Chat With PNAU's Peter Mayes as They Head to Cairns in June
NDK
Hi Peter, where are we talking to you from today?
Peter Mayes
I'm in my studio here in LA and the sun is shining. 5 40 PM.
NDK
Awesome. Well, it is 10.40 here and thank you so much for making some time.
Peter Mayes
No worries. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
NDK
So do you live in LA full-time these days?
Peter Mayes
Yeah, I've been here for about 15 years and, you know, it's an interesting place to live, but I really like it. You just sort of, find your bubble here and then just do your thing.
We lived in London for about five years before this as well and it was the same thing
.
Once I've got a studio, , that's where I am 24 seven. I mean, I have children now, so it's a bit to manage my time now, slightly differently, but, I'm just always making music.
I don't really, go out every night or anything. It's more, I'm just a studio nerd. That's what I do.
NDK
You're in a different phase of life.
Peter Mayes
I mean, honestly, it's always been my phase of life. It was the same thing wherever I was. It was always just in the studio. I'm just fortunate to have windows now, which I didn't always have, you know, because sometimes you're just in that cave for like 16 hours a day. You may as well be underground because you can't see the sun.
But yeah, it's nice to have windows.
NDK
And there's probably more sunshine in LA than in London.
Peter Mayes
There definitely is. I mean, a thousand times more. Yeah, for sure.
NDK
So, you know, we're talking about living in London and then moving to Los Angeles. The environmental impact of where you live in terms of creation of the music, how do you think that impacted the music you made when you're in London, which has like an epic and very famous club scene compared to living and working in Los Angeles? Because I'm not too sure about the LA club scene ?
Peter Mayes
I mean, the LA club scene is still pretty healthy and pretty varied. I mean, there's still like a proper underground warehouse party scene here, like a huge amount of events every weekend and I'm downtown on the sixth floor, you can see, it just kind of goes on for miles and after this, there's just kind of warehouses for miles and miles and miles. I mean, it's a really big city.
So there's still kind of that opportunity to have a proper kind of underground rave scene here, which is great, you know, which hasn't really happened in Sydney, where I'm from since, you know, like the 90s.
NDK
I'm sure there's a little bit. I remember the 90s, It was fun.
Peter Mayes
It was fun. I mean, that's what we that's what we grew up on Nick and I were like, that was still kind of our inspiration for what we do today is. That there's there's teenagers like traipsing around a dirty warehouse, wandering, and Alexandra exactly and chippendal and some of them were kind of like further out. Like, I mean, mascot, there was a bit around there. But yeah, Alexandra really was home base.
NDK
you'd be shocked what's going on there recently because I'm originally from Sydney and visit quite often.
Peter Mayes
I go to Australia all the time, so I know what's happening, you know, it's like a kind of a really sort of semi-residential, you know, it's very different now.
But it was fun and that was a big part of our youth, that was really our youth, you know, that's how Nick and I met in the earlier years of high school and we realised, we kind of came from slightly different areas socially, but we realised that we both had kind of pretty obscure-tasted music that no-one else had at our school, and there's a lot of kids at our school.
So we really bonded on that and we've just been making music ever since.
But in terms of how your environment and your location influences, I think it really does.
I mean, definitely when we first moved to London, it was the fact that it was grey skies and cloudy all the time, that was really inspirational, because it was so different to Australia. So it was really wild for us, you know, so any kind of change is initially very inspiring because it's just different and you're making your music in a different sphere, you know, it's a different world, but then you get used to that.
So it just depends on how you are, on so many other aspects of your life. But here, definitely moving here after being in London, I mean, I love London, it's an incredible city, but the weather did get me down after a while, and so it was nice to move somewhere with this golden sunshine, like that real movie looking light all the time. Definitely, it lifts your mood.
NDK
A good change. You've been recording and performing live for two decades really, we'll call it. What's still exciting about getting into the studio and then also what excites you about performing live?
Peter Mayes
I mean, there's so much work that goes into making an album that performing it live is just for me, like maybe it's different for Nick, but for me, it's like a chance to just really jump around like an idiot and celebrate all the hard work, you know what I mean?
Like it's very exciting to finish an album and actually have it come out into the world because obviously, you know, there's so many songs you make that will never come out and there's probably good reason for that.
