âYeah, it seems like weâre cursed. Welcome to being a musician, itâs shit,â laughs Peaness drummer Rachel Williams. Itâs late-spring and the Chester-based three-piece are waiting to embark on their first UK tour for over two years. So, naturally, mere days before the opening night, bassist Jess Branney is struck down with Covid.
Itâs the kind of luck that makes the title of Peanessâ debut album – âWorld Full of Worryâ – seem all the more prescient. Written before the world closed its doors, it deals with all the anxiousness, skepticism and gallows humour that has grown out of these weird times. Their words pierce through but are wrapped up with the kind of upbeat major chords that make their tracks so memorable.
Speaking to me via Zoom, Williams says, âWeâve tried to write kind of happy songs before, with happy melodies and the type of key that makes it sound sugar coated but they were too cheesy. Thereâs a balance to it so when we have a song [with happier melodies], itâs easier to talk about darker things, itâs not as daunting as it might be otherwise.â
This ethos is echoed by guitarist and singer Carleia Balbenta, âWe have really happy, upbeat poppy tunes but the lyrics can get dark. Itâs like our little niche now, sad bangers,â she laughs.
During those long, vacant days of the pandemic, Peaness had a record ready to go which was lying dormant. While for others, there would be a temptation to agonise or second-guess themselves over the content, the general sense of not knowing put a spanner in their creative works.
âIt sounds really bad but throughout the whole pandemic I didnât feel inspired at all to write anything,â Balbenta admits. âI was at one of my lowest points, so anything I wouldâve written wouldâve been an extra, extra sad banger. There was such an uncertainty of whether weâd ever been able to gig again, venues were closing, and it just felt like the perfect storm for the live music industry.â
The tracks found in âWorld Full of Worryâ carry with them a sense of prescience dealing with topics that have become heightened in a post-Covid world. Songs such as âirlâ focus on the unhealthy obsession to curate a certain image through social media while âGirl Just Relaxâ takes on the unnecessary attitude of society to have a uniform standard of beauty.
As with every song Peaness have been penning since their formation in 2013, they touch on important social issues but with the uncanny knack of filling dancefloors with their infectious melodies. However, even they feel the pressures of following the trends of other bands in creating the funniest TikTok or composing the wittiest Twitter post that will maybe help them reach a new audience.
âWe do look at other bands and sometimes think âoh, maybe we should do something like thatâ, maybe we should get into TikTok but itâs a whole other world,â Balbenta laughs. âI donât mind doing stuff like that, and there is a constant pressure to just keep your fans engaged, it can be fun but it is a lot.â
âItâs just weird the way the world has developed now,â Williams adds. âI think to an extent itâs helped us, and itâs a good way to keep in touch with bands youâve played with but [as a society] we donât speak to each other face-to-face anymore, itâs more like âslide into my DMsâ. You just find yourself spending all day replying to messages, can we just have a conversation?â.