Orville Peck, the masked troubadour, conquers his third album (and first for Warner) with the help of a few friends. Stampede debuted at #1 on last week’s Current Country and Americana Folk album charts, as well as opened in the Top 5 on the overall vinyl chart.
Peck was recently nominated for two People’s Choice Country Awards: Cover Song and Crossover Song of 2024. Stampede features collaborations with some of the biggest names in music. We talked to Peck about the album's genesis and how it embodies his own progression as an artist.
Elton John, Beck, Kylie Minogue, Willie Nelson, Teddy Swims and Diplo are just some of the features on Stampede. Is it true this all started with Willie Nelson aboard his tour bus?
Yeah, it did. He’s one of my idols. We played a festival together a few years back and someone said he would really love it if I came on the bus to meet him. I lost my mind, obviously, got on the bus and he goes, “I heard you cover that Ned Sublette song ["Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond Of Each Other"] in your set. We should do it as a duet because it's more important now than ever.” That was the start of what would become Stampede.
Talk a little about your decision to include covers as well as original music on the album.
I wanted to honor the fact that it started with a cover. Throughout writing the originals with these artists, I began to think we could place specific covers alongside, some with the original artists, some with me and a new artist covering it. It was keeping with the country traditions of duets albums and of covering other people's songs. Some country artists’ biggest songs are covers.
What was it like recording “Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)” with Elton John?
It was insane. Elton and I became friends a few years ago. He reached out after I covered Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters. He found my phone number from somewhere and just cold called me one day. I thought it would be sort of a full circle, amazing moment for me and the little Orville inside me to cover one of my favorite Elton songs. I grew up listening to Elton since I was so little. Talk about queer elders. I didn't realize it then, but he was one of the people I looked up to for visibility before I even knew what that was.
Beyoncé and Post Malone have successfully crossed over into the Country music sphere. With so much genre bending now, do you still consider Stampede to be a Country album and what does it mean to be a Country album today?
It's definitely a country album. It's a concept album, first of all. It departs in sound from classical definitions of country or even modern definitions. It was meant to be a collaborative effort, but every song is rooted in country in its instrumentation. The Elton song is a perfect example. We wanted to make it even more country and added a bunch of pedal steel and banjo. I think the thing that tips the scales is that it's all about storytelling. Country is the storytelling genre. Even the cover songs we picked are very much about storytelling. Magnetic Fields’ “Papa Was a Rodeo,” which I've loved forever, isn't a country song, per se, but the lyrics are so country that it's a country song. Turning that into a bluegrass song with Molly [Tuttle] was so easy because the structure was already there.
You’ve previously said that part of what drew you to Country music was the idea of the lonesome cowboy, the Lone Ranger. On Stampede, you’ve left your fringe behind, bearing the lower half of your face in videos and interviews. Has making a collaborative album helped you lower your guard?
Absolutely. It's funny to talk about oneself in this way because you're just looking at it from the inside. As much as I have a specific vision of what I want to do as an artist, the thing that allows me to keep evolving is that I also leave a lot of room for spontaneity and change, for things I can't account for. When I started writing music, the mystery was paralleled with where I was as a person and as an artist, but especially as a person. I was lonely, sort of out of place. I was afraid in some ways to fully be vulnerable. It was daunting and I didn't have the confidence I have now. As that's grown, I think the mystery of what I do feels less important as a defense. I feel excited and happy to share more about myself because it feels like a natural progression. We're supposed to change in this world. If I was just the same person I was when I wrote “Dead of Night” seven years ago, the music would suffer, and I don't think I would be content as the kind of artist I want to be.
Speaking of change, Stampede is your first release with Warner. How has your experience been with the new team?
I've never been happier. I love them so much. The thing that I can't say enough about Warner is that they really spend time, money and a lot of effort investing in the artists on their roster and nurturing them and cultivating a beautiful, encouraging culture. I work extremely hard. I'm sort of known for my insane work ethic. So having a team that works as hard as me, it makes everything so fulfilling. I'm really happy with Warner.
The Stampede cover art features the famous Circus Liquor parking lot in North Hollywood. You're surrounded by people who ooze youth, classic cool and queerness. Why Circus Liquor? Why these particular people?
I wanted an iconic L.A. landmark. I lived in the Valley back in the day when I first lived in L.A. and I would always drive by Circus Liquor. I name my albums something to do with horses and it's usually indicative of where I am in my life. Pony was when I was still young and lonely and scared. Show Pony was the evolution of that. And then Bronco. So, because this is a duets album with multiple artists on it, that’s why I called it Stampede. All my solo albums, it's just me on the cover. To push the metaphor of the stampede, I wanted to have all these different people on the cover with me to make it feel like a really big collaborative thing. It's not this lonely thing anymore. Or at least this album isn't.
The final song on the record is a cover of Glen Campbell's “Rhinestone Cowboy” with Waylon Payne, Fancy Hagood and TJ Osborne of the Brothers Osborne. You often get credited as the “openly gay country singer,” but as these three featured powerhouse talents exemplify, there are others in the scene. How did it feel to specifically record this track together?
It was really emotional, honestly. It was really important to me to have these gentlemen on the album. As you said, people sometimes label me as the one gay country singer, but there are more of us, many more of us—male, female and everything in between. I wanted to introduce them to people who weren’t familiar with them and also to do something that felt timely and important.
Something is happening in country music for people who are different. We’re having our moment to come and sit at the table and shine. It's been many years of hard work for a lot of us. The gentlemen on “Rhinestone Cowboy,” they've all been doing this for a very long time. I think of someone like Waylon, who's probably felt like he was alone in the scene for a while. But this was the right thing to do and it was the right time to do it. I'm so proud of that song and I'm so happy the album ends with it because it sort of sums up everything that Stampede is about. It's about collaboration, inclusion and honoring the past. But also moving forward. It kind of exemplifies what I feel the whole album is about.
