PEACH FUR | INTERVIEW
Megan Frost spoke to these surfy Australian alt-rockers before their headline gig at Cardiff’s Big Top.
How did your environment when growing up as a band enable you to connect?
Being from the Gold Coast in Australia, we spent time at a little holiday getaway called South Stradbroke Island; this really enabled us to connect. We caught the boat over – some of our friends have houses over there – and would spent time surfing or having bonfires. Our bass player, Liam, lived there, and at the time he had bought a bass guitar two weeks ago. We asked him to join the band and as we started playing together. It was unbelievable how well we worked together.
In what ways has your cultural background influenced your music in terms of regional instruments and styles?
As we are interested in surfing, we were influenced by the infusion of a surf vibe. However, it wasn’t until Liam joined the band that we incorporated this to our original rock style as his music has a very chill, beachy vibe.
How do you usually write your songs? Which out of the tune or lyrics comes to you first?
We all come to the table with things we’ve thought about and made. But, ultimately, a lot of it is to do with Denny [vocalist/guitarist], who is a wizard when it comes to songwriting. Often, there might be something made in the band room and then it just becomes a snowball effect as elements keep being layered and altered. Sometimes the snowball becomes a frozen peak for a year, then all of a sudden, it’s unlocked again and churns itself into a song.
How do you decide on support acts? And have you been influenced by them?
The bands we play with locally are friends of ours; most of it is bands we ultimately enjoy hanging out with. The beauty of the Gold Coast is its tight-knit community, enabling us to connect with other musicians near to us. Yet, with our support act on our current tour, PsySo from the Netherlands, we became instant best friends. Despite us living on other sides of the world, we found we both had a similar accent in sound.
Do you think any of your upcoming music will feature any changes?
100%! We don’t like to stay comfortable with sticking to the same sound and wish to constantly evolve. We plan on blending all different sounds and genres with our music. Rather than forcing it, this blend of genres often results in a natural occurrence; often ideas spit out and land on the table and become Peach Fur. As we lack theory training, our language is improvising.
In terms of a change in music, too, we wish to inspire others. For instance, our support act PsySo have really dug out our sound. We’ve learnt Australian music can become influential across places and we are privileged to be a part of that worldwide movement.
With the Pleasures And Necessities EP, how do you reflect the title in your own music and your ethos?
This EP was about understanding the difference in terms of the pleasure and necessity binary and being able to obtain the balance and self-control; in doing so, we believe it involves identifying what you desire and what you need and we discovered this more through our songwriting.
Do you see music as a pleasure or a necessity?
Both. We don’t know what the world is without music as it connects us all, making it a necessity. Yet, predominantly, music is all about having fun and experimenting.