NEWS
EVENTS
Screaming Peaches will do more than make the world dance.
Indie | Tuesday 29th November 2016 | Alice
I met with Screaming Peaches at their home in Brixton to have a coffee and discuss their latest endeavours, change in name and plans for 2017. Following their performance at the Moth Club for Flyte’s Chasing Heaven Club Night, I had taken to the boys and their upbeat pop-funk music. Their performance was exhilarating with the whole club dancing. From that moment I wanted to know more.
On the day of the meeting the boys ushered me into one of their charmingly furnished out buildings, and showed me around their home studio. The space was bright, spacious and perfect for the band not only to make music but to host their upcoming music sessions. Before we even delved into details, it was apparent from the bands enthusiasm and energy that exciting things are to come.
Tell me about how the band came to form?
Screaming peaches was made in 2015. We were originally in a band called Movie before. We met at school in Winchester and have been in various bands in London in-between the formation of Movie. Oli was a keyboard player in a psych band called the Hypnotic Eye which led to us meeting our current drummer. Eventually we decided to do our own thing and form Movie and then Screaming Peaches.
How did the change of name from Movie to Screaming Peaches arise?
Lots of different things led to the change. Some were to do with that is wasn’t easily accessible when searching for us. We wanted to be more reachable for our fans. Some bookers really focus on having a certain number of follows now days, which made it difficult for us occasionally as the name Movie wasn’t easily searchable. Ultimately the name of the band didn’t work for us.
Do you think the name change had an effect on your fan base at the time?
We guess it may have had an effect on our fan base briefly. If fans weren’t hard-core following us they may not have known that we made the change. We don’t think there was a noticeable difference. We’ve taken the last year out too for a few things which may have impacted us but overall we haven’t noticed anything negative. Eventually, one night at the pub the name screaming peaches arose, which felt right.
Were you pleased with the response of Ads in 2014?
It all happened really quickly for us. The reception was incredibly good, and really fast! We formed the band around Christmas time and started recording basically straight away. Originally we didn’t have anything to compare it to, so we were excited by the response. We may have taken it slightly for granted at the time but only because we had nothing to compare it to. We then released several songs after which have also been received incredibly well.
Do you feel your music has progressed or evolved in comparison to the music you originally produced?
A lot of people hark back to ads and Tusk Vegas and therefore possibly expect us to write similar songs to them but in our mind they are very different songs in themselves. The songs we are going to and have released since Tusk Vegas are very different, like we think Tusk Vegas is to Ads. We don’t necessarily think there’s been progression as we believe we’ve always written very different things.
How do you find yourselves writing material?
It really depends. Some songs we are communal but by large it’s one of us who will do a full demo and then bring it to the band. It then takes a new lease of life. However, the one thing method we don’t tend to follow is writing lyrics acoustically to a chord sequence. The lyrics to us are rhythmic and melodic so it’s like another instrument rather than words being written separately on paper to start.
Between us we have a lot of songs, and counting. We write well as a band. If we had our own way we would love to release more of what we’ve written because it’s frustrating having so many months without a release, but by that point more songs have been written and others get left behind. It can be quite conflicting. Ultimately we write similarly to how we wrote for Movie. We are all each other’s biggest fans. It’s a bit like Fiji water being filtered over various stages.
How have your festival experiences been?
We’ve had some great experiences performing at festivals, like Secret Garden Party. They are great fun. We headlined the second stage the day before the main stage was open and there was a great crowd at our mercy. It’s been nice working on so many things this year. It’s good to have time to hone your crafts. We feel now we are ready to go on the road for a longer amount of time.
How do you feel about the closing of small venues around London and the possible saturation?
It can be difficult to gig as all the small venues are shutting down. London has always been saturated with bands, like ten years ago you could go see so many bands doing so well. We guess London is saturated to some extent but all the venues are being shut so it’s hard to see sometimes where the saturation is. Any creative scene needs a space to do it in and for it to breathe but there is no space at the moment. We are currently creating a space for bands which we are really excited for, for bands to express themselves, almost like a channel. It’s going to be great.
Do you have any antics from touring?
Not too many to be honest. Only little things, like flooding a hotel room by accident. It’s all quite nice really. We are quite well behaved, possibly the politest men in the world (said with much amusement. Our antics are more all along the lines of #sorrynotsorry. We don’t think we’ve been on tour enough yet to have too many.
What are your main influences?
In general we love very strong rhythmic sections. Really noughties bass lines, disco and funk. A few of our guilty pleasures would have to be Good charlotte, Five and we have an annual play of the Young and Hopeless. Our music is meant to be sincere but also fun. We don’t want to change the world; we just want to make the world dance.
What’s coming up in the near future?
We are making some new tracks for early next year and possibly an album. We are really excited about hosting a session channel and making some videos to come out around February. 2017 is going to be very exciting.
It was clear to me that the boys are incredibly sincere and deeply excited for the next year. Their dedication to their craft over the past year especially illustrates how serious they are about creating something special. As they mentioned above, they just wish to make their fans dance with everything else being background noise. This is sure to be no challenge for the band, with serious traction being made around their new music and upcoming channel sessions. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for what is sure to be a successful year for Screaming Peaches.
