More about: Master Peace

Introducing Master Peace: the master of taking-no-shits, bringing all the carnage and delivering indie banger after indie banger.

With the release of his latest EP Peace of Mind out tomorrow,  Gigwise got the chance to sit down with Peace, the rock star brimming with energy, to discuss ignorant stereotypes, Mike Skinner collabs, embracing your imperfections and letting the music do the talking.

GW: Your new EP ‘Peace of Mind’ is out this Friday. From your previous work, it sonically shifts away from indie-pop to more punk, what incited this transition? 

Peace: I feel like, me being the artist I am, people weren’t really calling it what it was, they weren’t calling it indie, because there will be elements of rap or of spoken word whatever. But if a band like Easy Life were doing it, you lot are not calling this rap - you’re calling it indie. I started to feel under appreciated, I’ve been making indie songs since my debut single ‘Night Time’. I haven’t dropped one rap song, I was just getting overlooked.

So I thought, you know what, I need to make things that are louder and harder to wake everyone up a little bit. So I got in this studio with my producer Matty Swartz and we decided to make 5 top proper indie bangers, no holding back, talk-your-shit kind of thing.

"I started to feel under appreciated, I’ve been making indie songs since my debut single ‘Night Time’. I haven’t dropped one rap song, I was just getting overlooked."

The EP’s lead single ‘Country Life’ especially hits hard, can you talk us through some of the more standout lines like “why does society force us to do drill?” and "genes don't mеan that I'm pushin' one on one”?

’Country life’ was like a diss track of all those stereotypes.

Like the “drill” line, because I wear a durag and I’m black, people were like ‘oh he’s a rapper’ but I’ve never dropped a rap tune. I couldn’t even name a drill artist let alone make a drill song. Or like the “Genes” line, the way I dress and the way I act doesn’t mean I make that kind of music. Like I’m not even from London, I’m from surrey, I’m from the country.

If you heard it on the radio, you’d assume its a white person. I feel like there were white artists getting more looks than me, but their music wasn’t even as good. I can go online and rant, but I’m not that kind of artist; i'll write a song about it and let the music do the talking.

It feels like you take a very different approach to vulnerability on this EP, with ‘Country Life’ being quite in your face, but ‘Kaleidoscope’ taking a more cathartic stance. Why did you choose to take a more introspective approach on the latter?

I feel 'Kaleidosope' was a bit of a therapy session, the end of the movie moment. I was saying I’m happy being Peace from Surrey, I don’t want to be you so you shouldn’t want to be me, cos I’m not a role model. Embrace everything, your good side, your bad side. Especially online we get so caught up in trying to be perfect, I know thats mad cliché. At the end of the day, we’re all gonna die the same way so we might as well just crack on.

How do you get in the headspace of writing a track like this? Are you writing all the time? 

You know when I used to be such a keeno, like proper keeno like “I need to write before I go to bed”, “I need to write on the train” but I just fucked that all off and I was like I’m going to live life and live in the moment. 

When I get to the studio, I have so many things cos I’ve actually lived in the moment, so with this EP, I was pissed off when we got there, like I felt so underrated even after touring and collabing with sick artists. I didn’t want to sound like was moaning, but yeah everything I felt in that moment I wrote about. Like ‘Veronica’, I’d just got in a new situation, I just wrote about that feeling of meeting someone new, that excitement. Each song is based on that exact feeling in that moment in that time of writing in the studio.

You said about feeling underrated after all the collabs you’d be doing, you literally featured on a Mike Skinner song, ‘Wrong Answers Only’. How did that feature come about? 

That’s my dad! He’s the OG, Mike has been my inspiration from a very young age. I said to myself, if I ever make music the two people I wanna work with, and I will die happy, like don’t care if I get a number one, if I work with Mike Skinner and Damon Albarn, through Gorillaz or Blur, I promise you I will quit on that same day.

For me, already having a record with him, and it was on his record, it was such a moment. For every indie artist making a song with The Streets is pinnacle, when you get a call up like that its like a calling from God.

I was at home playing Fifa and I got a follow from Mike Skinner on my phone and I was like “fuck offfffffffff”, because I’d been following him for ages but he suddenly followed me back.

I opened the DM and saw messages I’d sent him from like 2019,  and he was like love your tunes man lets work and I literally passed out. For me he’s just so important, people just doing what they believe in and not caring what others think about it. Like him, I make music to stand the test of time, like I want people to play 'Country Life' in 10 years time not just a Tik Tok moment.

So you have an upcoming UK tour on the horizon, and a Europe tour supporting the Nova Twins after what can the people expect from a Master Peace show?

Just carnage, we are just some crazy cats like we’re just on smoke, we love it. Loud, noisy, everyone’s getting tinnitus. Loads of indie fans in one place, just having it. 

Peace Of Mind is out February 24th.

Grab your copy of the Gigwise print magazine here.

More about: Master Peace