For the first time in its history Truck Festival opened its
gates a day early. It’s All Indie was backstage for a quick chat with Harry
from Peace before they headlined Day 1. Harry told us why his dad’s band would
be headlining his dream main stage after Elvis had played!
I saw you guys when
you headlined up at Liverpool Sound City Festival…
This year?
Yes this year
and it was the first time I’ve caught you. For some reason my radar hadn’t
captured you!
We’ve flown under a few radars …
That was an
amazing set.
That was a good set for me as well I enjoyed
that one, I liked that room as well!
It was
packed out and the queues were round the block! Your latest album ‘Kindness Is
The New Rock And Roll’ was the first one I bought and since then I’ve gone back
and discovered the first two.
I like that! That’s what we want, we want
people to discover us that way and work backwards. I feel that we’ve done a few
albums now so everyone should go backwards!
I guess it’s
quite difficult to continue to operate on the same level without changing
anything and to still keep the enthusiasm and the excitement going?
Yeah we’ve managed to make 3 albums without
going electronic which is quite good for a band, it’s usually the third that
gets them but I fell back in love with the guitar on this album. Every advisory
voice was going “no the guitar’s dead, don’t make a guitar album, no one wants
to hear drums anymore etc!”
What do you
think about that, do you think that’s true? I don’t.
I’ve heard it twice already in my short career
in the music industry. The guitar has died at least twice already over the last
10 years and it happens all the time, things come in and out of fashion, styles
etc but the instrument can’t die!
It seems deeply
unfair to all those new bands coming up to be told they’ve got nothing new.
Being in a band has always been about you
and your buddies against the world. The fact that everyone says guitar music is
dead is actually a great breeding ground for music. It’s the right type of
person who goes “no it’s not we shall play this guitar and we shall play it
loud”. That’s the type of people who will succeed as a band.
And you’ve also
got new generations of people coming to see you, certainly at Sound City you
had a very mixed genre of people in that audience.
We attract all types, I think it’s because we
listen to all types of music, not just modern, and they’ve influenced our
music.
What bands do
you listen to?
My staple, pretty much since I was about 8
years old, has been Led Zeppelin and I never ‘don’t’ listen to them. It’s
really strange I mean I go through phases but I’ve actually listened to Led
Zeppelin since, well memory! I still like the same songs over and over but I
like all kinds of stuff. I do listen to
a lot of random stuff, the song that pops into my head is a song called ‘The
Beast’ by a band called ‘Aphrodite’s Child’ who were 70s I think maybe, like a
Greek, experimental band but ‘The Beast’ was really catchy.
It’s funny what
really influences you that you take forward for all time.
Yes it’s weird. Foals is one of my favourite
current bands, I just think they’re brilliant but bands don’t ever cite other
bands as influences as much as I think they are but I want to stop that. I want
to be like ‘yes I do love Foals’, I should be able to say yeah I think Circa
Waves are great!
It’s supposed to
be competitive isn’t it which is a shame because there’s plenty of business and
fans to go around.
Yeah everybody has to eat you know!
I saw Foals at
their secret set at Reading 2015 and they’d been off the scene and popped up
and I was there. I can still feel it, remember what it felt like when they came
on stage and started…
Yeah they played “My Number” first with a
little drum intro, I remember it too!
Well that will
stay with me forever and you guys could well be influencing people like that
who will be going “wow I thought that was amazing”. No pressure! If you could
have your dream line-up on stage, with Peace part of it obviously, who else
would you want up there?
I think Led Zeppelin would be on but I’d
stick them on early because I love all those early parts of Zeppelin when they
did the big tours in America and they’re playing these amphitheatres which are
half full and massive venues in the middle of the day so I’d put them on first
with John Bonham on stage with his drum kit, no production. I think then I’d
have to have Foals because I adore them so much. I’d definitely have Post
Malone as a modern mega-star. He’s kinda the new Kurt Cobain, a weird thing to
say but he’s like an icon of our time and spans so many genres with his talent.
His voice is incredible, just a great voice and he brings no production as well,
just him and a microphone. Then we’d
have to have someone with big production maybe Wolf Alice just because they’re
one of my favourite bands to see live. I think the sunset slot would go to
Elvis Presley in his pure white jumpsuit like Vegas and it doesn’t fit so good.
He’d bring some real, emotional slow music. Maybe Sigur Rós, they have such a
massive live sound. Headlining, maybe my dad’s cover band. They play like
weddings and they’re called ‘Blind Lemon’. They started out in the late 80s
early 90s just in the Midlands, playing in pubs and stuff, R&B/Soul music,
they’ve been going since then and they’re amazing. They’re probably my biggest
influence really. I grew up going to their shows.
I hear that
Peter Crouch is a huge fan of yours? He’s a regular at festivals (though it’s
quite hard for him to fit in with the crowd)!
Yeah, he’s visible everywhere, it’s worse
from stage because he’s the focal point!
Well he put a
kid on his shoulders at IOW Festival….
Like a totem pole!! Yeah he’s one of our big
fans.
He’s a great
person to have championing your music.
He has good taste in music and he’s a voice
that people listen to, people who we don’t have an avenue to reach. We can
reach people who would read the NME and watch certain TV shows or are into this
type of music but if Peter says that he likes us it wins us the respect of so
many people. It’s ironic because I’ve always associated football with being
bullied at school and now hey Peter Crouch likes my band so it’s really cool!
Thanks to Harry for the chat. The tent was
packed at Truck for Peace’s amazing set.
Words and photos by Rhona Murphy