Q&A: Peach Tree Rascals on Their New Fun-kenstein Experiment ‘Does A Fish Know It’s Wet’
IN THE MIDST OF ONE OF THE HOTTEST SUMMERS — Peach Tree Rascals has redefined musical boundaries again.
Does A Fish Know It’s Wet makes a perfect soundtrack for a pool party with your childhood best friends. It’s light and twangy, fresh as citrus and jasmine flowers. The boys of Peach Tree Rascals have cracked the code and reverse-engineered everyone’s expectations. After years of remixing and renovating genres from hip-hop to surf rock, Peach Tree Rascals presents the finest specimen of “Rascal Pop” with the five tracks on Does A Fish Know It’s Wet.
Despite its lighthearted and rhythmic nature, the EP features some of the rawest emotions and existential moments in the band’s history. They explore vulnerability and self-validation in “Good Advice” and get real reminiscent and honest in the closing track, “TINYA.” With both their production and visual elements excelling to a transformative height, Does A Fish Know It’s Wet is undoubtedly a new beginning.
Luna caught up with the guys of Peach Tree Rascals on the release day of the new EP. Read below to see what the guys have to say about their musical journey over the years, prepping for the next stage, and how “TINYA” is one their favorite tracks on the project.
LUNA: How’s everybody doing? In your own words, what is this EP about?
TARREK ABDEL-KHALIQ: In my own words, this EP is about us proving we can make some nice pop songs because previously we've never went in with the intention of making any genre specific sounds. [For] this one, we went in with the intention of making a pop project, proving that we could do whatever we want.
ISSAC PECH: Yeah, it's just another genre for us to put under our belt. And I think we did it at a high level. I'm excited to see what it yields.
JORGE OLAZABA: “TINYA” is my favorite song. I feel like this project feels like the sun. It reminds me of going to a pool when you're 12 and the water is blue — like the light blue and baby blue. When the water is kind of cool but it's a little warm because it's so hot outside. Yeah, this project reminds me of summers as a kid and playing in an outdoor pool.
JOSEPH BARROS: I'm just happy that we're able to make this type of music at a high level. I'm happy with how it turned out — that we were able to do it in our own way. Adding on [to] what everyone was saying, this is a good showcase of what we can do for whatever type of genre. I’m glad it's finally out. And “TINYA” is also one of my favorite ones. So, yeah, check out the visuals — they are all little video logs of our tour; it was pretty cool.
LUNA: Since we're talking about visuals and when you're 12 in the pool, I do notice that the overall visual aesthetic for your band has become a lot more like a representation of childhood innocence, compared to the very early visuals. I remember the cover art of “Plus” very well. Is there any particular reason why the visuals have become a lot more colorful and in unison?
JORGE OLAZABA: I guess in the early days, I was still finding my legs in this whole thing because this whole thing was still pretty new to me. I don't want to make dark-looking covers for this project because it really wouldn't feel good, it wouldn't match with the music. I want the colors to feel how the music feels to me, just bright childhood innocence — like you’ve said. It's very intentional because I love when little kids draw stuff and they put it on their fridges or on their walls. I think that art looks super cool. I love how messy it is. It looks like a little kid just did it with his left hand or something. I just love that. And I love being able to bring that to our stuff.
LUNA: That's very lovely. Since you guys grew up in the Bay Area — and obviously the Bay Area has some of the best music historically, even today — it’s like everybody makes music but it's very hard to break out of that circle in a sense. What was it like for you guys to group together and form this thing, actually pursue it and convince your parents that, “Hey, this is what I want to do, and I'm quite serious about it”?
TARREK ABDEL-KHALIQ: I feel like it happened very naturally. Me, Joseph, and Dom were the first to be friends in high school. And then Isaac — he has been making music since he was 12 years old. When he came to our school, we became friends with him. We saw him releasing music on SoundCloud, making music videos for YouTube, passing out CDs, and that inspired the rest of our group of friends. I started to hang out with him more and freestyle with him for fun. Then that turned into me going to his house and recording on the shitty microphone and dropping shitty music on SoundCloud. And then Joseph started to come in every once in a while. Dom started producing right after high school — that was when the whole Peach Tree Rascals sound and our work ethic went to another level with Dom and his mentality of like, “This is it, this is gonna be the career. This is what we're going to use to support our families.” So we have to think about it differently and create music in a different way than the previous way. And I feel like [with] breaking out of the hometown, the normal Bay Area and those early SoundCloud stages, was kind of easy for us in a way because we weren't—
DOM PIZANO: We worked really, really hard to make sure we didn’t fall into that.
