Vancouver quartet Peach Pit<\/strong><\/a> has spent the past year touring across North America, Europe and the UK. This past weekend, they played the High Water Music Festival<\/a> <\/strong>in Charleston, SC, alongside acts like Alabama Shakes<\/a>, Caamp<\/a> and more. Described as having a \u201cchewed bubblegum pop\u201d sound, you may know them for viral hits such as \u201cAlrighty Aphrodite\u201d and \u201cShampoo Bottles,\u201d both with over 100 million streams on Spotify.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Within the press tent on the festival grounds, Peach Pit sat down for an interview with Melodic Magazine to discuss festival performances, the early days of the band, and more.<\/span><\/p>\n Melodic Magazine: So your set is in just a couple hours. How are you feeling? That\u2019s so exciting. You guys have been touring a lot in the past year though, so how does it feel to play a festival like High Water compared to some more intimate venues? Neil: <\/b>Yeah, it can be good or it can be bad. It all just depends on who\u2019s at the festival and yeah, I don\u2019t know, like the energy of the crowd. I guess the energy that we bring affects the crowd too, but I like to blame it on the crowd if they\u2019re, if it\u2019s not a good show. So I expect tonight will be good. The last time we played in the Carolinas was what? Isle Palms? You ever been out there?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve not, no. You guys also played at my university \u2013 Appalachian State. Yeah, that\u2019ll get people riled up. How does, you kind of answered already, but how does the environment, both the vibe and the weather impact the way you guys play? Peter: <\/b>If it\u2019s hot and the sun\u2019s right in your face, it\u2019s kind of tough, but it\u2019s fun.<\/span><\/p>\n Chris: <\/b>That\u2019ll definitely affect us. And we played a festival in Mexico City called Corona Capital in November, and we were having a lot of issues with audio, so we had to wait for a little bit and the crowd just started chanting and kind of singing themselves during the difficulties and right then, like we were won over by the crowd and had a way better time right after that. It depends on the energy of the crowd. You get good ones and bad ones, and then if we get a lot of energy from them, we can kind of give it back.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Yeah, for sure. So what\u2019s on your festival survival checklist? Like what items do you need to feel prepared? And then what pre-show rituals do you have? Peter: <\/b>Oh, it\u2019s that, it\u2019s in my lip right now.<\/span><\/p>\n Neil: <\/b>Oh, a Zyn. Okay, so if we\u2019re gonna play a festival? We just need to rehearse. So we do one rehearsal before we play. We do rehearse the day before the show. We run the set. We try to run the set as fast as possible because playing as our set in our, in our jam space alone is like torture, honestly. Like we played the set so many times that it really sucks. So we just have to rehearse. And then what else do we need? We don\u2019t really need anything, honestly.<\/span><\/p>\n Mikey: <\/b>We need our crew.<\/span><\/p>\n Neil: <\/b>We need the crew. Yeah, the crew. Yeah, we\u2019ve got Jayquan, he\u2019s Mikey\u2019s drum tech, Marco\u2019s our guitar tech. <\/span>Gne does our monitors. Jerry does lights. Shoutout everybody on our crew right now. Connor\u2019s our tour manager. Yeah, they\u2019re the ones who actually do the work. We don\u2019t need much.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n So looking back at your earlier days, how does playing a curated festival like High Water compare to the kind of shows you were playing when you first started out? Neil: <\/b>No, you answer, you have to. How does it compare?<\/span><\/p>\n Peter: <\/b>I mean, we never thought that we would get to this point. Like really? I guess like when we first started it was just us in a van driving around playing smaller venues. It\u2019s fun to play these shows though because the favorite thing about festivals for me is we get to see other bands play and that\u2019s kind of the bonus of festivals. So, yeah, I don\u2019t know.<\/span><\/p>\n Mikey: <\/b>Jesse Welles playing, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He\u2019s awesome.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Is there anyone you\u2019re particularly excited to see today, or if you\u2019ve already gotten to see them? Any dream collaborations for you guys? If you could bring anyone from the lineup on stage with you guys tonight who would it be? Chris: <\/b>Oh, that would be amazing. That\u2019d be awesome. That\u2019s the way, yeah.