The Peeks warm your ears with gentle melancholic acoustic guitars and an angelic voice that is haunting, rich and mesmerizing. They will make you fall in love and cry all at once. There’s hints of Leonard Cohen and Bon Iver but an Australian tint colour the music in a beautiful unique way.
They release they’re debut album Grow Up/Grow Down and we had a chat with singer Fraser Henry about the influences on this album and about their national tour.
They launch Grow Up/Grow Down at Ding Dong Lounge with JP Klipspringer & Alexander Biggs July 30th.
It’s been mentioned that your music could soundtrack the Australian Outback and that it has a soundscape quality. Do you take inspiration from your environment much? Is this why people are getting this vibe from your music?
Those were some very kind words from Dom Alessio that made me laugh. It’s an interesting comment, I’d say we have a very organic Australian sound. A lot of my imagery and lyrics come from my youth. Growing up watching Blinky Bill, collecting those delicious chocolate Yowie toys, camping beside the Upper Goulburn River where I once caught a Kookaburra with a fishing net and listening to so many great Aussie artists - Xavier Rudd, Lior, Missy Higgins, Silverchair, Something for Kate. I’m proud of the Australia landscape, the people within it, so I guess that flows through my being and my music. It always has and will inspire my writing.
How do new sceneries reflect in your music? Do you tour much? Does the road and new locations inspire your music much?
Places and people are my biggest musical influence. I think travelling and immersing myself within new sceneries are really important in growing and inspiring my new ideas and stories. A lot of my songs come from moments in time and place. ‘Gemstones’ off the new album instantly takes me back to a train ride I took between Prague and Hamburg a few years ago. The river, mountains and houses really stuck in my brain.
We’ve done a few small tours in the past but our next tour is our longest yet. I’m really excited to explore the east coast between Sydney and Brisbane, I’m sure I’ll find some great spots.
Growing up could mean feeling comfortable with your own skin. Do you think this album reflects that development in your music? Has the creation of an album forced you to define what you are?
100%! Working out who you are and where you are going for me is growing up. There’s no right or wrong way to grow up, and the album continuously questions that. Ultimately, the best way is your own way, but it’s never that easy! As people and as musicians the album shows our growth over the past few years, which is really cool. Splashes of our maturity, confidence and identity really breath through the album. We made an album for us. The sounds we hear, the stories we love, the world we live in. It couldn’t have been anything else without being false, and for me that’s us growing up!
You’re going on tour soon, what are you looking forward to the most?
The tour is approaching very quickly and I’m as keen as honey mustard spread along my foot long chicken teriyaki sub with lots of pickles & shredded carrot. Really looking forward to road trippin’ with the lads, meeting new people at shows, exploring a new part of Australia and finding tasty places to eat at all our stops.
Where are some of the places you are excited to play at? How do these venues help reflect your music?
Really keen to play again at Newcastle’s The Lass! We played there last year and had a ripper night. The Lass is your local grungey pub with cheap beers, tasty meat pies (available all night!) and paint peeling off the walls. We’ve also got a great following in Newcastle, which makes it even better. Also looking forward to our shows at Brisbane’s The Milk Factory & Byron Bay’s Treehouse on Belongil. We’ve got quite a diverse set of venues across the tour, which I think fits us perfectly. Our music is colourful and eclectic. We make it work wherever we play - that’s half the fun!
Tell us about your support bands for the Melbourne show? Tell me why you chose them and what they bring to the night.
We’ve got JP Klipspringer and Alexander Biggs supporting us at our Ding Dong Lounge album launch, which is going to be wicked. Both these guys are killer song writers with great melodies and hooks, which I’m a sucker for. JP Klipspringer has recently released a couple of tasty new tunes off his debut album coming out in September so it’ll be great to see what he’s been brewing with the band. It’s a great line-up of indie-folk acts, so make sure you get down early!