Vancouver’s Peach Pit discuss their band’s history, how essential their friendship is to their music, and inspirations for their fourth studio album, ‘Magpie.’

Stream: ‘Magpie’ – Peach Pit

Vancouver indie rock band Peach Pit have been putting out tracks since 2018.

Since then, they’ve garnered a dedicated fanbase that only grows with each piece of work they put out – listeners moved by the quartet’s striking lyricism, addicting melodies, and unmistakable camaraderie and collective charm.

Atwood Magazine recently sat with lead vocalist Neil Smith and guitarist Chris Vanderkooy to discuss the band at large and their new album Magpie, a project that continues their exploration into themes of what could’ve been and how we’re ultimately shaped by the path we chose to walk down. Magpie promises to be Peach Pit’s most versatile album yet.

It’s “a record like that that has many different [genres] on it… that was something we were paying attention to when we were making the record. I was like, ‘let’s try to make something that isn’t samey all the way through’… we’ve got heavy songs, we’ve got folk songs, we’ve got poppier songs,” Smith tells Atwood Magazine. Peach Pit are keenly skilled at making indie rock anthems, making this fourth major release particularly special since it’s entering a more exploratory, varied realm.

Peach Pit wouldn’t have the millions of listeners that are anticipating the release of their fourth record if it weren’t for the strength and longevity of the connection among bandmates, something that Vanderkooy is particularly grateful for.

“I think a lot of people get into bands with [musicians] because they are a good player… the hang is such an essential point for the band to be successful. I think we’ve done a good job of really keeping up on that and keeping those relationships healthy. It definitely takes a lot of work but I think it’s the reason we’ve been able to thrive.”

The band have been around long before the release of their first EP, Sweet FA, in 2018. They began playing together 10 years ago. “I’d write a song, we’d come together and we’d figure out the song in a very rudimentary sort of way where we would map out the tune… We kind of put it together like puzzle pieces. So [the band] started when we were really young,” Smith recalls.

The quality of their output is undoubtedly reflective of the time the four have worked together. One thing that remains consistent throughout Peach Pit’s discography is the expertly crafted composition of their songs, whether that be a particularly gripping chorus, drums placed perfectly in tandem with other bandmate’s instruments, or a wildly impressive guitar solo, it’s clear that they’ve been perfecting their sound for over a decade, making the release of Magpie even more thrilling.

The title track and name of the record was born after Smith saw a flock of Magpies flying overhead when he was in Australia.

“I wrote Magpie down on my phone when we were in Australia after seeing the birds flying around. I didn’t think too much of it other than, ‘wow, that sounds like a really good name for a song.’” After some research on the birds, Smith stumbled upon a poem that would serve as the inspiration for this character he was creating for Magpie.

The poem, One for Sorrow, Two for Joy, is a nursery rhyme where the number of birds seen determines your luck. “One for sorrow / Two for joy / … / Five for silver / Six for Gold / Seven for a secret / Never to be told.”

Smith says the poem “seemed like a good kind of like crux for a song, this sort of superstitious feeling of good and bad omens… I kind of juxtapose that by making this character that’s sort of a metaphor for my own self of where maybe I could’ve ended up in my life if I hadn’t quit drinking when I was in my early 20s. The character is really over the top… he’s always drinking at the strip club and he’s just like, a total mess… I made it over the top for sure.”

Drippin’ off a thin, thin, thin, as it gets
A line of a woman
Just to keep his toes
Underneath his nose
She lets go
You’re the wrong guy, Magpie
Haven’t you a good point
The strip joints still having you
We ain’t gonna get you outta here
No, we ain’t gonna get you outta here

This question of what once was and what could’ve been is something that the band admitted is not only a through-line for this new record, but also is a theme they’ve examined throughout the entirety of Peach Pit’s discography.

