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Rather, Orville Peck is a moniker that represents a culmination of the singers creative parts.
Its actually the most authentic way that I found to be an artist.
That authenticity once again abounds on Pecks stunning new album,Bronco, out on April 8.
Im thinking,Thats amazing.
Itll be playing in the background.Little did I know that the writer actually wrote the scene to it.
And theres no dialogue over any of it.
Its almost like this beautiful little music video.
What was your introduction to cowboys as a kid?I was obsessed with all cowboys.
When I was young, my grandfather was a horseback sheriff in [the South African province] KwaZulu-Natal.
He was kind of like a real cowboy.
I love the Lone Ranger and any kind of cowboy figure.
I loved Indiana Jones.
I only know that looking back now, but as a kid, I feel like I related subconsciously.
Your new album isBronco, which is an untamed horse.I mean, Im a horse girl too!
I called itPonybecause lyrically and musically and tonally, that album was almost like a frightened, lonely confession.
I wroteBroncoleaving a very, very deep depression.
I was really unhappy.
I was almost ready to stop making music altogether.
I was in the worst place, basically, when I decided to start writingBronco.
And it [was] incredibly cathartic, freeing, sort of like therapy to do the songs onBronco.
There was nothing going on because of COVID.
I made big changes in my personal life.
I wrote purely from the heart.
As you wrote the songs onBronco, did you feel yourself healing?God, yes!
I cried a lot writing this album.
When Id finished it, I felt this big sigh of relief.
Each of these songs is something I wanted to get off my chest.
I tend to be pretty hard on myself.
It was a really beautiful experience.
Its such an important album to me in that way.
I get to slip away.
Theres something kind of wonderful about the anonymity it allows me when Im not onstage performing.
Do you have a mask-tender when youre on tour?I do!
I have an amazing whole styling team stylist Catherine Hahn, whos legendary.
One of her assistants comes on tour with us.
So, yes, I have a whole team, and I do have a mask-tender.
How many masks do you take on tour?Oh my goodness.
So more masks than guitars?Definitely more masks.
Boots and cowboy hats are starting to get a little ridiculous at the moment.
I was just counting how many cowboy hats I have now.
Its getting to a frightening number.
Im just gonna open a bootleg western store out of my house and start selling.
Your videos are so cinematic, and, naturally, youre on horseback in several of them.
But I was begging them to let me do it.
They did let me ride, essentially surf, on top of an 18-wheeler going down the road.
Theres a lot of references to him in my visuals.
Im a huge John Waters fan.
Im a huge Gus Van Sant fan.
OnBronco, I did all my videos with Austin Peters, a dear friend of mine.
Some Kenneth Anger moments.
We wanted to be really conscious of aspect ratios being different for all the different videos.
Some of them are on 16 mm.
; some of them we printed to film.
Why did it take so long to find your country self?
Was there an epiphany?I think it was a lack of courage in a sense.
I love all genres of music.
But, yeah, I always secretly wanted to be a country crooner.
I wanted to be like Johnny Cash or Merle Haggard.
I grew up in South Africa.
I lived in all these different countries and cities around the world growing up.
I just never saw an avenue … it just seemed impossible for me to enter the country world.
I went back to acting for a while and was living in London.
One of my bands broke up and I was doing classical theater.
Its funny because I kind of had this epiphany where I was like,You know what?
I was doing all these mediums in performance separately.
I decided to combine them all into one and do it authentically.
I looked at the landscape of country and thought,What would I want to see?
I wanted to bring a performance and a theatricality combined with ultrasincerity.
Bowie, perfect analogy.Not to compare myself to Bowie!
He was just an inspiration.
But it works for me.