You know, not everything can be release worthy, but performing live is a wonderful experience, but it's only like an hour of the day, the rest of the day you're just sitting in a van, going to the airport, waiting for a delayed plane.
So it's a different kind of lifestyle to just making music every day. And we love touring, but we really are like studio people,and that's kind of what we do most of the time.
But we are very excited about coming to Cairns. We've been there a couple of years ago and we were doing a festival and we went to Mossman Gorge. It's beautiful. I've never been anywhere quite like that, it was so magical, and we just kind of hung around just sitting in the water. It was just so like therapeutic after, after doing a festival show and just so like relaxing.
That's one of the great things about doing a regional tour is we get to see like these one-off places that you probably would never otherwise be able to see withoutmaking a real point to go there as a tourist or whatever, but yeah, that's, that's one of the things I'm really looking forward to on this regional run, obviously we've been to Cairns and some other towns before, but we've never done so many of these other places in Queensland that I'm sure there's going to be something really unique about every single one of them and, and meeting people, you know, coming to people in their own town, rather than expecting them to travel to Brisbane or Sunshine Coast or something like that.
NDK
,I've lived in Cannes for 20 years and Mossman Gorge it's an absolutely cracking spot.
Cairns audiences, when there's something going on, they love to show up. So, I think coming as a solo, you know, not part of the festival, to Gilligan's, I think that's probably gonna go off. So, what do you think a Cairns audience can expect? Because you've got a new single out. Is there a new album coming out?
Peter Mayes
Yeah that comes July 31st, it's called AHHCade, as in A-H-H-C-A-D-E, and we've been working on it for the last year and a half, there's a new single which we just put out with Earth Gang and Sad Month, and it's called Nirvana, that just came out, and then we're kind of pretty much putting out a song like every month for the next six months or whatever, so very exciting year for us, lots of new music coming, and we really hope you guys enjoy it, but in terms of Cairns, , we grew up in the humidity, but like you guys, you really bring the humidity and we love that, we love the sweaty vibes, you get off the plane and you're just like, ah, cool, yeah, you feel it straight away, especially Nick, he loves it, he loves to be hot, he loves the the real intense heat, so it's going to be a lot of fun, , like we grew up going to clubs and raves where like there either there was no air conditioning, or it didn't really work, so you can kind of create that environment in a small room, but in Cairns it's it's everywhere, it's just really great to come to places that we've never been to play, because normally the crowds are really wild, I'm really happy to have you there, and normally we just have a great time.
NDK
Yeah, and that's what I was trying to say about Cairns when you have people that don't normally come through, it absolutely goes off. So I'm looking forward to that. Are you thinking that the show will be old songs, new songs, songs people haven't heard before.
Peter Mayes
Oh, yeah. I mean, we always do a bit of everything. There definitely be a lot of new songs that quite a few of them haven't been released. And we've been doing a lot of collabs in the last few years, so there's definitely a lot of stuff in the last few years. And there's definitely a lot as there's a lot of records from the last 20 years that we'll be playing, it's the only way to do it. You can't just play a new album or your first album or what you have to just give everyone a bit of everything.
NDK
PNAU have done heaps of collabs and you know obviously Elton John is very famous and he was involved in your career but who when you're thinking of a collab who would you love to do one with like just out of the box hey why don't we try this person or you know how does that come about for you guys?
Peter Mayes
I mean, there's just so many incredible artists in the world, especially now.
There's so many people who are really successful that I've never even heard of, you know what I mean? So sometimes I discover something and I'm like, wow, look at this person. They're doing so well.
The thing for us is it doesn't really matter what part of the music world you come from, it's in a way more exciting for us to work with people outside of electronic music and to bring them into our world musically. But the thing that we really look for always is, is a voice with some character. I think that is just the most exciting thing. And it honestly makes the record so much more interesting to me and to us. Like, that's, that's really our aim is to find someone with a, with a true character voice where they can just kind of say any lyric and you just believe it. You just, you're in from the first word. You're like, oh my God, like, cause that's something that I cannot do. I, I'm a terrible singer. I have a great sense of pitch and, and I can make someone sound great, I can record someone and produce them and make them sound great, but I cannot sing at all.
The human voice is an incredible instrument. And yeah, and mine not so incredible. So it's always just a privilege to have someone with that talent in the room.
Pnau Play Gilligan’s in Cairns as part of their Nirvan Tour on Friday The 19th of June
