LeRiche on his 'overwhelming, unforeseeable' musical career

LeRiche's EP, X-Dreamer, is racing up the German college radio charts, and it’s getting lots of airplay on CBC Music, college radio in the eastern United States, and online.

Have a First Listen to X-Dreamer by LeRiche

Heather Barrett · CBC News · Posted: Dec 04, 2018 6:00 PM EST | Last Updated: December 4, 2018

LeRiche's new EP is called X-Dreamer. (Courtesy LeRiche)

"The trajectory has been pretty overwhelming and unforeseeable," says LeRiche, of the international interest in his new EP, X-Dreamer.

X-Dreamer is racing up the German college radio charts, and it's getting lots of airplay on CBC Music, college radio in the eastern United States, and online.

Big break in 2016

LeRiche, also known as Brad LeRiche, is a singer-songwriter originally from Port aux Basques. He got a big break in early 2016, when a couple of Toronto music-industry insiders saw him sing and play guitar in a bar in downtown St. John's.

LeRiche followed up with those contacts, and recorded his debut EP, called Quiet Steady, in Toronto.

LeRiche credits his Toronto team, Big Story Entertainment, with helping him break into national and international markets, and advising him on which producers, radio stations, and influencers are the right fit for his indie-pop electronic sound.

"It's a lot of networking," said LeRiche. "Basically, if you find one radio station and make friends with them, you can get to know a lot of people who go through them and kind of learn their circuits."

European connections

LeRiche said his Toronto team has also connected him with a German music label called Pop-Up Records, and with Fierce Panda, a record label in the U.K. whose biggest act is Coldplay.

That led LeRiche to gigs at The Great Escape Music Festival in Brighton, U.K. in May of 2018, and the upcoming German College tour.

Local reconnections

LeRiche has also reconnected with friends and mentors on the local music scene, through his four 2018 MusicNL nominations and spending a productive MusicNL week in Twillingate in October.

He's hoping to bookend his German tour in January with performances in St. John's, and then head out to the United States later in 2019.

Before that, LeRiche has one more urgent task.

"I'm going to have to learn a couple of German phrases."

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