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Well, you guys have a lot of stuff coming up this summer, a lot of festivals, so what\u2019s up next? Neil: <\/b>I actually was gonna mention this to you guys. I spent a couple hours making a schedule for all of the songs we have to write before October 1st. So that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing. So we have to write, the schedule\u2019s gonna go we have to demo one song a week. It alternates one a week, then two a week, then one a week, then two a week until October 1st.<\/span><\/p>\n Mikey: <\/b>How many?<\/span><\/p>\n Neil: <\/b>40.<\/span><\/p>\n Peter: <\/b>Whoa.<\/span><\/p>\n Neil: <\/b>Okay. Yeah. That\u2019s our plan. That\u2019s my plan.<\/span><\/p>\n Chris: <\/b>Honestly, we\u2019ve been writing and then every time we get offered a gig like High Water, we just can\u2019t say no because we get this feeling of like, \u201cman, this is just crazy that they even want us to play.\u201d But yeah, it definitely interrupts the writing schedule. So we have a good little chunk after our shows in a couple weekends and we can just really hunker down and do that for sure.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Is there any song you\u2019re particularly excited to play tonight? Keep up with Peach Pit:<\/b> TikTok<\/span><\/a> \/\/ <\/span>Instagram<\/span><\/a> \/\/ <\/span>YouTube<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/b>Chris: <\/b>We\u2019re feeling really good. Yeah, we have not been playing too many shows this year. We\u2019ve been focusing on writing, but it\u2019s really nice to be able to\u2026 we\u2019re just coming out for the weekend playing this one show and flying home, but we get to see our crew who we\u2019re really close with and it\u2019s kind of a bit of a reunion for us. So, yeah, it\u2019s fun.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/b>Chris: <\/b>It can be good.<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/b>Neil: <\/b>Oh, Appalachia! We still talk about that show. Mostly because of the way we learned how to pronounce Appalachia.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/b>Neil: <\/b>I don\u2019t know if it really does impact the way we play, actually. <\/span>I feel like we play the same in an indoor venue than we do in an outdoor venue. But you know, depending on how many people are in front of you sometimes at festival shows, you just have a massive crowd and that can definitely get you fired up a little bit more.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.melodicmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Peach-Pit-17-of-19.jpg?resize=500%2C333&quality=89&ssl=1\")
<\/b>Neil: <\/b>What do we have in the survival kit?<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/b>Peter: <\/b>You have an answer?<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.melodicmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Peach-Pit-19-of-19.jpg?resize=500%2C400&quality=89&ssl=1\")
<\/b>Neil: <\/b>We got to see Jesse Welles do his sound check this morning. So we just chilled and listened to that. That was cool. But then, yeah, no, honestly, after we play, we are gonna leave immediately. We have to get up super early to fly back to Canada tomorrow, so we\u2019ll try to catch a bit of Sheryl Crow before we play.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/b>Peter: <\/b>Bruce Hornsby. Yeah, on the keys.<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/b>Chris: <\/b>We\u2019ve got a few shows in May. We\u2019re going down the West Coast, down to California and yeah, just a couple of their festivals, but we\u2019re just really, it\u2019s writing right now. We\u2019re doing a lot of writing.<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/b>Chris: <\/b>Yeah, we have a song called \u201cTell Me You Love Me\u201d. And that was released on our most recent deluxe version of our last record. And, yeah, it\u2019s the song we played the least. Our favorite song to play is the song we haven\u2019t played the most because there\u2019s an energy to it that could go wrong and that kind of keeps us sharp and like more engaged. So that\u2019s always fun once we played. A lot can go very wrong too though.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.melodicmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Portraits-6-of-7.jpg?resize=500%2C625&quality=89&ssl=1\")