Interview: Neil Smith (Peach Pit)

If you find a modern indie rock band writing catchier songs than Peach Pit, you might be hallucinating.

Fresh and upbeat with blistering guitar solos and smart, singalong lyrics, the Vancouver quartet has consistently expanded its studio sound with a new LP every other year. And its even more impressive onstage prowess is in full effect on Live in 25, which was released in early April.

Prior to flying to Charleston, S.C. for the band’s Sunday, April 19 performance at the High Water Festival, lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Neil Smith spoke with Asheville Stages about Orange Peel T-shirts, the joys of Dr. John in The Last Waltz, and upping the ante on professional goals.

Edwin Arnaudin: I'm looking forward to y'all’s set, especially because I unfortunately missed you guys at The Orange Peel Back in October.

Neil Smith: Nice! Yeah, Asheville is a great town. We always look forward to visiting. It's really pretty and The Orange Peel is a great venue. 

It was a good one for sure — I'm trying to think exactly how good the show was. The one previous to that was great as well, but we had some crazy annoying technical difficulties right at the end of the show. This one went super smooth and it was great. 

The time before that, the Moog Factory was still there and Chris [Vanderkooy], our guitar player, bought a cool synthesizer from there — he just bought it on a whim and we ended up using it a ton on the last two records.

EA: Nice! Yeah, we're so lucky to have The Orange Peel. 

NS: We got some sweet T-shirts the first time we were there, so I got my dad an Orange Peel shirt. It was, like, his favorite T-shirt ever and he totally wore it to the point of having holes in it. And so the last time we were playing, he was like, “You have to get me another shirt!” So I just have to go there every two years now to get my dad a new Orange Peel shirt.

EA: Priorities. Well, please keep coming back. 

NS: We will for sure. 

EA: Do I have it right that y'all are celebrating 10 years as a band this year? 

NS: Wow! Yeah. I guess so. It actually might be longer than that. I'm trying to think — it's actually been almost 12 years now. It's a little over 10 years but, yeah, it's been a while. 

EA: I guess I was thinking of the 10 years as more of a traditional retrospective time, but are there major accomplishments so far that you feel are defining things for Peach Pit? 

NS: Oh yeah, for sure. It's funny — when you're in a band, when you first start out you have little goals set for yourself. So when we first became a band, before we ever played a show, our goal was to play at — like, this local indie promoter would put on shows called Trash City Productions. And we were like, “We have to play a Trash City Production show!” And then you get that and you're like, “Fuck! We did it. We did a Trash City Production. That's sick.” 

And then from there, you're like, “What's the next goal we have?” We're in Vancouver, so the closest Canadian city is Calgary. So we're like, “We gotta go play a show in Calgary.” And then you go play a show in Calgary and you're like, “Fucking shit! We played a show in Calgary.” And so I feel like there are these constant little goals that happen and then you just enjoy them for a split second and then it's almost immediate that you're thinking about the next thing. 

But the milestones, they're great. And we've had lots of really big ones. But last year — if we're on the topic of shows we wanted to play, we played Red Rocks in Colorado. Over the past few years, we were like, “We gotta play Red Rocks.” And then you're like, “OK, I guess we did it. We did Red Rocks. What's the next sort of thing that we wanna do?” It’s an interesting thing where you have this constantly changing bar for yourself of things you want to do.

If I think back 10-12 years ago when we first started the band, if I told my younger self, “Oh, you got to play Red Rocks and you've been able to tour many times, all over the world, to Asia and Australia,” I would be freaking shitting myself. In some ways, it becomes normal. You get used to it and, I guess the point I'm trying to make is just that it's good to think back on how it felt when you were younger and to be grateful for things that you do.

EA: Have you thought about your post-Red Rocks goal? 

NS: Yeah, totally. I always want to set crazy goals for myself. I like to set ones that just seem completely impossible. So, I would really love to be nominated for a Grammy one day. I think that would be sweet. I don't think it's very likely — you have to become pretty famous in order for that to happen. But I always like to set something stupid for myself. That's definitely a goal — not that I even really care about awards or anything. It just seems significant. Like, “Holy shit! You got nominated for a Grammy. That's crazy!”

EA: Absolutely. 

NS: The show we did in Red Rocks, it wasn’t just us. It was with Briston Maroney. We didn’t book that show all by ourselves or anything. So, I would love to be able to play Red-Rocks-size venues on our own one day. There's lots of cool amphitheaters in the States, so I'd like to do a tour of that caliber one day, on our own. That would be pretty sweet.

EA: Sounds good to me. And it seems like having a proper live album feels like a pretty big accomplishment as well.

NS: Yeah, totally. That's just nice, in general, to have just for ourselves — to have a time capsule of something that we can listen to 20-30 years from now is just a cool thing to have, more than anything.

EA: Was that something that you've been wanting to have for a long time, or did you feel like you needed to check certain boxes first? Like, “Oh, now we have enough songs” or “We've hit a certain skill level with our live shows” before you put it out?

