Sault musician offers a helping hand

When Vince Boschi saw some friends having a hard time through COVID-19, he was inspired to write a song and, through that song, reach out a helping hand for anyone who needed it.

"I just want people to know that they aren't alone. That there is help out there for them," he said.

SooToday spoke with Boschi in June when he released a song and video, Far Away, about social distancing and now he's back with a follow-up song about mental health issues so many people are experiencing.

"The timing for that was excellent," he said of his last song, Far Away, "COVID was new and we still didn't know what to expect."

Then he started to look around him and see many people talking about mental health crises they were going through.

"There's a lot about this out there, right now," Boschi said. "So I figured, you know what, maybe it's a good topic to write a song about. It talks about holding someone's hand through rough times."

"We all have our issues," he said. "I try to write the songs so that it's not localized to just one situation because I know that, as human beings, we all encounter these issues no matter what part of the world we're from."

Boschi is the creator behind the music and the video. He has a music studio in the basement of his home and also invested in video editing software, originally for family videos, but then decided to try his hand at making his own music video's too.

Songwriting is tougher than it looks, he said.

"But once you start getting the hang of it, you start asking yourself, 'what are you trying to tell everybody', Some songs are just okay to talk about a party or getting together and having a good time, but I'm the type of writer that likes to get a message out there. The message for this song is that we can help, that there's help out there. Mental wellness doesn't have to be just something you talk about every day. There's a lot of help, there's a lot of professionals out there. How do we get from point a to point b? My way is, let's offer a helping hand." 

For Boschi, songwriting starts with something personal, an event, something he sees or something he hears about, and, through the process of writing the song, he begins to reach out to the audience through and for music. 

He has another song ready to go and more in his head but is having trouble finding time between his work and home life to get them down.

He says he is also trying to step up his videography skills and his next personal challenge is a different sort of video. 

"One thing I haven't done, so far, is to just get in front of a camera with my guitar or keyboard and just sing a song," he said. "I'm beginning to think that's what I want to do next."