great peacock
On a busy day in New York City I got a call from Andrew Nelson of Great Peacock, asking if we could meet for a bit while they were traveling to their gig in Brooklyn. The only way the timing could work was if they met me in front of the Blue Note, and he agreed. Of course, the Nashville van wouldn’t fit in the parking garage so I just jumped in the van and got to know the band while driving around the west village looking for a spot. And so it was set, Ropeadope would release the next Great Peacock record. A beautiful collection of songs crafted by Andrew Nelson and Blount Floyd, recorded as a band with little studio tinkering. Gran Pavo Real captures a band in a room, playing great songs. And that’s rock and roll.
release date: March 30, 2018
About great peacock
Why Great Peacock? 'Because it’s GREAT!’ There’s a sense of humor that comes across right out of the gate when speaking with Andrew Nelson and Blount Floyd. It’s rock and roll after all, and they want to be big, and bold, and beautiful so the name makes perfect sense.The pair began their accidental collaboration over a decade ago when they were left together with a case of beer. And while the humor is refreshing, the intent is serious - to write and perform solid songs that reflect the world from their lens.
Blount Floyd was born in southern Alabama; Andrew Nelson grew up just outside Birmingham. They carry a particular sound as a result, and they embrace the deep roots of that sound while broadening their perspective, as musicians always do. Greil Marcus once said that The Allman Brothers single handedly reclaimed rock and roll from the British, but when you dig under the surface one can find an intricate system of cross-pollination that exists in every music scene. From Muscle Shoals to Sun Studios, from The Bakersfield sound to The Eagles - artists are always recreating the root in their own style, and Great Peacock reference Son Volt, Radiohead, John Lee Hooker, and George Jones as influences. A swirling mix indeed, yet the common thread is steady.
Andrew Nelson is a craftsman - a rough hewn spill of words and music is carefully tweaked and polished to become a song, with every vowel in place. The band carries the songs with the pride and clear delivery that they deserve.
It seems the subjects of the blues are always love (lost) and God - and Andrew points out that Great Peacock songs are often existential questions about life and death. The parallels between the road and life, the tension of human existence are carefully balanced in both the instrumentation and the lyrics.
Andrew states it flatly - 'It’s just 12 notes and the human condition’
Call it rock, call it alt-country, call it the blues, or call it pop - an important element of this music is its self-reflection. While the songs transform the human condition to a positive assimilation of sounds, the lyrics speak of real life and feelings with a certain lament about the destiny of it all. This is the challenge that Great Peacock accepts with songs like ‘Begging To Stay’ and ‘Hideaway’. You will hear fragments of reference for a moment, from Dispatch to Ryan Adams, but the sound always comes right back to being distinctly Great Peacock.
And so we present Gran Pavo Real, the next album from Great Peacock. Set for release on March 30, 2018.