How Orville Peck turned burnout into a record with Elton John and Willie Nelson… and a new signature Gretsch
As the sun creeps above the horizon, a familiar bird of prey swoops in for the kill, slicing between desert cacti. The soundtrack almost writes itself, and Orville Peck knows it. But he hasn’t lifted the scene from an old Western or beamed it from a ranch hand’s memory. Instead, it’s taken from the pickguard on the country star’s new signature Gretsch Falcon, which shimmers in gold against an explosion of glitter on the guitar’s body. As a snapshot of what his music is all about, it’s pretty apt.
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Working from behind a stage name and masks that have, over time, morphed from fringed and fabulous to sleek and teasing, Peck’s widescreen take on country increasingly runs on outsized, rhinestone-encrusted energy.
Having broken out with 2019’s brittle, atmospheric Pony – which was released by the iconic indie label Sub Pop – his writing put on muscle for the ensuing Bronco, where witty, clever, historically-literate tales of queer love and lust were bolstered by Nashville gloss and Nudie Suit pizzazz. In his hands something commonplace – like an illustrated bird you’ve seen a thousand times before – might become surprising all over again.
Orville Peck
Character Piece
“The country era that I really love and draw most of my inspiration from is all about character, storytelling, and standing out as a voice,” he observes. “I think of people like Johnny Cash, who was the Man in Black, the voice of the imprisoned and the impoverished. That was his persona, and it was theatrical at times. I think we forget that country has that element to it, or at least it used to. Someone like Dolly Parton – the sweet girl next door from Tennessee who grew up fishing barefoot on the river. It’s a beautiful era and I think that’s what I was trying to convey with that guitar – something more flashy but maintaining almost all the elements of the original White Falcon, because I think it’s perfect.”
Peck’s Falcon keeps things suitable classic in its construction – a fully-hollow 2.5”-deep all-maple affair that eschews the modern preferences for thinline bodies and centre blocks, that betrays a clear reverence for the timeless brilliance of the design.
In truth, Peck’s relationship with the guitar carries the sort of weight someone might write a country song about – his love for it is founded upon the idea of having something when that seemed impossible. His first White Falcon was gifted to him, as he once told E! Online, by Gretsch “at a time where I absolutely couldn’t afford it.” It became his go-to and, essentially, the first guitar that truly felt like it was his.
“And so many iconic people played it – I can remember seeing Neil Young’s when I was a kid and thinking it looked so cool,” he recalls.
Pickguard of Orville Peck’s signature Gretsch Falcon
Free Bird
In making the Falcon his own, he found its resonant, naturally brawny sound to be a match for the honeyed low-end of his voice. With a generous dose of production pomp – courtesy of Jay Joyce, whose past work includes multiple records with Eric Church plus LPs with Miranda Lambert, Ashley McBryde and Brandy Clark – 2022’s Bronco found Peck outfitting certain songs, most notably the grandstanding cowboy romances Daytona Sand and Lafayette, with lead lines that delivered a sweeping sense of scope to underline the barrel-chested flamboyance of his vocals.
“The Falcon has such a rich sound to it,” he says. “You know, I sing in quite a bold baritone most of the time and I think that guitar really complements my voice, more so than a brighter sounding guitar like a Telecaster or something. I think that Falcon is the guitar version of where I sit with my vocals. I love the Bigsby, of course, and it’s just such a beautiful, striking guitar.”
When we speak over Zoom, Peck is in the middle of an American tour, during which his new signature is sharing duties with his original Falcon. He is both jazzed to be back out there and somewhat reflective, having axed a run of shows last summer due to mental and physical exhaustion. These dates carry extra weight.
“I took the time and I spent it really wisely, I’m glad I did that,” he says. “I’m also very grateful to everyone for allowing me to take that time and do that – they had a whole tour that I cancelled. There’s an element of letting people down that I had to overcome. But I’m really, really happy that I took the time because now I feel like I’ve never been so joyful and present on tour before. And I’ve been touring for 19 years. It’s pretty amazing what a little bit of self-care can do.”
Living Legends
Part of that self-care involved working on a project so ambitious – and potentially divisive – that most people wouldn’t consider it an exercise in mindfulness. In 2021, Peck called upon his compatriot Shania Twain – born in South Africa, Peck was raised in Canada – to sing on a song called Legends Never Die, from his Show Pony EP.
The experience lit a long fuse that gathered pace when Willie Nelson reached out to see if he would be interested in collaborating on a version of Ned Sublette’s Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other, a cover that both artists had made their own.
Soon, Peck had a whole record of duets in hand, including a disco-country blowout with Kylie Minogue and Diplo, plus a saloon brawl take on Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting with Elton John. Very quickly, this little idea became big boy stuff. “Willie [asking] was crucial,” he says. “It’s really what spurred the idea for me to even have it be a full project. When Willie asked me to do that song…flattered doesn’t even cut it. I was just gobsmacked by it to be particularly honest. I think it gave me the confidence to reach out to Kylie Minogue, send an email to Elton John and all these other people, because I thought, ‘Well, oh my God, Willie wants to do this, we might have something here.’”
Orville Peck
Tying the record to his own discography in a manner that feels entirely deliberate and, potentially, creatively legitimising, he called it Stampede. Part one is out now. Part two, led by the Kylie track and also featuring collaborations with Beck, Teddy Swims and Margo Price, among others, follows in August. “I wanted every single song to be uniquely its own thing,” Peck says. “And that’s why some of them are a departure from my usual style. That was the whole point. I’ve loved making all my albums, and I will, almost assuredly, go back to my usual style on my next, but this was a really beautiful opportunity for me to get to work with a lot of people I respect and have idolised my whole life.”
“Everything I do is very, very intentional,” he continues. “Especially when I was younger, I was such a music fan. I loved exploring the lore behind songs, the meaning behind lyrics, the stories of the recording studios and how the songs were made. I tried to really build upon that. So many times duets and features can feel like someone sent in vocals remotely, threw in a verse, and hoped it all worked. I wanted each of these songs to feel intentional and to hopefully create something that feels a bit like an adventure with all these different styles and different artists.”
Orville Peck
Band Aid
Peck feels like his process – beginning with his experiences working on Bronco with Joyce and his team of Nashville gunslingers and continuing through the star-studded Stampede sessions – has been reshaped by letting people in. “I used to adamantly play almost everything on the album, producing it myself and writing everything myself,” he admits. “I was very reluctant to work with other people. But over the years, I’ve done a lot more of that, especially with Stampede, which is completely collaborative. It’s really opened me up to seeing that working with other people can spark ideas you’d never have had or enrich ideas that you already have.”
What comes next is always going to be the big question in Peck’s shapeshifting story, but now there’s also the exciting prospect of finding out who might ride into view alongside him. That can wait, though. On the road right now, Peck is still feeling that glow of fresh purpose. “Oh, it’s absolutely carried over,” he says. “The interesting thing about Stampede is that it’s made me excited about making music again. It is a trap that you can fall into as an artist, because, inevitably, it starts to feel like work. It becomes your everyday job and you just go on autopilot a little bit. Making that album, and getting to work with people who inspire me, feels like it refuelled a love of making music that I haven’t had for a little bit now.”
Orville Peck’s ‘Stampede’ is out on August 2 through Warner Records.
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