The man behind the fringed mask: why Orville Peck is a genuine enigma

Orville Peck was at the Grammys ceremony in late January when he was approached by country superstar Shania Twain.

Peck had written a duet he'd hoped to sing with Twain and sent it to her people, but this was the first time they'd actually met.

As she told him she was a fan and couldn't wait to work on the song – titled Legends Never Die, and now available on Peck's just-released new EP, Show Pony – he couldn't help but reflect on the fact that only a few years earlier he was a struggling artist unable to pay rent. Now he was mingling with music royalty.

"I literally left the Grammys shortly after, about halfway through the ceremony, because I genuinely thought it couldn't get any better," he smiles. "I didn't want to ruin my night."

Musician Orville PeckCredit: Carlos Santolalla

Orville Peck may well be the most unlikely success story of the past few years. A masked queer man playing music that draws on the classic country traditions of artists such as Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash, his reticence to reveal any details about his true identity makes him a genuine enigma in an age where celebrities are devoid of mystery.

And yet it's working – prior to COVID-19 putting an end to this year's gigging plans, he was scheduled to perform at New York's Madison Square Garden supporting Harry Styles, and tour Europe with The Killers.

On the surface, putting a classic country artist on stage with such mainstream acts may seem an odd match. Peck's particular brand of country, however, reflects a diverse musical upbringing, incorporating dream-pop guitars and echoes of acts such as Joy Division and The Cure.

"I fell in love with Dolly Parton when I was very little, but I also learned a lot about punk and rock'n'roll from my brothers," he explains.

Growing up, Peck was not your average, ordinary child.

He recalls skateboarding to school as a 15-year-old, dreading the day ahead because he "felt so different and ostracised". With his Walkman cassette player for company, he found solace not in the cathartic angst of punk rock, but in the mournful strains of Patsy Cline singing Walking After Midnight.

Orville Peck onstage on Jimmy Kimmel Live!Credit: Randy Holmes/Getty

The appeal, he says, was that she sounded "so heartbroken".

"I felt really heartbroken as a kid, because I felt really misunderstood and I couldn't figure out why. It felt really unfair. And I think that's why I connected to country music, and why I specifically connected with a lot of female country. Because it had that perspective of outsider-ness on top of that."

He also loved the flamboyant aesthetic of traditional country music artists – qualities that inspired his own image.

"I saw photos of Dolly Parton or Gram Parsons wearing these crazy rhinestone, psychedelic outfits and they were supposed to be well-adjusted Christian people!" he roars. "It was so extravagant and so gay, it felt so queer to me. It felt like a safe space for all the things I liked."

Fast forward to today, and 32-year-old Peck – not his real name; good luck getting him to divulge that – is embracing both the theatricality of classic country and its lyrical heartbreak.

The latter is there in the noir longing of songs such as Big Sky from his 2019 debut LP, Pony. In a dramatic baritone that The New Yorker said has "the sexy, menacing melodrama of Roy Orbison" he croons, "Heartbreak is a warm sensation, when the only feeling you know is fear."

The theatrical element comes in the shape of his mask, a black version of which he's donned even for this Zoom call. He's wearing a sleeveless black T-shirt featuring a large image of country artist George Strait; his pale arms are etched with tattoos.

Though Peck has a number of masks, each of which has a name, they all adhere to a uniform look: long, thin tassels cascading from a Lone Ranger-style black leather eyemask, a cowboy hat perched permanently atop his head.

As he speaks, the tassels sway in harmony with his movements, offering tantalising glimpses of his chin and mouth.

Ask him how many prototypes he needed before he arrived at this singular look and he says none, motioning to a table off-camera where his very first mask is apparently sitting.

"It's identical to the one I wear today," he says.

Ask how he felt the first time he looked in the mirror wearing the mask, and he doesn't blink.

Attempts to demask him and reveal his true identity miss the point of what he’s doing.

"I just woke up one day and it was on my face. I can't get it off now. They change colour, they change length. It's crazy."

That the mask is even a topic of conversation is, you sense, a slight annoyance. He says attempts to demask him and reveal his true identity miss the point of what he's doing.

