Reinis Jaunais is a traveling Latvian musician and guitarist whose passion is to play live, so he does it a lot. In 2019 alone, Reinis played 250 shows throughout Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. He had a break during the pandemic, but is now back on the road, bringing his family along on his musical adventures. We got the chance to chat with Reinis about his new album, travels and inspirations.
Sofar: It feels like you could write a book about your travel adventures, like organizing illegal raves in Amsterdam, getting arrested for sleeping next to a police station in Georgia, but then sharing a drink with the same policemen moments later. Is there a memory or a moment from your travels that stands out the most for you?
Reinis: When you go traveling without a destination in mind and on a very limited budget, you can be sure that there are going to be adventures. Once I was hitchhiking and ended up in Thessaloniki, Greece. I got there accidentally because of a language barrier. And I was walking around the town, looking for a place to stay, and then some punks who were skateboarding nearby said that I could stay with them. I even joined their punk band “The Coreys” for a couple of shows. Afterwards, I also helped the drummer arrange some gigs in the Baltics for his other band “Voodoo Healers”. So yes, I have many stories to tell. So maybe you’re right, maybe I should write a book. But then again, I feel like my songs and albums are my books.
In the past you’ve played in some punk and rock bands. When and how did you decide to go more into the acoustic genre?
The punk/rock scene has left a very big influence on me. Sometimes, when I perform with my full band, a few of our songs could be labeled as progressive rock or post-rock, or post-punk, even. But one of the reasons could be that some time ago I moved abroad and simply didn’t have my friends around me to form a band. So I started to play solo and discovered many great solo acoustic guitar players who inspired me. I tried to make my music sound like there’s a full band playing by using only one acoustic guitar. So, I guess traveling has played its part in this shift. It also helped me realize why I love music, as I was about to leave it behind completely. I was upset and went hitchhiking when one of my punk bands was splitting up.
And you re-discovered your love for music while traveling?
Yes, for example, once I went to a hippy event called the Rainbow Gathering and I met so many great musicians there with whom I was jamming all night long. So, I started to think about music a bit differently. Not as something that you need to perform seamlessly and be judged for every single mistake you make, but rather as a form of expressing freedom. After these hitchhiking trips, living abroad and jamming with many great and talented musicians my love for music returned. I found new strength to practice and to dedicate myself to finishing things I’ve started.
You have a new album out, Vārdi (“Words”), where you collaborated with various poets, as well as Erna Daugaviete on cello. Could you tell us a bit more about the album, the concept and the story behind it?
I used various poems as song lyrics. This is the first album where I sing on every song, so it’s my first album that doesn’t fall into the category of instrumental music. The songs are in Latvian, but when I was working on them, I was also thinking about the people who won’t understand the lyrics, so I tried my best to make the instrumentation and song arrangements as interesting as possible.
How was it working with poems written by other people? How did you manage to translate their stories and emotions and combine them with your music?
Most of the poets are my friends and I’ve had this idea for a long time. It wasn’t that hard to come up with the music for the poems I chose. It was harder to find them initially, so I went through many poetry books. There were also some wonderful poems that I found and that I wanted to put into songs, but I just couldn’t find a way to add music to them. Yet, some others came very quickly, but then the process of arranging and recording took more than a year. And whenever I work on new music, I try to experiment with different sounds, instrumentation, even musical styles. I wouldn’t want to repeat myself and make two albums that would sound too much alike.
I know that you mostly tour and travel together with your family – your wife and two kids. It must be very rewarding to play music, travel, and still see your family every day, but it must also have its challenges. How do you find being on the road with them for such long periods of time?
We try to make some compromises about where we want to go, how long we want to travel and how many days off we should have. Playing 250 shows while traveling with your family can be a bit too much, I must say. And the hardest part is actually not the show, but the traveling in between, especially for the kids. So we make compromises. I got back to playing on the streets, so we wouldn’t have to drive so much every day and could stay in the same town for a couple of days longer. Also, traveling in our own van helps, because kids have their own space in there, as opposed to driving with smaller cars and staying in different rooms every night, which we did in the past. But now we have our own little home on wheels and that helps. It can be challenging sometimes, but it’s not impossible.
Interview by Kristaps Bedritis
Photo credit: Reinis Jaunais & Erna Daugaviete performing at Sofar Riga, photo by Alvils Ronalds Bijons
