A Chat with Luc Letourneau (14.05.26)
Luc Letourneau crafts a raw, atmospheric brand of alternative folk that feels like a cinematic awakening to the modern world. With a voice that balances grit and vulnerability, his music is a collision of folk-protest honesty and indie-alt depth, grounded in acoustic storytelling yet charged with youthful energy. His debut album, Next Life / One More Day Like This, is a rare combination of raw honesty and intellectual friction. We chat with Luc Letourneau below.
OSR: Your idea of the ‘premature spark’ pushes against the industry’s obsession with polish. Was there a specific moment or frustration that made you commit to capturing songs in their rawest state?
Luc Letourneau: I think there’s a real drive in art right now to push away from a polished look. It feels like a revolution against the AI movement, which can make everything look and sound super perfect. It makes you ask: why do we even want perfect art anymore? I’d rather have the human element visible within the work. It ties back to the ‘premature spark’ – the idea that the original version captures the true essence of the song. As you continue to polish a track, you often lose the rawness and uniqueness that was there at the exact moment of creation.
OSR: Next Life / One More Day Like This feels like a critique of ‘autopilot’ living. How much of the album came from personal experience versus observing the world around you?
Luc Letourneau: It’s a mix of both personal experience and observation. You really see it when you’re in a rut and a moment of change forces you to look back and realize time was just passing – you were just doing things without even really thinking about it. For me, that feeling was tied to moving through adolescence and school. It is a monumental change when you move out of those systems and realize how much societal pressure there is to create this ‘perfect story of success’ or to compete with everyone else to outdo the previous generation. The ‘Boulder bubble’ definitely influenced that perspective as well. It often feels like people are living in their own mini-worlds, just drifting through the same opinions. The album reflects that moment where the autopilot switches off, and you’re forced to stop, look back, and finally find your own individuality and rhythm again.
OSR: There’s a tension in your music between folk tradition and indie experimentation. How do you navigate honouring those roots while still pushing into something more contemporary?
Luc Letourneau: Contemporary sounds and roots are both the same and not. There’s a sound I’m always trying to achieve that aligns with artists in the indie and folk singer-songwriter space. I take pieces of their sound and mix them with my own vision. I don’t want to sound exactly like them or do exactly what they’re doing – they can do what they do better than I ever could. I want to try something that is unique to me and slightly different. By creating my own sound, I’m still honoring those roots. Those artists were the ones who first established those sounds; I’m just replicating them and shifting them into something new.”
OSR: On ‘Awesomest Man’, you wrestle pretty directly with faith and identity. Did that song come from a place of confrontation, or was it more of a slow, internal unravelling?
Luc Letourneau: I’d say it’s a bit of both. It initially started with confrontation, and you can hear that in the verses. I didn’t write the song in a mismatched way; it follows a verse-chorus-verse structure where the initial confrontation eventually unfolds into what I was really thinking. Confrontation was the main inspiration and the spark, but once you start writing about a subject, you naturally begin to self-reflect and dig deeper. That’s what happened with this track – it started as a confrontation, but the act of putting words down allowed me to get deeper into the thoughts behind the emotion.”
OSR: The album often resists resolution, thematically and musically. Do you see ambiguity as a creative choice, or is it simply an honest reflection of where you are right now?
Luc Letourneau: With most topics or subjects, there is no end result. You only really get an end result in fiction or when something isn’t real. If you’re writing about anything that is actually happening, it isn’t going to have a clean, final chapter. In reality, there is never a true ending, and that is what my writing reflects. I don’t always know what is going to happen next, or even how I’ll feel about a song tomorrow. If you are truly reflecting on life, your thoughts should constantly be changing and progressing. I’ve always felt that imperfection is more human, and trying to force a resolution feels like moving away from the ‘primitive’ truth of the emotion I’m trying to capture. Just as my songs are often lulls or outbursts of energy without a polished finish, the themes remain open because that’s the only way to stay honest to the moment.”