"The point of my mask isn't to cultivate mystery or provide anonymity," he explains. "Honestly the reason I do it is because I would rather be David Bowie than Ed Sheeran. I want to be an artist that's in the same vein as artists I grew up loving and respecting. People who thought outside the box and had fun with what they did, paid respect to different things in film and fashion."

Orville Peck performs at a Dior Men's fashion show after party in December 2019.Credit: Getty

Still, the mystery is worth exploring. Peck won't reveal where he was born, saying only that it was in the Southern Hemisphere. "It's not too far from Australia," he smiles. "We have super similar cultural similarities."

Raised around "a very diverse, healthy amount of art", his father was a sound engineer who toured with bands in England in the '70s, before moving to Peck's birthplace to work at a theatre.

His mother has, he says, "had about a million jobs", one of which was a seamstress.

He grew up poor and remembers one point where there was scarcely any furniture in the house. He and his two brothers didn't, however, want for affection.

"I grew up in a family with so much love and support, and I was from a very young age encouraged to be whatever I wanted to be, to just reach for whoever I wanted to be."

As a kid he did voiceover acting for cartoons – "I'm not going to tell you what they were," he laughs – and from a young age trained in ballet. He taught himself to play drums as a teenager by playing along to KISS albums, banging on pillows with drumsticks because he couldn't afford a kit. He learned guitar because his father had one in the house. He trained in classical theatre.

"You name it, I've pretty much done it in the arts," he says.

He gives only enough detail about his previous music career – reportedly in punk music – to suggest it didn't go to plan.

"When I started working on Pony," he begins, "it was after a long hiatus from making music and I was pretty disheartened about the music industry."

Peck says the mask allows him to hide while exposing his inner-most thoughts.Credit: Carlos Santolalla

He decided to give it one last shot, creating the Orville Peck persona around 2017. Drawing lyrical inspiration from the journals he'd kept since the age of 15, he was determined that this music be the most sincere representation of his true self.

Which explains yet another purpose of the mask – it allows him to hide while exposing his inner-most thoughts.

"That is a helpful bonus for someone like me who is really insular and has a hard time talking about emotions even with people very close to me," he offers.

'A mask is a helpful bonus for someone like me who is really insular and has a hard time talking about emotions.'

Orville Peck

Having written the first batch of songs as Orville Peck, he moved to Canada from the UK and started hustling. His first show was supporting garage rocker King Tuff at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern, at which Peck played to around 30 people for the fee of precisely zero dollars.

Word spread quickly, however, and by his fourth show he had several independent record labels interested. Having grown up a fan of Soundgarden and Nirvana, he went with SubPop, the venerable Seattle label that had signed them both.

Upon its release in March 2019, Pony became a slow-burn success. By December he was no longer playing to 30 people at a Toronto bar, but was performing at events such as a Dior fashion show in Miami, dressed head-to-toe in custom-made couture as celebrities such as the Kardashians, David Beckham and Travis Scott looked on.

From left, Billy Ray Cyrus, Orville Peck, Lil Nas X and Diplo at the 62nd Grammy awards in LA in late January.Credit: Lester Cohen/Getty

His ascension comes at a time when the identity of country music is undergoing a shift. Time magazine recently referred to the ‘Yeehaw Agenda' – the label attributed to a growing number of African American artists embracing the traditionally white aesthetic of country culture, as evidenced by Lizzo and Megan Thee Stallion wearing Western outfits in their videos – as reflecting "a moment of transition in which the very idea of American identity is being contested".

2019's biggest single, meanwhile, was Old Town Road, a country/hip-hop crossover song by gay African American Lil Nas X.

Peck's arrival may be a case of good timing, but it's been a lifetime in the making.

"Not to get too funny and ironic, but [in the past] I think I was … putting on different masks," he says. "I think a lot of us do it every day. Putting on different faces or personas that we think are palatable because we feel we need to project something to get ahead in life.

"Whenever I went through stages like that it was the ultimate killer of anything creative that was inside of me, because it forced me to do everything from someone else's perspective and not my own. So when I finally found the courage to be myself, it made a huge difference."

Orville Peck's new EP, Show Pony, is out now.