Peter Pashoukos – Thanks for Asking!

Peter Pashoukos – Thanks for Asking! – by Liam Sweeny.

RRX: Music genres are difficult for some artists. What is your perspective on the genre you play, or the genres you hover around?

PP: I’ve never really felt like genre was something to aim at. It feels more like a side effect. I’m interested in feel, space, and honesty more than fitting into a lane. I hover around styles rather than living inside one — jazz, rock, folk, whatever’s useful — but I’m less concerned with what it’s called and more concerned with whether it feels inevitable when it’s played. If the music sounds honest, the genre question kind of answers itself afterward.

RRX: What do you think is the most poorly understood thing about music, or the music you play?

PP: I think people underestimate how much music is about listening in real time, not execution. The notes matter, but the space between them matters more. Especially in improvised or feel-based music, the real work is restraint — knowing when not to play, when to let something breathe, when to let someone else speak. That part doesn’t show up on paper, but you can feel it immediately when it’s missing.

RRX: What can you say about your influences, and what you feel you’ve done with their influence as a musician? Have you extended their work?

PP: My influences weren’t just about sound — they were about permission. Permission to leave space, to take risks, to let things be imperfect but alive. I don’t think extending someone’s work means copying what they did; it means absorbing the principle behind it and letting it come out differently through your own experience. If I’ve done anything with my influences, I hope it’s that — letting them echo forward rather than backward.

RRX: Tell me about your most recent song or album. Not the process, but a cool story that took place within the process.

PP: One of the most meaningful moments wasn’t musical at all. It was realizing, partway through, that a song I thought was about one thing was actually about something else entirely — and that I’d been circling it without admitting it to myself. Once that clicked, the song finished itself pretty quickly. It was one of those moments where you realize the music knew before you did.

RRX: Is there anyone who has passed that you feel you have immortalized in your work?

PP: Yes, though not always directly or literally. Sometimes it’s less about writing about someone and more about carrying a feeling forward — a way of seeing the world, a tone, a patience. Music is one of the few places where presence doesn’t end when someone’s gone. You can still hear them in the way a note hangs or resolves. That feels like a quiet kind of immortality.

RRX: What would you like fans to know before they come to see you play? (No basic stuff; get specific.)

PP: Come ready to listen, not just to watch. Some parts might be subtle, some parts might stretch a little, and that’s intentional. It’s not about volume or spectacle — it’s about shared attention. If you lean in, even just a bit, the music tends to meet you there.

Photo cred: Maps Modeling NYC

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