WHO IS THAT MASKED MAN? IT’S THE COUNTRY MORRISSEY, ORVILLE PECK!
“THERE IS A photo of me on my Instagram,” says Orville Peck. “I’m eight years old and wearing a cowboy hat and a handkerchief over my face. I was obsessed with cowboy imagery and spaghetti westerns, especially the outlaws and the bandits. The ones with something to hide.”
That childhood obsession is one explanation why, on a hot summer’s day, the grown-up Peck is modelling not only a Stetson and cowboy boots but also a black leather mask with long white tassels. He looks like a burlesque take on The Lone Ranger, and Peck’s debut album provides the ideal musical accompaniment to such a striking image. Pony sublimely blends torch and twang, with Peck crooning like a country Morrissey on nuggets such as Queen Of The Rodeo and Hope To Die. But what’s he hiding? Nothing, claims Peck; the opposite, in fact.
“I know I present with a level of theatricality and layers of reference,” he acknowledges, “but everything I sing about is extremely personal, taken from past loves and places I have lived or known. That, to me, is the proper definition of country music: the perfect cross between sincerity, storytelling and camp.”
The mask stays on during gigs and interviews and, to reinforce the image, Peck won’t talk about his past, beyond admitting that he grew up in the southern hemisphere, currently lives in Toronto and has acted in a West End musical. But some recent bare-torso photos have revealed tattoos remarkably similar to those adorning Daniel Pitout, the frontman of grungy rockers Eating Out and drummer of punks Nü Sensae, born in Johannesburg and with The Buddy Holly Story on his CV. Does it bother Peck that he’s been unmasked?
“Only that people are afraid to surrender to something, which I grew up doing,” he frowns. “It’s like saying, ‘David Bowie wasn’t his real name, he doesn’t wear those outfits at home.’ Well, fucking duh! But I get that people are curious, I’m not an idiot.
I knew it would happen.” Undeterred, Peck has embarked on a 60-date tour, arriving in the UK in late October. Even when the temperature drops, he admits, it’s the height of summer underneath that mask, “but I’m used to it now,” he says.
“I’m a performer too, so it never gets old, and I love travelling – if I’m in one place for too long, I get depressed.
I get to be myself now.
This really is the truest expression of who I am.”
Martin Aston
“Country music is the perfect cross between sincerity, storytelling and camp.” ORVILLE PECK