NS: Yeah, I guess so. But I think more than anything, we started working with our front-of-house engineer and tour manager, this guy Connor Young from Toronto. Connor is really good at mixing. He's great at his job. And so once we started working with him, we were like, “Oh shit! We should make a live record.” We already record all of our shows — he records them anyway and sends them to me. 

I like to listen back to the shows sometimes. I find it really helpful to listen back to things that I say in between songs — bantering things and talking to the crowd, because I find that to be one of the hardest things playing live: keeping it engaging in between the songs. I like to listen back and just be like, “Oh, OK. I sounded stupid when I said that,” or “Maybe this is funny. I gotta remember to say it that way with this joke that I made” or whatever. 

But anyway, he would send me the mixes of the shows and they sounded good. So we were like, “OK, we should just make a record. It would be pretty easy for us to do.” And for us, it was easy. We just played the shows. And then for Connor, it was super difficult because he had to listen back to almost every single show we played last year. And he had to pick the best ones and then mix them and make it sound like it was all from the same show because they were from a few different shows — Austin, Toronto, and LA. 

EA: Yeah, I couldn't find a lot of information about the specifics yet. And I was wondering if it was from different ones or just one, because it does have that kind of seamless feel to it.

NS: Yeah, totally. I think we'll put out the list of where the takes are from. For no reason, we just haven't done that yet — but we're not trying to keep it a secret or anything. 

Photo by Lester Lyons-Hookham

EA: And do I have it right that y'all are letting the fans pick the track list for the vinyl version?

NS: Yeah. There were too many songs on the live record to put out. We would have to put out a double record and it's expensive to do that. So we just put it to a vote and ask people to decide what the record should have on it, because it can only have 12 songs.

EA: It sounds like you're looking forward to that — even just in terms of being curious about what the fans would pick versus what y'all might go with.

NS: Oh yeah, for sure. I honestly think it'll be — it's usually pretty predictable, honestly. You just look at our Spotify, the most listened-to songs, and those will be the most popular songs. So, I bet you before seeing any of the data of what people want the track list to be, I could tell you what the track list was gonna be. 

EA: That would be a fun Instagram post if you write it out in advance, put it in an envelope, then open it and compare it to the actual track list.

NS: That's a great idea. I might have to steal that from you. 

EA: Do it! I think it's really neat when bands are established and then put out a live album. It just offers a different kind of connection, whether you've seen them live or not. Do you have any personal favorite live albums from some of your favorite bands?

NS: Oh, that's such a good question. I guess the #1 for me would be the recordings from Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz.

EA: Oh yeah. My main gig's actually a movie critic, and Scorsese's my guy.

NS: Oh, nice dude! Hell yeah. That’s one of my favorite movies ever. I really love that album. Probably my favorite track from that is Dr. John performing “Such a Night.” And the live version of it is so good — it's way better than his record version, which I only heard after seeing the movie. 

EA: Agreed. And then moving on to this festival, I guess this is y'all's first time playing High Water?

NS: Yep, first time. 

EA: How do you generally approach these kinds of shorter festival sets versus your usual headlining performances? 

NS: It's actually way easier to figure out the set list. We have enough records now that we honestly just pick the most popular songs on each record and then maybe we'll throw in one or two songs that we just have a really good live version of. But yeah, it's nice. After playing so many shows — we usually play an hour and a half or an hour and 40 minutes; when you only play an hour, the set just zips by when you're used to playing for a bit longer.

I love playing at music festivals. There's no dead spots in the set. There's no sleepy parts and you can really pack it full of the high energy stuff. 

EA: Awesome. And are there any fellow performers that you're especially looking forward to seeing while you're there? 

NS: Yeah, I wanna see Jesse Welles. I'm excited to see him. I like a lot of his stuff that he posts up on TikTok or YouTube or whatever. I have a buddy who played drums in the opening act of a band that was playing on tour with him and he said he was a super nice guy. So if we’re backstage and I see him, I’ll definitely go and introduce myself and say “hi” to him. 

EA: And lastly, I’m curious about the rest of your plans for 2026. I know you're also playing Shaky Knees [in Atlanta in September], which I'm gonna go to. Are y'all working on any demos right now or just focusing on a few festivals? 

NS: Yeah, that's basically all we're doing right now is we're just writing and recording. We have a little jam space studio space in Vancouver and we're either in there separately every day — or, probably three times a week, the boys and I are in there working on songs.

We've got about like 12 or 13 songs cooked up right now. The plan as it stands is to go down to LA and record an album, which will be cool. We’re honestly trying to write as many songs as possible. I find I write one really good song every, like, 10 songs, so I need to write 100 songs for 10 really good songs. 

IF YOU GO

What: High Water Festival
When: Saturday, April 18-Sunday, April 19
Where: Riverfront Park, 1061 Everglades Ave., North Charleston, S.C., highwaterfest.com
Tickets: $149-$1750

(Photo by Lester Lyons-Hookham)