Interview: Peach Pit

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Photo: Mackenzie Walker

Hailing from the depths of Canada, Vancouver quartet Peach Pit have been making waves with their indie-cum-psychedelic musings ever since their debut EP, Sweet FA hit the airwaves in 2016. Prevalent on the scene for their witty lamentations and infectious guitar and bass lines, six years on, the group are now three full-length records in and show no signs of slowing down.

Peach Pit are: Neil Smith (Vocals, guitar), Chris Vanderkooy (guitar), Peter Wilson (bass) and Mikey Pascuzzi (drums).

Having just experienced the magical prowess of their live performance at Manchester’s Albert Hall just days before, I sat down with three quarters of the band (minus Mikey) to discuss their most recent record, From 2 To 3, and how sold-out tour life is treating them.

The Indiependent: Hey! How are you guys doing?

Peach Pit: Super great. We had an awesome show in London last night. And then today, we’ve just been doing a bunch of interviews and stuff and hanging out at the Sony offices here. So it’s nice, ya

The Indiependent: How did you find your UK tour?

Peach Pit: Oh, amazing. Like, best honestly, like, the crowds over here are kind of unmatched in a lot of ways, like the energy that the people bring to the shows. It doesn’t matter if it’s Monday night, or if it’s Saturday night, people are going to come out and party.

The Indiependent:  Do you have a favourite night that you guys played? Is there one that stands out?

Peach Pit: Last night [London’ – for sure. I mean, we had all of the shows were amazing – there was something special about last night for us. We kind of walked offstage, just like all with huge smiles on our faces. We just had so much fun. Yeah, like when we last time we came to the UK, we were playing rooms, like third of this size, if not smaller, and then now we’re playing rooms this size. And we I think we sold every one of them out. And we’ve never done that before. So it feels like a lot of firsts. And it feels really overwhelming for that reason.

The Indiependent: I saw you guys in Manchester in late 2017 and I came to the show this week!

Peach Pit: Thank you. Yeah, that was one of the shows that was just like Unreal as well. Like the energy was crazy.

The Indiependent: How’s touring been? What have you guys been doing to keep yourself sane on the road for so long?

Peach Pit: Well, you know, the first portion of our tour that was in Canada and the US was really chill because it was our first proper bus tour. So we were on a tour bus, we had our bunks, we got to sleep all like, you know, ten hours a night if we wanted to. It was so much fun. You know, you just like you play a show the bus leaves at 3am you party on the bus, you go to sleep, you wake up, and you’re just like in the next city already parked out front of the venue.

It’s almost like you’re time travelling or something because you’re just like one day you’re in Chicago, the next day you wake up and you’re in Detroit and you don’t have to like deal with any of the travel. So, the first portion of the tour was actually really chill and super fun. And then we come over to the UK and we didn’t have a bus this tour for this one, we just rent a van. And it’s we forgot it’s such hard work. You know, you’re playing shows super late, and you get back to the hotel and you have to wake up super early, then you have to drive four hours to the next city. So yeah, we’re having fun, but we’re definitely tired. Definitely.

The Indiependent: Sounds like you guys need a break! You’re going to Europe now right? When’s the next show that you’re playing?

Peach Pit: We’re playing in Paris tomorrow night.

The Indiependent: Have you been to Paris before?

Peach Pit: Yeah, this will be our third time playing in Paris. You just hop in the tunnel, and then all of a sudden you’re in France. I think we spent Valentine’s Day there together. It was really romantic; our girlfriends were really angry about it. But we had a good time.

The Indiependent:  Do you have like any fun tour stories then that you can tell me? What’s the most exciting thing that’s happened on tour?

Peach Pit: In LA Peter got food poisoning and was wearing a diaper on stage. You [He] played the show in the height of the sickness and so was on a chair with a bucket besides throwing up between every song. I thought it was like the most rock and roll thing that literally are gone. It was pretty cool. Yeah,

The Indiependent: You recently released your third record, From Two To Three – talk to me about that!

Peach Pit: We wrote the record right after our second album because the world locked down. There was nothing to do but make another record, we went into the studio. And because of all the lock downs that were happening, our producer Robbie, he couldn’t come to Vancouver. So, we had to produce the record over zoom with him just like we’re doing right now we’re talking over zoom, we made a whole record over zoom. Yeah, we were super anxious about it before going into the studio, but it actually ended up being fantastic. Robbie got to hang out at his home studio with his, you know, five-year-old son who was also at home with him. And so it was really cool because he got to spend time with his family while making a record.

And in a weird way, we kind of got invited into that home studio space, because his five-year-old would be like dancing to the newest mix of our song behind his Dad on Zoom, and then once the song finished, he would tell us what he thought of it. And like a five-year-olds opinion, we’ve learned is actually really valuable. There are elements of doing it that way that we’ve never would have gotten from doing it the traditional way. So, it really ended up being beneficial for us.

The Indiependent:  Well, if a five-year-old likes your album, I suppose that’s the starting point to go off, isn’t it? My favourite track off the album is ‘Vickie’, and you mentioned in an interview that it’s actually about one of your friends from back home. What’s the story behind it?

Neil: Yeah, so Vickie is one of my best buds. She’s an artist, so she gave me this beautiful painting for my birthday, and then maybe six months later, I was hanging out with her, and, and she was saying, “You know, Neil, I’ve I’ve been friends with lots of musicians and songwriters. And I’ve dated musicians. And I just I’ve always wanted somebody to write a song about me”, kind of like, you know, wink wink, nudge, nudge or whatever. And so, her birthday was coming up and I was like, “Okay, I’m gonna write a song for Vickie”.

