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Orville Peck Sings Praises for Equality & Shania Twain

"I think people see country as something that doesn’t challenge the status quo. But that’s not the country that I was raised on."

By Samuel Anderson | VMAN | August 22, 2020

As far as mythic archetypes go, cowboys aren't known to possess magical powers. But Orville Peck, dark prince of country, pulled off nothing short of sorcery in enlisting Shania Twain as a partner in crime. The masked crooner and the Canadian diva are thick as thieves on their new duet, “Legends Never Die”—which they performed the other night following the release of the star-studded music video. It’s a match made in honky tonk heaven, uniting disparate eras in country-music pageantry. And it's one that Peck, a non-normative anomaly when he first masqueraded onto the scene around 2018, never thought would happen: “I started writing a duet with her in mind. Mostly fully knowing it would probably never come to fruition,” he tells VMAN.

In our latest attempt to go behind the mask, VMAN asks Peck about the genesis of the “Legends” collab, the importance of queer idols in country, supporting racial justice and more.

VMAN I don’t think fans could have asked for a more exciting duo than you and Shania Twain. Was she always someone you saw yourself performing with? 

Orville Peck In my dreams, maybe. But I’ve obviously been a fan of hers since I was a kid—she’s a very obviously iconic musician, and one of the most prolific entertainers of our time. I think everyone has a memory they can remember about Shania Twain.

VMAN What was that memory for you?

OP [It was] definitely during the “That Don’t Impress Me Much” era. I think that was when I first discovered her—in that famous leopard print outfit. I feel like she was just one of those artists that’s always been in everyone’s TV and radio and just been a part of all of our lives, which is what makes her such a legend.

VMAN How did this collaboration come about?

OP I’d heard she was a fan of mine—which I found really hard to believe at the time—and then, you know, when I found that out, I started writing a duet with her in mind. Mostly fully knowing it would probably never come to fruition. I sent the song to her people and not heard much back, and then I met her at the Grammys, and she said, ‘You know, I loved the song you wrote for us. I would love to work on it with you.’ So, that was an amazing moment and a dream come true. A few months later, we were at her ranch in Las Vegas, recording the song together.

VMAN Growing up, were you always openly a fan of female artists in country openly? Or did you feel like you had to be a fan of the Johnny Cashes—the more masculine idols of the genre?

OP To be honest with you, it’s kind of a two part answer for me, I suppose. In one sense, I personally have never let the ideas of gender, sexuality, masculinity, or femininity ever impose any ideas of what I was allowed to enjoy or be inspired by or champion because, to me, I don’t find the idea of limiting yourself by those standards helpful or interesting. I would say that I definitely would run into things without any sort of bias based on those points, but at the same time, I definitely inherently was drawn towards a lot of female country because I think the struggle of female country artists and the perspective of being innately the underdog, I think that definitely resonated more with me.

That’s not to say that I didn’t also love Johnny Cash and all the male artists as well, but I think as a young gay boy I probably closer related to people like Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, Shania, Reba, Faith Hill—those kind of singers. I think I could relate to their struggle a little more. 

VMAN Whose idea was it to reprise the leopard print? 

OP The suggestion came from Shania’s side. I shared what I was going to wear [in the video] and they came back saying that Shania was thinking about maybe wearing leopard print. Of course, all of us were just like, "Oh, well, of course!" We were so excited that she wanted to do that because it was such an iconic moment in fashion and music and everything—the “That Don’t Impress Me Much” video. So the fact that she wanted to give a nod to that in our video was really cool and we said, "Yes, absolutely!" 

VMAN Speaking of country divas in the news, Dolly Parton recently vocalized her support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Is there anything you would say to fans of yours who might be in the traditional country-listening demographic?

OP I actually delayed the release of my album to focus on Black Lives Matter, and it’s a very important cause to me. I will always continue to be an activist and advocate for the things I believe in, [because] I think that there is a lot of work to do.

Country music especially has actually always been about being an outlaw. Somewhere along the way, in the past ten or 15 years, I think people [started to] see country as something that doesn’t challenge the status quo or question authority. But that’s not the country that I was raised on. I will always continue to shout as loud as possible for anybody who maybe feels like they don’t have a voice. Especially in spheres like country, where those voices tend to get stifled.

