Before their 3:45 p.m. Friday set at the Coinbase stage at Lollapalooza, indie-pop band Peach Pit chatted with The Daily Illini.
The band — made up of singer and guitarist Neil Smith, guitarist Christopher Vanderkooy, bassist Peter Wilton and drummer Mikey Pascuzzi — talked about their Lollapalooza set, their recent concert in Urbana at Canopy Club, their new music and more.
DI: How are you guys feeling about your Lolla set?
Smith: I’m very excited about Lolla. I think the crowd’s gonna be super big and crazy, and yeah, it’s going to be fun. We just gotta play for an hour, which is easy peasy, so it’s gonna be sick.
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DI: You guys played a show in Urbana a few days ago, right? How was that?
Vanderkooy: It was awesome.
Smith: Urbana was awesome. It was super sick. It was 1,000,000 degrees at the venue. So like. Five songs in we were soaked and just dying of heat, but the crowd’s energy was great. The staff at the venue was really cool. They were like, whipping water bottles out to the crowds ‘cause it was so hot.
Vanderkooy: One guy had a leaf blower and he was just blasting the crowd with a leaf blower to cool them off because it was so hot. He was doing it at, like, during a quiet song at one point, and it was super loud. It was tight.
DI: Music-wise, are you guys working on anything right now?
Smith: Right now, yeah, we’re working on a new record. We’re in the middle of recording it right now. Hopefully it’ll be out next year, if we write some more songs.
DI: Is there any new direction the band is going in? What are you all thinking for the album?
Smith: I think we’re just trying to make a record that will translate to our live shows really well and make for an exciting live show.
Vanderkooy: I think the last record was a bit of a quieter record, so we got to play live after the pandemic, and we were kind of like, oh, ‘these songs are great, but we need to write some more high energy ones because we want the shows to be as good as possible.’
DI: Do you guys have any musical inspirations?
Smith: Yeah, we like all sorts of classic rock right now. I would say, what are you listening to these days, Michael?
Pascuzzi: I’ve been listening to Alex G, ever since we played at a festival in the Netherlands.
Smith: He was really cool. We also just saw Big Thief a couple days ago, and they were a very inspiring live band to see. Yeah, just trying to make some cool music that translates to the stage.
DI: You mentioned that you’re making a new record. What is your songwriting process like?
Smith: We just kind of sit down and make it up as we go, and hopefully it turns out good. Sometimes it’s s— and that’s all it is.
DI: Do you have anything else you want to mention?
Smith: I want to give a shout out to everyone in Chicago who did Sky Deck this weekend. That s— was really scary.
