We find ourselves on a strange new world of industrial goth rock speaking with 51 Peg.
What can you tell us about new EP Cut The Wire.
Jeff: From a lyrical standpoint I feel that it’s some of the most developed and sharp work I have ever done. I focused more time and effort into these messages than ever before.
Brian: I think Jeff really kind of really made these songs thematically relevant to the times we are living in without purposefully doing so. Ironically these songs for the most part are actually some older ideas we had laying around that got dug up again and were given new life and direction. We tried to be more concise in the songwriting and sound design.
Tim: As Jeff and Brian mentioned, we were more focused overall on how we wanted to create and even release these songs compared to our last album A\Void. This EP is an extension of that album stylistically as it shares a similar trio of themes of goth-industrial, synth pop, and prog rock.
The 20th Anniversary of your debut album is coming up. Do you have anything special planned?
Jeff: Worldwide outbreaks of sickness are a hell of a thing. Let’s hope we have an appropriate circumstance in which to execute such a thing in the near future.
“Today’s music technology makes it way more accessible and easier to create music.”
Carlo: We’ve been actively working on some of the deeper material on Strange Appointments to be able to bring the full album to a live stage but, yeah, everything is up in the air right now.
In the 20 years since that first album there were changes to the way you worked as a group. How did you overcome these challenges and how did that affect the group as a whole?
Jeff: The initial creation of this band as you know it today was the result of adjusting to logistical changes that were beyond our control. We have found, over the years, that the best way to adapt to adversity is to embrace our short comings as artistic choices rather than to think of them as barriers or handicaps. We’re sometimes the sound of the squeaky wheel getting the grease.
Brian: When you stick around for twenty years the technology advances quite a bit. The accessibility and affordability of home recording has made it possible for us to exist as a band despite being in separate physical locations. Maybe it’s still not the most ideal way to do things – we’d love to have Jeff in the room with us as ideas get kicked around – but it’s still pretty effective. We’re not really a jam band anyway. We share tracks via [on-line storage] and iron out parts in person when Tim, Carlo and I get together to rehearse.
“I can’t think of any other band that is more equipped to operate within quarantine parameters […]”
Carlo: Twenty years ago we had to figure out how to create the sound we wanted and present it live. Now today’s music technology makes it way more accessible and easier to create music with electronic instruments but having to figure it out ourselves back then was part of what makes us sound like us today.
What did you do after the apparent dissolution of the group circa 2005 were you involved with any other acts?
Jeff: I spent a great deal of time searching for whatever else could fill the place in my life that creating music always has. It turns out that nothing else meets the criteria.
Brian: Well we definitely didn’t want any dissolution to occur, but it happened, so Carlo and I started a band called My Enemy Complete shortly thereafter and a few years into that project we recruited Tim to add more synths to MEC. When 51 Peg reunited in ’16 we asked Tim to join since Jaime was no longer in the picture on keys. So the current lineup was a natural progression. Carlo and I actually never really stopped working together.
“We would like to get out into the world.”
Tim: I was always working with or parallel to the rest of the band during the past twenty years. I even popped into a writing session or two towards the end of that version of Peg in ’05. My old band Imbue shared the stage with 51 Peg many times in the early 2000’s and shortly after I dissolved my last project, Hollowboy, I started working full-time with Carlo and Brian in MEC and then Peg.
How does the rest of the year look for 51 Peg?
Carlo: We’re still optimistic about playing a show or two before the year ends and we’re always working on new music.
Tim: We’re always writing and tinkering with our setups.
Jeff: Hopefully, not like the inside of our homes. I can’t think of any other band that is more equipped to operate within quarantine parameters than 51 Peg but I think we would like to get out into the world and perform this new material where it counts in a room with other hearts and minds that love it.
