Following on from September’s release of their debut tune, “Salt,” Portland’s newest band, Driving for Peaches today digitally-released “Head Straight.”
The second of three songs recorded earlier this year while under COVID restrictions, Head Straight offers a counterpoint to the alt-pop vibes of Salt, and sees the band exploring a more hard-hitting sound, with forceful, overdriven guitars and catchy single note melodies.
Talking about “Head Straight,” guitarist Alex Whitcher said: “The track came about through several jam sessions quickly phone-recorded, then stitched together to see what worked. The main verse guitar riff underpins the whole song, and creates this sort of 70s feeling that develops and takes off at the end into a little boogie. It’s a great track to drive to!”
Driving for Peaches formed in late 2019 in Portland, Oregon, when three new friends from faraway places started jamming together. When jams became songs, the trio – Ditte Kuijpers from the Netherlands on vocals, and guitarists Alex Whitcher from New Zealand and Pete Harrington from the UK – turned their thoughts towards gigs, and started to look for a bassist and drummer to join the band.
And then COVID hit.
With live venues shut and the search for new musicians put on hold, the trio decided to try to record their ideas in Harrington’s basement home studio, starting a series of socially-distanced sessions that produced the songs Head Straight, Blisters, and Salt. Keen to complete the recordings, the trio called up UK session drummer, Danyal Ince, who sent in beats from abroad. Bass proved trickier, but with other options exhausted, Harrington borrowed an old Fender four-string from Kuijpers to complete the tracks. Finally, the songs were sent off to the UK’s Chris Brown (Radiohead, Muse, The Beatles), former Senior Engineer at Abbey Road Studios, for mixing and mastering.
