Letting Go with Peach Tree Rascals
The self-taugh musical collective has racked up millions of streams on every track that’s released — with their latest single "Let U Go" to get you up on your feet and having you playing it back on repeat. In what the group properly describes their own sound as “Rascal Pop,” they invite you on a sonic journey in their forthcoming EP release entitled Does A Fish Know It’s Wet? set to release today.
We were grateful to get some of their time, and enter the sun-soaked world they've built. In an exclusive interview with office, the guys chatted to us from their Norwegian hotel room, hours before they went off to catch Thor in theaters.
First off, where are all of you guys? How has tour been?
TARREK– Good. We are in Norway right now. This is our first time in Europe, we're doing a European tour, a bunch of festivals. Today we have an off day and we just spent most of the day just relaxing and getting to know the city... It's been amazing. Just to see different people and how much better Europe is. Where we are and how clean the streets are.
Where have you played so far?
TARREK– We've played in France. That one is probably one of my favorites and the best crowd, most energetic. And then Finland, Belgium, London. We did our headline show in London, every other show has been festivals. But London was our first headline, like, overseas headlining show, which was a beautiful experience to have people from a whole other country singing all the words to the songs.
JOSEPH– It's a different energy when it's your own headline show. Compared to festivals, because those fans are coming just to see us and like they know the songs word for word. It's all love.
Your latest single "Let U Go" was just released. How did the song come to be? I feel like it's gonna be everyone's go-to summer song.
TARREK– We hope so. This song and this project titled "Does A Fish Know It's Wet?" comes out July 22. It's pretty much us trying to make the biggest songs we've ever made and something that really pops off. Because when you discovered us in 2018, and for those first few years of our career, it was just us.
I don't know if you know our story, but we all met in high school and we just started, we're all self taught. We had no connections. We were all just in a shed in Dom's backyard that barely fit us in there and it was like that for years. Releasing and producing our own stuff. After "Mariposa" had the success it did, it was when we were put into this industry. We signed a label deal, have managers, tour managers, booking, all that stuff. So it became more of a business and we have more people behind us. So when that business aspect and the industry aspect became a thing, they started to look at it more as statistics and numbers- you know how the story goes with that. This project is us feeling that pressure of the business trying to chase the numbers of "Mariposa," and us trying to do our thing with it at the same time. So if you ask us what genre this project is, we're going to say, "Rascal Pop" because it's pop music. We're trying to make it pop off, hit the radio, and hit the charts, but we tried to do it in our own way and add our own flair to it. And we're very excited about that.
How would you say that you guys find the balance between having a management team versus staying true to who you guys are?
ISAAC– It took a little while to find a balance at first, like everybody's words and opinions meant too much to us. And after a while of just being stressed out because of what other people expect or what other people think you should do, you kind of have to force yourself to form a balance or else you're gonna go fucking insane. So after a while, we were kind of able to set in our opinion amongst us, and kind of roll with that, as opposed to everybody listening to outside voices, and everyone kind of being scattered. Now it's more like a formulated group effort, which was a process but we're there.
TARREK– It makes it a lot easier because we've all been living with each other and we've been friends for a long time. So no matter how many other people there are in Peach Tree Rascals now in terms of label and management, the core group is always here together. As long as we all feel the same way, it does not matter what anyone else says. We can always put our foot down and make our opinions the number one.
What would you want your listeners to take away from the EP?
TARREK– I think this project is something that you can kind of just listen to in any setting in terms of summer, having fun with your friends, just a free democracy. I think just having fun with your friends and living life. That's the kind of feeling this project is.
JORGE– Yeah, I guess for this one we just want people to enjoy themselves because things in the world aren't the greatest right now. We want this music to be an escape from reality, I guess.
Would you guys say that, that sort of like the ethos behind Peach Tree Rascals? Just like being carefree, dancing a little bit, and escaping from reality?
TARREK– I would think so. A lot of people over the years have said we've had very uplifting and bright music. But if you listen to the lyrics, it could be a little bit more sad, if you really like look into it. That's just our way of taking our experiences, those hard times in our lives, and trying to make it more uplifting and more optimistic.
Talk me through your music making process.