TARREK ABDEL-KHALIQ: Yeah, and we focused on getting the sound right for years before we even released our first song as Peach Tree Rascals. We never did a show until last year, which is three and a half years after we released our first song. We never focused on sharing it here in the Bay Area, just because we were shy; we stayed in the house. Most of the time we stayed in the shed, which is our studio in Dom’s backyard. We would upload it to the internet and do things to spread it around the internet, which is more worldwide. I feel like that's a big part of how our reach was.
ISSAC PECH: It’s like a reverse type thing, where usually it starts local and then it grows from that — we started growing from the whole country and worldwide and then it trickled down into local.
LUNA: Anybody feeling nervous or excited for your tour coming up this fall?
TARREK ABDEL-KHALIQ: Excited. It'll be our first time on a tour bus. We just came back from a Europe tour. The Europe tour was like 10 or 11 shows, and 10 of them were festivals. But London was a headline show, which was fucking amazing. [For] headline shows, everyone goes there because it's you. They know who you are, they know the songs, and the energy is unmatched. It's not comparable to the festivals and stuff like that. So to have a whole tour coming up where we're going from city to city only doing headline shows for people who want to come see us, it takes the nerves away. It makes it a little more nervous in a way because, you know, these are fans — we don't want to let them down. But at the same time, that's one reason why we never did shows in the beginning for the first few years. We were waiting for people to actually want to come to the shows and sing with us.
LUNA: How would you describe your own music in general? What makes you special? You don't have to even put it in genres, but maybe in terms of feelings, what exactly does your music do?
DOM PIZANO: We just go into the studio and make whatever we want to make — whatever comes out would come out. It's very genuine.
JOSEPH BARROS: We all have different musical backgrounds and tastes growing up, so whenever we come into the studio, we each bring in our own little flavor to it. That's how we create the sound.
ISSAC PECH: And when it comes to describing what the sound is, I just like to say “timeless.” Like you said while asking the question, it feels better to me when people describe songs as feelings. Because at the end of the day, if a song makes you feel something, that means it's more important and more significant than being like, “Oh, I like this genre so I'm gonna like this song.” It's like, “No, I like the feeling the song gives me so nothing else really matters.”
LUNA: How did these particular five tracks get compiled into a project and in this particular order? I also thought it was a little bit existential because the whole “does a fish know it's wet” thing can be existential in a human sense. What exactly is this EP about? How did you come to decide the order of the tracks?
DOM PIZANO: I think for the order, it was pretty easy to do. Everyone was like, “Yeah, ‘TINYA’ sounds like it should be at the end,” just because of the strings at the end was a nice closing to the EP.
JORGE OLAZABA: And “Let U Go.” You want it to start off really strong with a fun song that sets the tone for the rest of the project. “Let U Go” was an early favorite for everyone. So we thought it was a good place to start.
TARREK ABDEL-KHALIQ: And the whole idea of “does a fish know it’s wet” and picking the biggest-sounding songs that sound like they can reach the most people/go worldwide/have a place on the radio — it was just that when we started, it was just us, all self-taught in the shed in Dom’s backyard, just a group of friends with no outside resources, no outside noise, no nothing. Once we started to release and “Mariposa” had the success it did, that's what catapulted us into this music industry. But when you go from just a group of friends to having a major label to having a manager and having a whole team, when there’s a whole business behind you, it starts to build a certain type of pressure. So it's kind of us trying to make the business side of things happy while still trying to preserve the Peach Tree Rascals sound and the authenticity behind us. We like to call this genre “Rascal Pop” because we went in trying to make something that could pop off, but we did it in our own way. We had some back and forth through the process, like taking sounds in different directions and trying to figure out what works best, but I'm happy we pulled it off in the way we did.
JORGE OLAZABA: I came up with the name because I felt like as a fish–
JASPER BARROS: “As a fish,” like you as a fish (laughs).
