A Whitehorse musician’s journey from classical to punk rock – CBC.ca

This story is part of a web series called Music that Matters with CBC Yukon’s Airplay host Dave White. Dave sits down with Yukoners to talk about five pieces of music that inspire them. 

Most Yukoners are familiar with Graeme Peters and his band Speed Control.

They’ve been entertaining audiences all over the territory with their wild, energetic over-the-top shows for a while now.

To look at the band jumping around and tearing through songs at a breakneck pace, you wouldn’t for a moment believe vocalist and guitarist Peters started out as a classical musician. 

He decided to use his five Music That Matters choices to explain how he got here from there.

“The first song I chose was actually from the very first CD I ever owned,” he said. “I won it at the Rotary Music Festival when I was 10, and we didn’t even have a CD player so I didn’t actually get to listen to it for a whole year.”

His choice was C Jam Blues from the Oscar Peterson Trio.

“I had never heard jazz before, I had only ever heard classical music so I was like: what is this?” Peters said.

“Later on when I was at the University of Toronto in the jazz program I ended up transcribing the entire solo as a project … that’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life.”

His next choice marks another big shift in his musical education, and this came from his grandmother, who for some reason chose American punk band MxPx for her grandchild.

“I had never heard punk rock before and when we put [it] in the stereo system my mom just said ‘what is this garbage,'” Peters recalled.

“That’s when I decided I really wanted to be in a rock band, but it didn’t happen for another 10 years.”

His third choice was another surprise, a track from a Johnny Cash CD he picked up at a gas station in Saskatchewan when he was touring with the Peters Drury jazz combo.

“I’d never really heard Johnny Cash before,” he said. “Then I bought his autobiography and learned all about this man and his legend.”

American band Jimmy Eat World provided his fourth choice. 

“Their biggest hit was called The Middle,” he said. “I remember my buddy had a bootleg copy of the album before it was even released … it’s a great album if you like a lot of powerful singalong radio hits.”

Peters went classic rock for his final choice, Take It Easy by seminal California country rockers the Eagles.

“A couple of years ago I got a call from a friend and she said I have floor tickets to The Doobie Brothers and the Eagles this weekend,” he said. He promptly got some time off work and was subsequently blown away by both acts.

“The first song [the Eagles] played was Take It Easy: 60,000 fans singing along and they played for three-and-a-half hours without stopping. They’re legends, and this was the first song they played.”