But I think there’s a lot changing, and I think it’s a really positive thing that people like Dolly and a couple of other people in the country genre speak up. Jason Isbell has been very vocal...The Chicks are constantly vocal. Hopefully the times will change, but the conversation will carry on and it’s something that we all need to keep focusing on. 

https://vman.com/article/orville-peck-shania-twain-legends-social-justice/

Orville Peck Releases ‘Show Pony’ Takes Shania Twain for a Ride on “Legends Never Die”

By Tina Benitez-Eves | American Songwriter | September 4, 2020

Orville Peck has been keeping journals since he was 16 years old. All the heartache, reminisces, and other written-in-place memories have provided him with some riveting storytelling. “Sometimes I go back on things and take lyrics from journal entries that I had when I was younger,” says Peck on how he crafted his latest EP Show Pony. “All of my songs, essentially, are many years in the making, and then some things on Show Pony came up in the studio. It’s a mix of different periods from my life.”

Always behind his leather-fringed mask, Peck exposes more on Show Pony. Turned down some notches from 2019 debut Pony’s more electric production, Show Pony is stripped down and viscerally opens Peck’s past in childhood reflections, present tales of lonesomeness, being queer, and ultimately… being ready for the “show.” If Pony was hanging around the stable, Show Pony is ready for the spotlight.

Still brooding in its cinematic, Southern-goth, Lone Ranger croons, Show Pony‘s slower country medleys get caught up in some nostalgia, opening on affecting lyrics of “Summertime,” Asking where the time’s gone / Dreaming with the lights on / Trying to keep your eyes on / Something along the rise.

Originally written for Pony, Peck needed more time to flesh out “Summertime” for Show and later revised it while recording in Nashville. Shifting from Toronto to Nashville with some vocals done in Los Angeles, Show Pony was predominantly recorded on tour in 2019. “Show Pony found itself among the highways of North America, which gives a nice touch to the kind of outlaw feel of it,” says Peck. “When I listen to Show Pony, it definitely brings up ‘On the Road’ again by Willie Nelson, where it just feels a bit transient.”

On Show Pony, Peck drifts through the haunting, outlaw-ridden Americana of “No Glory in the West” to a story of distant love on “Drive Me, Crazy.” Night after night, Peck would sit up late at night on the tour bus, watching trucks passing one another in the night. Hearing his bus driver on the CV radio talking to the other bus and truck drivers, Peck starting thinking of the more amatory tale about two truckers who are in love, yet they’ve never met.

“I had this idea that I wanted to write a country love song ala Elton John piano power ballad about two truck drivers who are in love with each other, and they only ever see each other when they pass each other on the divide, on freeways at night,” says Peck. “They’ve never even met—everything is through the radio.”

Going through journals when he was 18 and in a very different place in his life, all these emotions started flooding out, and turned out into “Kids.” Reopening the pain of friends Peck lost when he was a teen, the acoustic-driven track cuts deeper, and ended up being the most private song on the album for Peck, singing Running out into the night / Getting low on luck it’s time to fight / You call me up telling me all your frights / Because neither one of has died. “I think I imagined it was going to be a slightly understated kind of song,” says Peck. “I knew I wanted it to be quite stripped down, but I think that might be the most private song I’ve ever written, lyrically. It’s about it’s about me, and some friends that I sadly lost when I was young.”

He adds, “I wanted to just make it really simple and understated but try and pack as much vulnerability into the lyrics as I could, which is something I haven’t done before. It’s challenging, just as a person, to be so open about certain things, so I really tried to challenge myself lyrically with that. It’s funny, because now it’s my favorite song on the EP.”

A first collaboration for Peck, Shania Twain joins Peck for the more country-pop revelry of “Legends Never Die.” Peck originally heard Twain— who was the last person he was able to meet before everything shut down during the pandemic—was a fan of his, which he didn’t believe at first.

Then, he decided to start writing the track with her in mind.

“It was a lot of me battling the denial of whether that was true or not true because I couldn’t believe it,” says Peck. “Then I had this pipe dream after hearing that. I had yet to do any kind of duet or a feature on any of my songs, and since there’s such a rich history of duets and collaborations within country music, I put a lot of expectation on it as to who that was going to be the first one.”