“We’re always kind of exploring [that] in our songwriting… we often have very sentimental sort of melancholy lyrics thinking about the past… there’s a song called ‘Little Dive’ on the album that’s all about what it was like growing up in our little neighborhood that was part of Vancouver and everyone’s obsession in that town with this pub that’s down the street where looking back on it now, it’s kind of just this ‘shitty little whatever-pub’ but the idea of going there on Friday Night and getting hammered was the coolest thing ever for some reason.” While Peach Pit explores new soundscapes, they assuredly aren’t abandoning the lyricism and thematic structures that make up many of their tracks.

As a whole though, Magpie seems like a record that may deviate from its older siblings. “Our last album was pretty chill in comparison to our other records . . . there was a bit more of a sentimental kind of melancholy feel on From 2 to 3 . . . I think coming around for Magpie, we had our sights set on making a record that had a bunch of tracks that would kind of be more upbeat, sort of more rock and roll feel to them because those are just the most fun songs to play live,” said Smith. Magpie is in fact shaping up to be a record that feels more dynamic and lively, the most recent single “Every Little Thing” embodying this very sentiment that Smith is bringing to life with the record.

Every little thing
since you put on a pair of those blue jeans
Every little thing about I fixate in the gutter
You’re perfect in a couple different ways, buddy
And I ain’t ever growing tired of letting you love me

Peach Pit released a music video for “Magpie” on August 23rd, directed by long-time collaborator Lester Lyons-Hookum. The “Magpie” video has some stunning shots and perfectly reflects the track’s chaotic energy and messaging about the character Smith is singing about in the track. Hookum has directed every single one of Peach Pit’s videos, with Vanderkooy saying, “It’s so awesome working with Lester, he’s one of those people that’s artistically minded and technically minded as far as accomplishing his ideas… we sit down with him when we start music video ideas and just riff with him for a while. Once Lester starts laughing, we know we’re onto something really good and the momentum will kind of build… Lester is so good at taking [our] ideas and distilling them down to a very specific scene… He made his first music video with us… that first video was Sweet FA, we had 500 bucks to spend and that video has even done really well for us. We haven’t made a video with anyone else since, just cause he’s as good as he is and we can’t really top it.”

Perhaps Peach Pit’s output continues to be as successful and impressive as it is because of the long term connections that fuel their artistry. Whether it be working with the same director for the entirety of their professional career or growing alongside bandmates for over a decade, the authenticity and connection that comes from pairings and groupings like these is felt in the music.

In terms of Peach Pit’s process at large when crafting a song, the approach is heavily collaborative.

Smith generally will come to the rest of his bandmates with some lyrics in mind, Vanderkooy creating guitar riffs to accompany the lyricism alongside Peter Wilton (bassist) and Mikey Pascuzzi (drummer) bringing their unique talents and perspective to a track.

“Once we get into the studio, Chris will usually have like his guitar parts figured out and that kind of [decides] whether it’s going to be a good song or not… I would say Peter is often a bit of a captain when it comes to how our production’s gonna work, the layout of the song, and the dynamics of it… then it comes down to Mikey just figuring out how the drums are gonna work and then we build everything off of Mikey’s drum track,” Smith said.

While the band came to a record that they’re assuredly proud of and excited to get to fans, the process wasn’t without struggle. For Magpie in specific, the band tried making the album in the studio with a general framework in mind. They typically have the majority of the record figured out before heading into the studio, but on this go around.

Smith says, “We went in the studio for maybe five weeks and we were pretty disappointed with our output. We only had like one or two that ended up being on the record… it was extremely stressful. We felt like we failed at the beginning of last year and we were like, ‘holy shit, I don’t know what’s gonna happen here’… In the end, we went back to our old method of just having way more stuff figured out before we went into the studio and were way more prepared.”

Vanderkooy emphasizes the importance of keeping spirits high when working on a record, especially for the sake of the band’s sanity and companionship.

“We watched that Get Back Beatles documentary and watched them make the Let It Be record in the studio. The thing that maybe we weren’t taking into account is they were all pretty miserable throughout the process… we [were] just realizing our limitations too.”

