INTERVIEW: @MikePeralta sits down with Daily News in first ever chat

In his first ever exclusive chat with Daily News,  singer Mike Peralta chatted with us over Super Bowl weekend more than ready to introduce himself to our massive readership. It was nice to interview you Mike!

1.) How did you get started in music?

1. My grandpa used to play a big old acoustic guitar for us when we were kids, and eventually he started to teach me at family hangouts. I got barely good enough to play and sing at the same time, for a small number of songs. The summer before my junior year in highschool, a girl I had a slight crush on died during a boating accident on vacation with her family. I wrote my first real song after the funeral, and have been playing in bands ever since.

2.) This is your first time in Daily News, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

2. Wuddup! My name is Mike Peralta, and I’m a Singer/Songwriter from Southern California. You can hear all my music for free at http://MikePeralta.com/Listen  … and get free Mp3s just for signing up to my newsletter.

3.) Your most successful single to date yet, is what? And why? How does your success make you feel?

3. My most successful single seems to still be “A Story Forever”. I get great feedback and even some sales to this day. That was a special song that I saved in my back pocket for quite awhile before releasing. It was almost too dear to me to let go of, for awhile. To know that it has touched others is a real treat. Plus it usually gets people when I play live, woot!

4.) What can we expect from you in the future?

4. I just released a new music video for my song “I Heard”, and I’m hoping to do more videos in 2013. Also I’ve slacked a bit on single releases, so I’d like to do more of those too this year.

5.)  What’s most important to you as an artist?
5. Probably just being able to tell my story, whether it’s direct or implied. Putting it all out there is therapeutic. When something I’ve written touches someone’s heart, it brings us all together, and feels like we’re a part of something larger than life; Tangible, yet indefinable.

6.) How important are your fans, and fan-feedback to your career?
6. Fans are THE most important thing! I would be nowhere without my fans; Nowhere at all! My fans inspire me to do more every day, lift me up when I’m feeling down, and give me purpose. That is in addition to the fact that fans make other people …. into fans! I have several fans who have turned into real friends over the years. If I go even one day without hearing from a fan on some level, I start feeling … somehow useless, or less important.

7.) How does your family feel about your music career? Do they know you’ve reached a peak of success?

7. I don’t think you can really call what I have now a ‘peak of success’ by any means. I still have worlds further to progress in this crazy game, including but not limited to getting off my ass and gigging more often, and pursuing more media coverage rather than hanging out on facebook while I wait for it all to come to me. I do have a tendency to brag to my family, but they also don’t hear half the stuff that goes down in my music career. It’s kind of like, people usually see my website/socials, with all my friends and fans, releases, photos, videos, interviews, etc etc and have a tendency to think “Wow!!!!” … meanwhile my family knows me mostly as the guy who smells his socks in the morning in order to decide if he needs a shower.

8.) If you could feature any musician on a single of yours, who would it be and why?

8. I’m not sure. There are so many fun choices, but perhaps someone who has made themselves indie famous through youtube, like the Boyce dudes, or Luke Conard… or how about some beautiful single female singer songwriter, so we could fall in love and spend our lives roaming the country playing gigs together and making sweet sweet love. Or something.

9.) What don’t you like about the music industry?

9. I think at this point I’ve finally accepted that perception of value is value, and that “successful” music doesn’t mean better music. It just means the people behind that music were better at business/marketing/networking/etc, and/or had more money backing it up. At first I thought this meant mainstream successful music was somehow inferior. Now I think I realize that commercial success doesn’t make music better or worse; It’s just the financial/popularity side of things. What I still resent is not having won the lottery by now, so I can fund my own marketing, DOH!

10.) Are you planning on signing a record deal? Have you searched for a record company?

10. I have no plans to sign a record deal at this point. For quite awhile now, probably due to the internet, musicians have been realizing just how crappy most record deals are. You lose many or most of your rights including creative freedom. You get an incredibly small cut of the profits to your own creations while most of it goes to the record company. On top of that, it is your share of the profits as opposed to the larger one enjoyed by the record company, that has to flip the bill for most of the cost associated with promoting your music to make that money in the first place. Combine that with the tiny chance of becoming an actual superstar vs risk of getting shelved (where the record company doesn’t promote you, but still doesn’t allow you to leave), and it’s just not that great of a deal. I once personally knew a drummer, who was in a band I won’t name, signed to a major label I won’t name, who revealed to me how his band’s album went platinum, and yet were still over 1 million dollars in debt against the record company’s recoupable expenses. That means they got paid a yearly signing bonus, and nothing else, while their CD made their label rich.

Granted, IF the label loved me so much that they actually did promote me, a deal could still be a boost to my career. I just understand that the deals out there aren’t great anymore. I could easily end up famous yet penniless. I think I’d rather take my chances on my own.