fbpx

INTERVIEW – Beech & Peech

untitled

Creatively Luscious ‘Beech & Peech’

Interviewer: Tanysha Bolger

With high school nicknames that have appeared to stick, Perth duo ‘Beech & Peech’ are a band that has definitely made an impact on the Triple J Unearthed scene. Forming together in Perth their friendship began very early on, and the bond between Pallé Mazzulla and Ben Doig was a match made in band heaven. Ben’s soothing but edgy vocals accompanied by Pallé’s guitar and music production has been the recipe for their success, with their originality shining through their songs. 

Writing in an Indie/Rock genre, “For So Long” (our favourite) and “Days Gone By” are eclectically styled and harmonic to listen to. Beech & Peech are definitely an Australian duo to keep watch on, with more songs set to be in production later on in the year. Below, we caught up with Pallé Mazzulla (guitar, backing vocals, production) to talk about their influences, inspirations and the luscious hair of Pallé. 

Hi Pallé how are you?

Doing great Ezra Magazine, sitting here having a nice cup of tea with my good dog Baxter aka Bax aka Peech’s dog.

Tell us a bit about Beech & Peech…

Beech & I have been good friends for so long. We grew up living in the same suburb in Perth and were at school together from our first year until the end of high school. Apparently as kids we looked almost identical but I am glad to see that times have changed (laughs).

I was born here in Perth with a European background. Beech actually came over from Scotland when he was one – eager for a fresh start and new beginnings it would seem.

I began playing guitar early on and started to get somewhat of a reputation for it at high school, occasionally being referred to as “that guitar guy” – prone to playing guitar solos of questionable length on stage.

Beech had dabbled with the violin and piano in his youth but wasnt quite as involved in music as I was during school. I wasn’t really into singing at school so I always urged Beech to sing so we could make some tunes and get famous- young Peech’s two simple steps to success (laughs). I play in a few other local Perth bands at the moment as well but this is definitely one I really want to focus on in the future.

Currently we both study at university but Beech attends uni in Melbourne, so unfortunately we can only get together to make music during the holiday breaks.

Do you think Perth & Australia has influenced your music style in any way?

Absolutely. There’s a lot more genres of music becoming more mainstream in Australia and I feel like that gives us a lot more freedom as we form our sound.

We don’t want to confine ourselves to any one genre necessarily and I don’t feel like we have to. We take a lot of inspiration from Australian artists like Matt Corby and Art of Sleeping to name a couple.

The YouTube ID of uBC5DSW_yhM?feature=player_detailpage is invalid.

What was your inspiration for working on “For So Long”?

We were working on a completely different track to follow up “How was I to know” over a couple cheeky beverages. The chorus line “For so long” was originally only sung in the first verse. When we put it down on recording I enjoyed it so much that I scrapped the old song and began to make a new track arranged around that one line and after a little trial and error it was done.

Tell us a bit about how the band came together…

We have always been quite creative – in high school we really enjoyed making our own movies. If you go through the right channels on YouTube you can find some short action movies featuring yours truly with top quality effects to match some brilliant acting. But I will not help you with that (laughs).

The idea of making an album was always something we wanted to do – like something we wanted to achieve. We started mucking around here and there, writing some terrible but overwhelmingly epic songs. This was around year 8-9 of school. We had a brief hiatus after we debuted a song about gorillas with shotguns attacking a city to a couple of friends with limited success. If you can imagine a kid shouting “gorillas are attacking” over a sea of fast paced guitar that is what that was. I’m saving that song in the vault for a rainy day.

It wasn’t until leaving high school that we started to begin writing more songs for fun. I think we both realised we did it too often for us not to take it more seriously. Since then Beech had really began to focus on developing his singing and style and I began to grow my hair. Now we plan to spread Beech & Peech to all corners of the planet.

Do you have any plans to play interstate in Australia?

Yes we hope to, especially after we have put out more material and not the kind you find at your local textile traders (laughs). I will be venturing forth to Melbourne at some point in the near future to play with Beech – he has recruited many fans at his university so it’ll be great fun to go over there for a couple performances.

Who are some local and international bands/artists you look up to for inspiration?

We take inspiration from pretty much everything so I’ll refrain from listing. Definitely bands like Coldplay, Matt Corby, Mumford and Sons and so on. I also am really into bands like Bon Jovi, Queen and Michael Jackson. But not Air Supply.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I tend to my hair and make sure it is luscious. I could tell you how but that’s another interview in itself.

Looks like we have another candidate for a Pantene hair commerical? (laughs). So ‘Beech & Peech’ certainly is original, we hear they are high school nicknames you two acquired?

Yeah after a series of strange nicknames we gave each other, Beech & Peech seemed to stick. We would just call our jam time Beech & Peech and thought it would be fun to keep that as a legitimate band name. I like it. It kind of gives the impression we are more than a band and that’s what we are going for.

What do you have planned for the future in terms of EP’s and songwriting?

We hope to release a lot more fresh material in this summer break. So more tracks, videos etc. A 5-6 track EP is definitely on the cards and we are also toying with idea of releasing a full album next year. The only thing holding us back is our location separation during university semesters so we see how much we can get done in our big break. It’s a quality over quantity outlook for sure though.

If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Bohemian Rhapsody. Beautiful song.

If you had one chance to speak through a P.A system that everyone in the entire world would hear, what would you say?

I would read the script of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

What would you like to ask the next musician/band that will be interviewed?

I always like to see different bands methods of writing songs so I’d ask them how they go about doing that.

You can visit Beech & Peech at any of their social media sites down below:

Beech & Peech on Facebook
Triple J Unearthed band page
Beech & Peech on YouTube

Comments

comments