From the start, “Legends” was meant to be more of an up-temp country rock song with a laid back, hot, and sweaty feel. “I wanted to merge those two feelings together, because it brings to mind a lot of the ’90s country rock,” says Peck. “That’s kind of what I wanted to achieve with her, because I couldn’t really think of a duet that she had done that was like that, and I know that she’s so capable of different vibes.”

Donning a more skin-tight leopard get up from her “That Don’t Impress Me Much” days, Twain is a force on “Legends” dueling with Peck on You get one chance, when you strike the match/ Ain’t nothing in this life gonna hold me back up. Peck jokes that those lyrics pretty much sum up his surprising union with Shania. “Well, in my experience,” he says, “you gotta really shoot for the stars.”

Moving on from Twain, Peck pays homage to another woman of country, closing on his rendition of the Bobbie Gentry classic “Fancy.”

“I’ve been performing ‘Fancy’ for quite a while now, but I decided I wanted to do a studio version for the EP, because it was written by the incomparable legend Bobbie Gentry,” says Peck about her 1969 song of childhood poverty and prostitution, which was also redone by Reba McEntire in 1990. “Her [Gentry’s] version feels so important and of the time it was written. It felt very ahead of its time, but also so of the time it was written, and then Reba covered it and her version had its own mark. I felt like that song deserved another evolution to kind of pay respect to both the previous versions, but also give my own take on it.”

Sonically, Peck added his own dark cowboy touch to “Fancy,” holding true to its Here’s your one chance, Fancy, don’t let me down and twisting lyrics to better reflect a boy in the story. “It was also my own perspective, which was a queer perspective that hadn’t been added to the song before,” says Peck. “I think it’s an incredible song that has its own life really, and I just wanted to get my version in there so that hopefully 10 years from now, someone else might cover it and they can put their spin on it, and that song can keep living on and on.”

There’s some iteration in the titles, but Show Pony steps into another expansive range from Pony. “It’s like the middle sister between what Pony was and what the next album will be—sonically, thematically,” says Peck. “It feels almost like an evolution from Pony and that’s essentially why it’s connected in the title.”

He’s also always had this fascination with the figure of a pony. “I feel like a pony could be perceived in so many different ways,” says Peck. “It’s kind of lonely. It’s kind of sad. It’s a little bit out of place in the sense that it’s not quite a horse. It’s not even a donkey. It’s just kind of there, and it also has this queer connotation for me.”

Feeling more confidence after Pony‘s reception encouraged Peck to dig deeper Show Pony with lyrics and bolder instrumentation. “That’s why it’s Show Pony, because it’s been dolled up and it’s got ribbons and its main is ready for the competition,” says Peck. “But at the end of the day, it’s still just this sad little pony.”

Writing for Peck is not a process, and it’s mostly enjoyable, never laborious. It either starts with an idea, a lyric with a point of view, or a melody, which he’ll usually record into his phone. “I’m kind of all over the place,” laughs Peck. Mostly, he just misses performing live. 

“I love writing music,” says Peck. “I love everything about my job, but my absolute favorite favorite thing will always and forever be performing. So that’s really taken a lot to get used to, not being able to perform, not being able to interact with the fans in that way, or just getting out on stage, which I really underestimated how much I rely on, and how much as performer, we really feed off that. It’s been a complete baptism by fire for me to suddenly wake up each day and ask myself, ‘what am I going to do?’ I’ve never had that in my life!”

Peck admits he’s a bit of a dark cowboy. There’s always going to be that shadowy vibe, those murkier musings in his music. Now, he just finds it amusing since he’s been less of Lone Ranger these days.

“It’s so funny, because I’m usually surrounded by so many people now,” says Peck. “I have a very caring team. I have an amazing label and so many people supporting me. I’m literally never alone anymore, and I still write these kind of dark lonesome songs. It’s just ironic, because I don’t think we ever really truly get rid of that. I think when you’re kind of a bit of a lone soul, that stays with you through everything.”

Living in lockdown, Peck is thinking of new creative projects, some not necessarily linked to music, and is already working on the next album.

“I feel grateful that I am in a place in my life where I get to not only have a job that I enjoy, but a job that other people seem to enjoy as well,” says Peck. “It helps motivate me to keep doing things and living out dreams I’ve had since I was a little kid.”