TARREK– ...A big part of our process is we try to put our egos completely aside. We try to be very honest with each other. And so if, for example, if I have an idea for a melody, I'll share it with the guys and like Dom would be like, "It's all right, it could be better." Then we go back and keep writing. I don't let it hurt my feelings. I don't let it stop me from trying to create.
DOM– Whenever I give feedback, I try to have not to just say, "Hey, this could be better," but I'll also try to throw in how it can be better.
And you guys were saying earlier that you all met when you were younger, and have been doing this for years. So do you think having that initial level of comfort with one another helps in this?
TARREK– 100%. They're all my best friends at the end of the day. I remember in the very beginning it took some getting used to because like I was just starting out with making music. I was going through that process of Dom being like, "No, that that idea sucks." You gotta keep trying to come up with something better. That criticism at first took me a while to be like, "Okay, I understand what's happening." For other people, it could make them want to stop and make them want to quit. But we all want the same thing, which is to make the best music and the best product.
I kind of want to bring this back to your early days of when you were first starting out and meeting each other. Is there a specific story or time where you were all like, "Hey, let's start a band."
TARREK– It honestly came together, like it just happened. I like to say it was more of a domino effect. Isaac has been making music since he was 12 years old. Dom and Joseph have been friends since freshman year of high school and we didn't meet Isaac until our junior year of high school. He was the first person in our group of friends that was actively writing, recording, and releasing music. He was dropping music videos on YouTube, songs on SoundCloud, burning CDs and passing them out at school. Having someone like that in your group of friends was very inspiring.
ISAAC– I changed their life.
JOSEPH– It really opened the door for our creativity.
TARREK– Like it didn't start right away with us like, "Alright, we're all gonna go and start making music after seeing Isaac do that." After school we'd be smoking and freestyling, like me and Isaac. Then I would go over to his house and the studio was his room. We would just record stuff over YouTube beats and release them on SoundCloud.
DOM– Honestly seeing Tarrek's improvement from when he started to a few months, honestly, that was inspiring too.
TARREK– Then after, me and Isaac were going through that process, Joseph every once in a while, would pop his head in.
JOSEPH– They would consistently ask me, but I would just be so hesitant because I was so self conscious about singing and music.
TARREK– But we knew he could play guitar a little bit and we knew he had a beautiful voice. I just remember hanging out with him after school and no matter where we were, and no matter where we were going, he would just be singing freely. He always had a beautiful voice so we would always try to push him to come and sing a hook for us or something.
JOSEPH– I think for me when I went all into music, we were like drunk at our friend's party. And Dom was just like, "You could be one of the greatest musicians and by adding to this group we could just dominate the entire world." I went home that night, and I really thought about it. And the next day I went all in.
TARREK– That brings me back to the domino effect. It was after high school when Dom started producing and in the first couple years of college, Dom was like, "I don't know what the fuck I'm gonna do with my life." He's the mastermind behind Peach Tree Rascals, Isaac's the mastermind behind the inspiration for all of us to want to even start making music. Dom going into producing was all self taught. So seeing him work for years, literally day and night, 60, 70, 80 hours a week, just trying to get better at production was the game changer for us. He was the first person to ever tell me and Isaac, "Oh, this melody could be better, this flow could be better." Because when it was just us, we would just go with whatever.
When was sort of a breakthrough moment for you guys where you felt yourself taking it to the next level?
ISAAC– On the music side, I fell asleep and they kept working on music. And they were working on "Violet." I woke up and I was kind of irritated because the music was hella loud. Then it was the bridge of "Violet" and it was crazy. It sounded like something produced by, like, Kanye West or something. I was half asleep and I was like, "Whoa, we can do this." And then I went back to sleep with a smile on my face. On the career side of things. It was the first time we made an editorial playlist on Spotify, because I used to be in charge of doing all the email shit and learning how to promote music in an efficient way. I think it was our third song, "Water" that made Mellow Bars on Spotify. I ran around the house. It was crazy.
I'm excited to see what else you guys do. Is there anything else that you guys want to let people know?
TARREK– Despite whatever you're going through, despite whatever is going on in the world, try to protect your energy and focus on what's right in front of you. And the people around you that love you and care about you.
JASPER– Zzzzzzzz.