OSR: Recording in Boulder seems to have shaped the record’s atmosphere. How did the environment influence the sound and pacing of the album?
Luc Letourneau: Living in the ‘Boulder bubble’ created a sort of autopilot lifestyle where every day felt repetitive and peaceful; nothing super crazy happened. That is what happens when you live in a privileged area – you don’t really realize what is occurring outside of the space you’re in. Once I reflected on that, it made me realize where I was living and sparked a desire for change. I found myself wanting to move, to see different areas, and to experience different things. This environment directly shaped the record’s atmosphere. The repetitive, peaceful nature of the city fed into the ‘autopilot’ theme I wanted to critique, while the quiet provided space for the ‘lulls’ and introspective moments in the music. It represents that specific point in time where I was forced to stop and look back at the rhythm I was in, realizing I needed to break out of that bubble to find my own individuality.
OSR: Your vocal delivery carries both grit and vulnerability. How conscious are you of your voice as a storytelling tool versus just letting it react instinctively to the material?
Luc Letourneau: I know that the voice has a very profound effect on music, tone, and how a song feels overall. However, when I’m writing, I’m not super conscious of it. If I were overthinking the delivery while creating, it would be challenging to balance everything. Most of the time, I just let it react instinctively. I focus on how the voice fits with the guitar and how it functions instrumentally – trying to find that space where it blends with the other instruments but still has moments where it ‘eeks out’ and makes its point. It goes back to that primitive sense of emotion; if the song needs that loud energy or a quiet lull, I just let the voice follow the feeling of the music rather than trying to force a specific performance.”
OSR: There’s a sense that these songs are ‘caught’ rather than constructed. Were there moments where you had to resist the urge to refine or rework something further?
Luc Letourneau: I’ve learned over the years that when you have that initial feeling or inspiration for a song, it’s best to overwrite. If you capture as much as possible in the moment, you aren’t forced to edit or rework it in a completely different direction later. Having a large amount of material allows you to gauge exactly how the song felt during that specific time, so you can keep it within that same realm. When I’m revisiting songs, the process is about refining that original spark rather than reconstructing it. It’s definitely going to change a bit, and I’ll probably cut things out that, in the moment, I thought were my favorite parts. But sometimes that’s just what you have to do to preserve the essence of what you caught in the first place.
OSR: You’re drawing comparisons to artists known for deeply personal, image-rich songwriting. How do you approach writing lyrics that feel specific without becoming overly self-contained?
Luc Letourneau: This ties back to why I seek out ambiguity and avoid having a final ‘end’ to the story. The more vague you make a song, the more easily it can connect with a wide audience. I try to play around with that balance. There is a fine line: you want to be specific enough to tell a real story, but you also want an end emotion or thought that connects to others. It’s that classic idea that you aren’t alone and everyone has felt these things before – whether it’s heartbreak or sadness. That connection is incredibly powerful. It’s exactly what I seek out in the music I listen to and what I try to do in my own work: make it specific, but also vague enough to let people in.”
OSR: As a debut, this album feels less like a statement and more like an open-ended conversation. Where do you see that conversation heading next? Do you imagine building on this rawness, or pushing against it?
Luc Letourneau: I don’t think I’ll try to recreate Next Life, but my writing style remains rooted in that same space. I feel like I’m advancing emotionally and as a songwriter; after completing this debut, I feel much more capable of writing music and better at the craft than I was before. I don’t imagine I’ll push against the rawness of this album, though it’s an interesting thought to consider. I’ll likely stay the same in that regard – building upon that vulnerability and emotional connection rather than moving away from it. I’m already exploring that through new material, including a series of new songs and even an instrumental EP, which allows me to maintain that same core while seeing where else the music can go.
Many thanks to Luc Letourneau for speaking with us. Find out more about Luc Letourneau on his official website, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Spotify.