I was gonna grab a pop song from the radio and change the words to make a funny birthday song for her – but I couldn’t figure it out, like I couldn’t choose a song. But I had this idea already in my phone of a song that was going to start with the line “if you lived right down the street”. So I decided, “Okay, I’m gonna write a song about what it would be like if Vickie lived next door to me” and I tried to write it from like a super honest perspective. You know, I kind of make fun of her for it. I talked about how you know if she lived next door, I would always have weed because she’s stoner so she’d always hook me up with some weed if I needed to smoke up. But at the same time, you know, if she ever had boy problems, I know she’d be coming over to my house and you know, complaining to me and stuff. And so anyway, I just tried to write a really kind of honest song about what our friendship is like, and anyway, I gave it to her as a birthday present. I didn’t necessarily intend for it to end up on one of our records but after I wrote the song, I just realised I really liked it so we decided to put it on our album.

The Indiependent: That’s really sweet, one of my best friends actually just wrote about a song about me about my really bad taste in men.

Peach Pit: See exactly that’s what friends are for, to diss you on your birthday?

The Indiependent: Yeah! Exactly! So do you guys have like a favourite track off the album then?

Neil: It definitely changes a lot I think the most maybe fun one to play live recently has been ‘Give Up Baby Go’ I’ve been really enjoying playing that one. Peter What about you?

Peter: Yeah, I would say I really liked the song ‘Everything About You’, we’re playing it in the Encore and it’s kind of one that like I think maybe gets like less crowd hype, but I really enjoy that song and I love it.

I remember we kind of wrote that one in studio and like our third time playing it through ended up being the tape we used for the recording. And once we got it all finished, I remember just being like, whoa, this song feels special. And I remember Robbie, our producer is just like if you get to feel that way about one song in your entire career. Consider yourself lucky. So, like that memory sticks in my head as being like a really sweet moment.

The Indiependent: Are there any tracks that didn’t make the album that we might get to hear in future?

Peach Pit: Yeah, actually, no, there was one! We were nearing the end of our recording process, and we had some extra time we basically had the record done but Mikey had written basically an electronic song on GarageBand just like making beats and stuff, and so we recorded like a live version of it. It just kind of never got finished, but maybe it’ll end up on something in future.

The Indiependent: One of the things I love about your guy’s music is there’s quite a lot of satire and wit andyou don’t shy away from talking about getting wasted and stoned all the time. Do you think it’s important for musicians to be honest through their music?

Peach Pit: Um, I don’t know if it’s necessarily important, I just kind of like to do it, mostly because I find it’s just easiest for me to write about things that I know really well. So, if I don’t have to, like make anything up, and I can just sing about maybe kind of like more factual stuff, and just a little bit easier for me to write songs. And it’s just I like to write from that perspective. You know, yeah, I don’t know if it necessarily being honest, is super important. I think it’s just kind of my process for writing lyrics. I just, I like to kind of share that side of myself. Also, for me, I you know, the songs are honest, they feel honest to me. And when I listen to them back, or when I play them, I know exactly what I’m singing about. So, they are honest. But I think for anyone listening to our music, it might as well be fiction, because they don’t know exactly. Or whatever. So yeah, for me, it’s just a I don’t know, I started writing songs that way. And I just kind of kind of stuck.

The Indiependent: So, talking about the writing process has the way you written songs or you produce things creatively changed since the you debut release Sweet FA?

Peach Pit: I think the biggest thing is that we’ve become a lot more collaborative than maybe we were in the early days, you know, we were always collaborative to some extent as far as people producing their own parts, you know, Chris writing all of his own guitar parts, Peter writing his bass parts, Mike, you know writing his drum parts. We work on arrangement a lot together.

But I think on this record, it was we kind of went into the studio with some of the songs were more bare bones than they ever had been before. We had like, a lot more collaboration, kind of just write in the recording studio. And it worked really well. I think it just made recording more fun, it made the writing more fun. And it just like, has kept us all super involved in the music that we’re making.

For example, like, you know, I’m [Neil] basically the primary kind of songwriter for the band. But, Peter has written things that have kind of turned into songs. And then on this record for the first time, Chris wrote the song called ‘Lookout’.

The Indiependent: Do you guys have any new music in the works at the minute?

Peach Pit: No releases planned, but I know Chris is working on music. I’m working on music Peters working on music, and it’s kind of all just like an ongoing thing that we’re, we always kind of are thinking about it in the back of our mind. Once w;ve finished this tour, we’re going to head home and, and try to like, write some songs together and get things ready for another album, because yeah, we love releasing music – right now is the voice notes process. Constantly, like just riffing and find something that you like, or you know, if you hear a melody in your head, sing it to your. But you got to build up quite the arsenal of those little voice notes to draw from once you do get writing.

The Indiependent: Is that what you’ve got planned for the rest of the year – just keep writing music?

Peach Pit: Yeah, totally. I think we’re going to be perpetually in the cycle of writing, recording, touring, writing, recording, touring for I mean, basically, as long as we can do it for because, you know, things are going good for us right now.

The Indiependent: I mean, it’s not a bad cycle to be stuck in.

Peach Pit: It’s not bad at all. It’s definitely the dream.

The Indiependent: In terms of music in general, have there been any releases that have particularly piqued your interest?

Peach Pit: Honestly, we’ve been so busy working on getting ready for our tour recording and actually touring. And when we’re kind of in that mode, I mean, I don’t listen to any music at all. Like I just turn my brain off and like watch YouTube videos about golf or something.

The Indiependent: Well, if there’s one, you should listen to Harry Styles. His new album came out today!

Neil: I love Harry. I want to meet him because we have the same birthday. So I want to I want to hang out with them.

The Indiependent: I don’t want to hang out with him because I felt like if I met him, I’d fall in love with them. And then I’d just die of heartbreak.

Neil: Yeah, the supermodel version of me, Peter says.


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