When someone has as distinctive a look as queer cowboy Orville Peck, it’s rare that the music is as strong as the aesthetic. But with his debut album, Pony, Peck destroys the haters with anthems about male hustlers and drag queens all the while channelling the vocals of Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash and other Country Music gods. Loverboy joins him on the eve of his upcoming world tour to discuss what is Country Music in 2019, being the eternal outsider and whether what he does is drag.
Orville, you’ve just finished touring Canada and you’re about to hit the road for the next four months. What has been the most surprising reaction from audiences so far?
Just the diversity of the crowd. We’ve had everyone from drag queens to punk rockers, football jocks, eighty-year-old couples who are Country Music fans. I’ve never really seen all those people in one room together so that’s pretty cool.
You released your debut album, Pony, this year. Congratulations, I’m really enjoying it. In particular I love ‘Turn To Hate’. Can you tell me about it?
The song is really about the tug of war that happens between being the outsider, which I have been all my life, and all the freedom, creativity and adventure that comes with that but also the desire for normality and being able to settle down somewhere. Even just knowing that you are headed in the right direction. It’s about not letting your anxiety turn into resentment and hate.
I can relate. I’ve been living in Barcelona three years now and it’s the first time in a while that I have felt like putting down roots…and that’s a scary thing!
Yeah, I haven’t managed to do it yet.
It’s hard! My other favourite song on Pony was ‘Queen Of The Rodeo.’ But I wanted to check is this queen a guy or a girl we are talking about?!
Both! That song is about a drag queen named Thanks Jem and she lives in Vancouver. Is she real? No stories have been fabricated on my album. They are all based on people I know, places I have lived.
Speaking of drag, I wanted to know whether you see what you do as being on the spectrum at all? I guess Country Music is always on the spectrum of drag…
I mean, you got it. Listen, I think what I do can be considered drag and I joke about that. I would never dare compare myself to a drag queen because they spend thousands on costumes for usually very little in return – like fifty bucks in tips in a bar. I think it’s an incredibly dedicated and subversive art form, maybe even the last subversive art form. I have so much respect for drag queens.
That being said, I think there is a similar element between drag and what I do in that people think it’s playing a character and something different to who is really under there. But the reality is that drag, as well as the aesthetic I put on, is just a super-heightened form of sincerity. Drag queens are totally magical, hyper-real versions of themselves and I think what I try to do is be an extremely heightened version of myself too. Everything I sing about, everything I do as a performer, comes from a place of sincerity, sometimes such an ultra personal place that it is really hard for me to sing about these subjects. But I do it through an aesthetic that involves camp, wit and humour and I think that is Country Music. Drag and Country Music share a lot of parallels. Dolly Parton is a drag queen.
Country Music has been having a real mainstream moment over the last few years, in fact ever since Trump came into power. Do you see a correlation?
Interestingly, yes. But maybe not the one that some people would make. I think the correlation is to not just Country Music but also the whole cowboy motif and Americana in general. I think that is because right now everyone feels like the world is going to shit and there is a general loss of power. When you feel like you are being marginalised in some way, or you are on the outskirts of town, it makes sense to want to gather that spirit of adventure, to feel the excitement of getting on your horse and to blaze your own trail which is what we often have to do in times like this. I think it’s more about a state of mind and a philosophy. Getting on a horse and riding off into the sunset doesn’t sound so bad to me right now.
I don’t think audiences think of music in terms of genre so much anymore but I think industry people do. What has been the reaction to you from the more traditional Country Music press?
Some of them have embraced me. I think I fall into the category of Americana which covers a lot of sub-genres of Country Music – basically everything that is not played on mainstream Nashville Country radio. But to be honest the music they play doesn’t sound very Country to me at all. Country Music fans have a stigma surrounding them that is perpetuated by the radio stations and label executives – the gatekeepers of what is “Country.”
Right. I think the media like to hold on to those stereotypes a lot more than audiences do.
Yeah, I mean at my shows I get fairly conservative, straight, white men, in their fifties that maybe voted for Trump and probably live pretty conservative lives. But they will be standing next to a drag queen, or a trans person covered in tattoos who is also there singing along.
In this day and age we’re taught that your political or religious views have to encapsulate who you are. There is such a focus on dividing us all. But I am more interested in the things we all have in common than the things that set us apart.
Well I know something we both have in common, a shared love for Mariah Carey. Her record for the most weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 was broken this week by Lil’ Nas X and his Country/Trap crossover ‘Old Town Road.’ How do you feel about this?!
I know. It is quite sad. I think the whole argument over whether Lil’ Nas X is country is boring because nitpicking over genres is not what I am about. Country Music has needed to embrace subversive culture for a long time and I think Lil’ Nas X, a gay black artist who has made a Trap Country song by basically being a Reddit troll is so topical to our culture at the moment. Lil’ Nas X represents our generation in such direct ways. I mean why the fuck not? I don’t get why that is confusing to anyone. But I do feel bad for Mariah because she is a legend.
She has an amazing social media team working for her right now who are milking all this for content, so don’t feel too bad for her.
I am sure she has a gay guy working with her because all of her tweets are really funny. But I don’t want her to just be a meme because I am actually a fan of Mariah, for real, for real, and I don’t like people laughing at her.
Did you just use a reference to her song ‘4Real4Real’ in your answer?
You got it!
Well, look, this actually brings us nicely to our last question, which we ask everyone. Loverboy is named after Mariah’s infamous song of the same name. What is your favourite Mariah song?
Oh, amazing. I really like old Mariah which sounds really rude. I mean, I like the new album and I think that line, ‘Snakes in the grass, it’s time to cut the lawn’ is amazing. But ‘Fantasy’ era Mariah is more my speed.
Orville Peck is touring the U.S. and Europe from now until November!
Check out the full list of dates here.
The album Pony is out now.
www.orvillepeck.com
