New Zealand's @Peace: Our First Album Sucked

With the three members of @Peace coming from a number of hip hop movements in New Zealand, their presence in the blogosphere grew quickly. When their second release, 2011's Girls Songs, hit #1 on iTunes in their homeland, they knew it was time to expand their horizons. “We just wanted to throw ourselves in the deep end. I wouldn't say it's the deepest of ends, but I definitely wanted to try something else, and it's been a real challenge, so I can certainly say I got what I wished for,” Scott says of their move to Melbourne. “I don't know if it's been a success yet, but it's what I wished for. Part of me does want to go back to Auckland; there seems to be more competition and forward-thinking people there, but I haven't been here all that long so maybe I just haven't met the right people yet. I like a lot of artists here, but they don't actually do hip hop – they inspire me because they're fearless and they make music for a different purpose, they're not trying to be anything or famous; it's not contrived.”

As is the case when you move countries, @Peace have had to make significant adjustments. Throw in the repercussions of a recently released full-length record and everything seems to be happening at once. The new release, @Peace And The Plutonian Noise Symphony, is the group's third album to date; however, you'd be hard done by trying to find any trace of their previously recorded work. “We needed to make Girls Songs in order to make Plutonian Noise Symphony. At the time of Girls Songs I was going through a break-up, so I needed to make those songs, and I wouldn't have been able to make any other songs anyway. That album sucked, though; I fucking hate it. We've deleted it since; you can't find it anywhere on the net, it's gone. All of our old stuff is deleted, apart from this new album. It's all good, because I'm proud of this album, but even now, after a while, it's like anything, like looking back at that fucking bowl cut you wore on your head when you were ten, like 'Fuck, that was me!'”

Fear not, though; that won't stop them playing any of these tracks when they're here. “There's some stuff that we go back to when we're playing live, some stuff stands time better than others, but like everything, it's always gonna get old. We still revisit some of it, but only if we can add something new to it. There's something good about your music dating really badly though, because if you're trying something new, then you're always going to be the first out of the gate with it, so by the time ten years has passed, that new idea will be perfected. I write and work on new lyrics and sounds every day, so you never really know what's going to come up, but at the end of the day, it's all about moving forward.”