Peck adds, “There’s an entire universe in my head that extends into all kinds of mediums and formats. Hopefully when life starts to return back to normal, we get to explore a few more of those.”

https://americansongwriter.com/orville-peck-releases-show-pony-takes-shania-twain-for-a-ride-on-legends-never-die/

Shania Twain @ShaniaTwain

Watch the behind-the-scenes for the Legends Never Die video with my favourite cowboy @orvillepeck now! ❤️ https://orvillepeck.lnk.to/LNDBTS

Preview clip - https://twitter.com/ShaniaTwain/status/1305538045022674946

12:05 PM ET - 14 Sep 20

http://twitter.com/ShaniaTwain

-----------------------------------

Orville Peck, Shania Twain - Legends Never Die - Behind the Scenes

Behind the scenes video for "Legends Never Die" by Orville Peck & Shania Twain.

Listen & Download 'Legends Never Die' out now: https://orvillepeck.lnk.to/LND
Listen to Orville's new EP Show Pony here: https://orvillepeck.lnk.to/ShowPony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTqsuYSKhzA

Orville Peck just released a lyric video for "Legends Never Die". Pretty cool!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJVolrD7eic

Shania Twain @ShaniaTwain

Don't you forget 😘💎 @OrvillePeck

8:35 PM ET - 28 Sep 20

http://twitter.com/ShaniaTwain

10 Best Country Collaborations of 2020

From Shania Twain and Orville Peck to Kelsea Ballerini and Halsey, the must-hear pairings of the past year

By Jonathan Bernstein & Jon Freeman & Joseph Hudak | Rolling Stone | December 2, 2020

Americana royalty, of-the-moment pop stars, and a songwriting legend all joined up with Nashville artists this year to create some captivating collaborations. But they weren’t all crossover unions, as country singers paired up with one another too. Together, they sang about trucks, cheating exes, and even political discourse. From the all-star trio of Charley Pride, Darius Rucker, and Jimmie Allen, to the glamorous and glorious meeting of Shania Twain and Orville Peck, these are the best musical partnerships of 2020.

Orville Peck With Shania Twain, 'Legends Never Die'

It’s a collaboration made in gay country heaven: masked troubadour Orville Peck and Canadian superstar Shania Twain are bizarrely great singing companions in “Legends Never Die,” from Peck’s 2020 Show Pony EP. Eschewing Peck’s typical gothic, reverb-drenched production, “Legends Never Die” comes across more like a big, campy take on one of those Tim McGraw and Faith Hill ballads from the Nineties. With its message of individualism and resilience — “Don’t worry ‘bout making sure they won’t forget,” they sing — it’s also fantastic theme music for two modern iconoclasts.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country-lists/best-country-collaborations-2020-1095338/

10 Canadian music videos that had us glued to our screens in 2020

By Melody Lau | CBC Music | December 21, 2020

"Legends Never Die" - Orville Peck feat. Shania Twain

A cowboy western is projected onto the big drive-in screen in "Legends Never Die," but the tale of this collaboration between Canadian country stars Orville Peck and Shania Twain feels more like a fairytale. "It was incredible to be around her working because she's just such a boss," Peck told CBC Music back in August, noting that her music made him feel empowered growing up. And not only do the two share lots of chemistry on-screen, but "Legends Never Die" feels like Twain passing a baton to Peck, crowning him the new crossover king of country music.

https://www.cbc.ca/music/10-canadian-music-videos-that-had-us-glued-to-our-screens-in-2020-1.5843514

Shania Twain @shaniatwain

As my sound evolved so did my preferred mode of transport. Now I like to be driven around by @orvillepeck 😂 #countrymusic Legends Never Die (with Shania Twain) - Orville Peck & Shania Twain

Video - https://www.tiktok.com/@shaniatwain/video/6960195268365126917

4:00 PM ET - 9 May 21

http://tiktok.com/@shaniatwain

Alternate link - https://twitter.com/MuzikGuy94/status/1391904841790857222

I just noticed, and maybe it was mentioned before, that Shania is listed as one of the songwriters on this. I thought maybe because she sings a lyric from Man! I Feel Like A Woman! (feel the way I feel) in this song, but then wouldn't Mutt have been listed as well?