Ensuring the band is well-prepared before heading into the studio helps to bring about fascinating tracks that may have never hit listener’s ears without the down-time for inspiration to do its work. The second track on the record, “Am I Your Girl,” “comes from a line from Call Me By Your Name… I wrote the song a long, long time ago. When I saw the movie for the first time, I wrote the line down in my phone because I thought it would be a cool song title, honestly.”

The line comes from a scene in the film where Timothée Chalamet’s character is confronted by a girl he’s carelessly stringing along romantically. “At one point in the movie, she rides up to [Timothée Chalamet] on her bicycle and kind of asks him, ‘Where have you been?’ And she says, ‘Am I your girl?’… I kind of liked the way that she said it. I thought it was like slightly broken English, which was kind of cute… I wouldn’t hear a first English speaker say that to somebody… I just thought it was a beautiful moment in the movie. I took inspiration from that.”

Zooming further out on their career at large, some of Peach Pit’s most popular tracks are sung from a viewpoint that isn’t necessarily Smith’s.

One of their widely known tracks, “Tommy’s Party,” a track recounting the aftermath of a drunken night and a fleeting romance, is Smith “trying to write a song from someone else’s perspective which is kind of the first example of that in our music… that’s one of my favorite ways to write a song… most of the time… they’re talking to me or singing to me.” Stepping into someone else’s shoes for a song only serves to strengthen and broaden that sense of connection among Peach Pit and their fans. Magpie promises to have songs that have the potential to resonate with a wide array of listeners with songs inspired by widely admired films or universal experiences.

Vanderkooy recalls the amount of instances where people approached the band about “Tommy’s Party.” “We’ve had lots of kids coming up to us being like, ‘Hey, is this about a gay relationship because that’s what it means to me and it’s so special,’ and it’s like, yeah, if that’s what it means to you, that’s what it’s about! There’s a connectivity there that a lot of people find in it that maybe wasn’t even intended but ends up [having] a double meaning that means a lot to them.”

Not only is “Tommy’s Party” written from a different point of view, but it was also a song that was finished particularly quickly. Some of their most successful songs were the ones that required the least amount of heavy lifting. “Those sorts of songs that do come together quickly for us, end up being our best songs. ‘Tommy’s Party’ was a song that we wrote really quickly, ‘Shampoo Bottles’ was a song we wrote super quickly . . . When you don’t have to like slave over it, those songs can be good too, but oftentimes when they just kind of fall into your lap a little bit, those are the best songs” Smith said.

With Magpie being Peach Pit’s fourth record and their following only becoming more dedicated and vast with each release, Smith and Vanderkooy reflect on the past couple years and how meaningful their shared friendship is with each other and their bandmates.

“At the end of the day, if Peach Pit dissolved tomorrow, we would still just be friends. I love where we’re at as a band and in our interpersonal relationships, we have a ton of fun and when we’re together,” says Smith, with Vanderkooy admitting that, “We realize that’s not always the norm, there’s a lot of bands out there who kind of [just] put up with each other to make music. I feel like it’s just a shame because it’s the dream.”

Having played at major festivals and performing to growing crowds with each tour, Smith expresses how grateful he is for the career they’ve had thus far. “You know, when I was a kid in high school wanting to be in a band and have a career in music, the level that we’re at now or even the level that we were at like a couple years ago… the shows that the festival stages we’ve gotten to play, that was the pinnacle for me. I’ve already completely surpassed all of my expectations and fantasies, honestly. I never expected us to be able to do the things that we’ve done so far and get to enjoy the places and the shows that we’ve played.”

If one thing is clear, it’s that Peach Pit have no intent of stopping anytime soon, with Vanderkooy us ensuring that “the goal is to be able to do this as a career for the rest of my life with these guys.”

Magpie is out now on all streaming platforms.

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 © Mackenzie Walker

Magpie

an album by Peach Pit