Peach and Quiet - Interview

by Julie Cruickshank

published: 30 / 8 / 2023

Canadian duo Peach And Quiet chat to Julie Cruickshank about their musical inspirations and future plans.

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Peach and Quiet, hailing from Pender Island, Canada, are singer / songwriters Heather Read and Jonny Miller. Their first album ‘Just Beyond the Shine’ was critically acclaimed, topping folk/roots charts in North America. Their second album ‘Beautiful Thing’ is receiving plaudits around the world. Pennyblackmusic spoke to the duo about influences from Wales and Laurel Canyon and finding inspiration in nature. PB: Heather, you hail from Wales. Do you think growing up in the Land of Song nurtured your musicianship, and do you bring any influences from the country into your playing, singing and songwriting? HEATHER: I didn’t actually grow up in Wales but I was born there and my family emigrated to Toronto when I was very young. My dad was a salesman by day and musician by night throughout my childhood and beyond and went by “Welsh Willie”. I always remember him hauling and loading his Hammond organ and Leslie speaker into his van when I was a kid, to head out each night for a gig. He passed on a few years ago, but even at 89 he still played the keyboards every day including to seniors in retirement homes. He was a big influence in my musical development, in particular his tenacity and hard work, his attitude and his complete fascination with music. He once opened for Tom Jones and claimed to know 20,000 songs by heart. He was self-taught, quite a lively character! He was my biggest influence and he was very Welsh – so yes, in a roundabout way, you could say that! PB: Jonny, your songwriting pulls together beautifully influences of psychedelia, folk and reggae. Could you explain how you have arrived at this mix which makes your songs sound so unique? JONNY: My parents exposed me to some great music I think. A lot of country, roots and folk stuff from my mom, reggae from my dad, and Jimi Hendrix from both of them. They took me to a lot of live performances and supported my record buying habit in the teen years. PB: Heather, how did you come to settle in Canada, and how do you find living there has shaped your approach to music – is it much of a contrast to Wales, or do you find similar traditions? HEATHER: I pretty much answered this in my last answer but I will say that I sang as a child growing up in any situation I could find myself in. We were very musical family and all of us were always singing. My dad had us all on stage pretty regularly, we were a kind of family band. After my sisters were older and no longer wanted to do that, I kept on. It happened once that when my mom left me at a table at a restaurant while she went to the restroom, I went up onto the empty stage and lead people through a hearty round of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” (North American sports anthem – Ed). I would rope friends into singing Christmas carols and teach them harmonies. I had my dad’s can-do attitude. I was also always songwriting for as long as I can remember. For example, I was once in a school play and they had a scene where I played a nurse singing to a baby. I approached the director and asked him if I could write a song to sing in that part, even though it wasn’t a musical. He let me sing it and I got a standing ovation. I guess that was my debut of my first original song, I was 11. PB: Jonny, there is a strong feel of the Laurel Canyon music scene around your songs. Do you have any favourite musicians from this time? JONNY: If I had to choose one particular ‘Laurel Canyon sound’ album it would probably be The Byrds ‘Sweetheart of the Rodeo’. And all the classics of course, like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and the San Francisco Bay Area scene of the same time. That was also hugely impactful, with The Grateful Dead’s album ‘American Beauty’ being a prime example. PB: Do you both feel that being partners in life as well as musically makes your songwriting more spontaneous? To me your songs weave a sort of magic spell of contentment. HEATHER: That is kind of you to say. I think we live in a magical place, Pender Island in a log house in the woods and that bliss melts into everything. I spend as much time listening to trees as other people probably do listening to sports news or podcasts. I am finding that the forests have lots to tell us and if I can capture it in a song that is a miracle. I caught it in one of the songs on the album. We rarely write together but we play together everyday. We also give each other a lot of space as individuals to create and be fully each who we are, and that keeps the creative juices flowing. PB: Could you tell us about some of the guitars and other instruments you use, both live and in the recording studio? JONNY: I have two main guitars that I play these days, and mostly it’s the ‘nothing special’ standard entry level early 2000s black Fender Telecaster, made in Mexico, so often referred to as a Mexicaster. Then there’s a 1972 D-18 Martin acoustic which my mom let me have, after years of me asking for. I also have a 1967 D-40 Guild acoustic that I’m particularly fond of, but it needs some work and playing. HEATHER: I have a trusty Guild acoustic that took me through the first developmental years of playing on stage, and I have a lovely Martin acoustic that has an interesting history with a local Vancouver island musician who used it exclusively as his songwriting guitar. Whenever I pick it up, I seem to write a song or a piece of a song! It has some kind of magic imbued in it. I am so lucky to have found it, or perhaps it found me. I also have a Waterloo that sounds great and comes really close to the sounds of an old depression era Gibson. PB: What are your plans for future recordings and performing live? JONNY: We are hoping to record and release a steady stream of singles over the next year or two. At some point we’ll likely roll those into an “album” for radio promo reasons as that seems to be the format of choice these days. There isn’t really any money to be made on streaming unless you get discovered on TikTok or whatever the latest cool thing is, but that’s the way it works these days, so we have to play along. As for touring, we have a smattering of gigs planned over the coming months, but the day jobs are a scheduling challenge. We’d also love to do a European tour, perhaps in 2024. PB: Thank you.