere. I thought with the album it would be a nice way to give back to the community a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roper grew up fortunate enough: he played hockey, went to school, and never missed a meal. But realization struck when he moved out on his own.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never really thought about where that was coming from until I left home,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I\u2019m definitely not rich now, that\u2019s for sure. It was just the first thing that came to my mind when this whole idea of putting a charity [album] together started. So I think now that I\u2019ve got that going, I\u2019d like to head more in that direction, but do it more towards the education side of things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roper\u2019s current tour, which finds him playing a lot of house shows, is a shift from his normal festival schedule, but he\u2019s enjoying every minute of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never done a house concert tour before, and I didn\u2019t know exactly what that entailed,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I\u2019ve been showing up at people\u2019s houses and they\u2019ll have a big steak dinner made and everybody\u2019s interested in what you\u2019re doing, and everybody\u2019s talking. It\u2019s such a treat. I play at lots of big festivals, and that\u2019s very exciting, but this is such a refreshing tour, because I\u2019m just by myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drawing inspiration for music from daily life, Roper stays on top of current events and sings about the things that matter to him the most.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can be all kinds of things,\u201d he says. \u201cI mean, heartbreak is always a good one; love is also on the other side of the coin, too. In the news, you see all these stories of Syria and things like that. I also read a lot of novels about wartimes; that grabs my attention. I find myself writing about that a little bit, and the shootings down in the states.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roper, still breathing hard at this point in the interview, shifts subjects when he realizes a more immediate concern in his life<\/p>\n
\u201cUm, I think I\u2019ve taken the wrong trail down this mountain path,\u201d he says. \u201cAw, shit… I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m going the right way or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s hope he made it out of there before the sun went down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When singer\/songwriter Jesse Roper calls me to start our interview to chat about his new benefit album and tour, something seems off right away: he\u2019s completely out of breath. \u201cHi, it\u2019s Jesse Roper here, and I\u2019m on a little hike,\u201d he says, panting, making it difficult to make out his words. Roper, who is from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,154],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-november-4-2015"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t