JORGE OLAZABA: (Laughs) As a fish. Yeah. Like you don't really know how this environment is affecting you in the moment, like how it's mentally affecting you. It changes you and it affects you, but you don't know how it's gonna affect you long-term and short-term. So I guess I just felt like that question is a pretty good question to ask ourselves.
LUNA: Do you think you know how you’re feeling? Genuine question.
JORGE OLAZABA: I mean, I tried to be as aware of myself as possible. I learned it through therapy and just knowing how to bring yourself to an awareness of how you're feeling and being, knowing what you're going through and trying your best to stay positive, despite all the stuff going on.
TARREK ABDEL-KHALIQ: Luckily, we all live together. And we've been a group for long enough to the point where, yes, at times, as the fish, we can feel like the water is moving us in a certain direction. And we don't know how to swim in these certain waters. But we have each other to talk about it and to bring ourselves back to where it was just us. Whenever those times happen where we feel too much pressure, we feel like there's too much outside noise, we are able to reconnect and just pretend like it's just us in the shed again. That helps relieve all that stress because at the end of the day, it's all in your head. So if you put all your focus on all the noise or the outside pressures, then you're gonna feel it a lot more. And if you were to just focus on what's right in front of you, and what's right in front of us is a group of friends and some microphones and some keyboards and some crayons. We just go and create what we want to create.
LUNA: I'm very curious about your production process in general. What gets recorded first, what gets recorded together? Is there any general roadmap?
DOM PIZANO: Usually, we do the chorus first and then build upon it. Then once they are done writing their vocals, we do vocals right away. But we work in a 10’ by 12’ shed…
JORGE OLAZABA: (Laughs) We go one at a time.
DOM PIZANO: Yeah, we usually record our references in there; sometimes they will be the finals. But most of the time, at least for this EP, we recorded in a studio, a very nice one.
TARREK ABDEL-KHALIQ: In terms of recording in the studio, if it's a professional studio, then everyone is usually there. Back in the day when it was in the shed in Dom’s backyard, because we all had jobs it would be whoever that was available would go in and work at the same time whenever the schedules align. And then if we were all in there, we would all be in the crowded shed. And now that we're in a house together, if someone is recording their verse, we can have a place to go in the house and we can wait. But back in the days, we didn't have our own house to go into so we would just have to shut up while another person was recording. Yeah, it was fun.
DOM PIZANO: Honestly, if you listen to our older music, you can hear some stuff going on in the back. For “Cranberry,” you can hear someone cough right before the drums come in.
TARREK ABDEL-KHALIQ: There’s also a big difference in the mix between songs from when we recorded them in the shed to songs we recorded on this new project, which was all in the studio except for “Song From Hell.” That one was recorded in the same place where we recorded our project Camp Nowhere, which was in my family’s vacation house by Yosemite. So it's cool that you can kind of hear the differences in the places where we recorded things.
LUNA: Because you guys have been together and working on music for such a long time, was there ever a point when you were like, “I wish I could do this differently”? Now looking back at it, were there any small regrets creativity-wise or decisions that you personally would like to change?
TARREK ADBEL-KHALIQ: Dom’s hair in the “Someday” video. Go watch the “Someday” video. That was a mistake.
ISSAC PECH: My scene in “Violet.” Bad.
JORGE OLAZABA: When you look back at your old stuff, you see your mistakes that you made and you're like, “Oh, man, I wish I could fix that.” But then I feel like there's a special charm to it because you see the growth, you see how you used to be and who you are now are just as special.
JOSEPH BARROS: And as artists, musically, production-wise, there's always going to be something that you wish you could have done or go back and fix, but, honestly, like what Jorge said, there's a charm to it. So you just got to use the tools that you had at the time and be grateful for where you're at right now.
TARREK ADBEL-KHALIQ: We wouldn't be here if we didn't decide to go with it. If we always were fixated on trying to make it even better, then we would never release anything and we wouldn't be where we are today. So like Joseph said, we just got to be grateful.
DOM PIZANO: Yeah, we’ve already known for a lot of the older songs [that] I wanted to record live drums or just find better drum samples. For “Glide,” I've laid the snare like a bunch of times and they sounded like shit. I still love that song though.
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