What’s your stage name and where are you from?

Paulo Ward is my artist name and Paulo and the Problems is my band. I’m originally from New Jersey, but currently live in Raleigh, NC.

What’s the story behind your stage name?

I have a very generic name, and it’d be hard for someone to find me. When I decided to create an artist name I decided to go with Paulo Ward because I had recently gotten my tax return check delivered with that name. At first I thought I just got the wrong person’s mail, but when I looked into it I couldn’t find anyone with that name. Somehow they just added the wrong name to my check. Since I wasn’t able to find anyone when searching I figured it was unique enough to use, and my friend’s and I thought it was pretty cool.

Describe your musical journey in three sentences.

My musical journey has been a long and steady race. Over the years I’ve tried to take a piece of every record I’ve purchased and make it a part of me. I’ve been able to take all of the experiences with me and find ways to use them in my own way.

Share an interesting experience you had while creating your latest track.

Well, the song almost got cut from the album. After we were done recording all the demos we were sorting through them to see which ones we wanted to keep and take back to the studio. I really liked Summer Rain, but it didn’t feel very strong. We decided to record it anyway just to see, and I’m glad we did. When recording the final version Mekfly’s vocal performance made the track. Once we had that we knew we had to take it more serious. We also went back and completely redid the guitars. This song went from being almost cut to everyone’s favorite in our focus group.

What message do you want to convey through your music?

I think at the heart of our music we really just want listeners see that even in a chaotic, fast-moving world, there’s beauty in slowing down. There’s so much fighting online and everyone has a us vs them mentality, but we want to invite you to escape the noise, embrace vulnerability, and find connection—whether through a late-night drive, a quiet moment alone, or a shared groove on the dance floor. It’s about crafting timeless vibes that feel both emotionally honest and visually rich, like flipping through an old photo album that somehow still speaks to your future.

Tell us about a challenge you faced during production and how you overcame it.

The biggest challenge with writing and recording this album was time management. I was committed to producing a few other albums for other artists at the time, and in my personal life my wife and I had our first child. It was hard to learn how to manage my time between three albums and spending time with my wife and daughter, but in the end it really just taught me how much time I wasted. Now, even though I have less time, everything is much more intentional and I’m way more productive.

If you could collaborate with any artist, who would it be and why?

This is a tough one, because there are so many talented artists out that I love, but if I could only choose one I think I’d go with Anderson .Paak. He just has such an effortless versatility to him and I could really hear him taking my music to another level.

Where do you see your music taking you in the next year?

I’ve been really happy with how everything’s been positioned over the last couple years for me and really the label I’m on as well. I’ve been able to do music full time for about 5 years now and love it, so I’d really just like to keep the momentum going. With my album coming out in July I’m really hoping it helps me build a stronger connection with fans. I think it’s easy to see them as just numbers, and I really don’t want to fall into that mindset. The label allowed me to press a huge amount of extra copies of the vinyl to do my own giveaways with over the next year and I really want to use that to get the record to as many people as possible for free as a huge thank you. I encourage anyone that’s interested to follow us or the label (Fogwood Records) on social media since there will be many opportunities to win a copy.

What’s the next big step for you as an artist?

I think it would be pursuing Paulo and the Problems a bit more. I’ve always been a behind the scenes guy. I love being in the studio creating. That’s why I usually don’t release my own music and just write/produce for other artists, but I’ve been really happy with sound we’ve created here and I think it’s time I stop being so shy.

Where can we hear/watch your most recent work?

https://pauloandtheproblems.bandcamp.com/album/stupid-sexy-paulo https://lnk.to/summer-rain