They know each other from their school days, lost track of each other in between, but finally founded a joint band project in 2018 under the name PEACH TINTED. And with it, Emil Paiker and Louis Springer are currently bringing a breath of fresh air to the Austrian indie scene. Characterized by falsetto voices and 80s disco beats, the two produce songs that are hard to beat when it comes to nostalgia. The duo told Katharina Reiffenstuhl in an interview about the stories behind their two EPs, the formative event that gave rise to the band in the first place, and why making lists plays an important role in their work processes.
You’ve known each other since you were 10 years old. Has this connection between you always existed or did it only come with time or with the common music?
Louis Springer: That was a very interesting development. In the beginning we were not such good friends in school. Later, when we were 15, we started playing together in a punk band. But even then we weren’t really that close. That only came about later when we did our community service together. Three or four years later, we started making beats together and that’s how we sort of found each other.
Emil Paiker: It was definitely during this period of community service that we became friends. But then there was a break again, because Louis was abroad. We didn’t see each other then. I had a music project on my own. Louis came into the studio once and said: “Wouldn’t you like to do this and that?” I was already used to my other friends, who also all make music, acting this way, that the tips didn’t surprise me so much. But Louis somehow had a whole new perspective on the one beat I was working on. That was extremely surprising to me. Then I said, “Here, take the guitar, and you play it.” He didn’t want to at first, but then he said, “Yeah, let’s do it,” and in the end it just turned out super cool. I immediately thought: we have to do this more often. And that’s how it started. Of course, we also became better friends because we saw each other a lot more after that.
“BECAUSE WE KNOW EACH OTHER SO WELL, THERE ARE OF COURSE A LOT OF ROUTINES, AND IT’S OFTEN DIFFICULT TO ZOOM OUT AND TAKE A NEW PERSPECTIVE.”
Would you say that it is sometimes difficult when you work together in such a close friendship?
Louis Springer: It has advantages and disadvantages. We just know each other really well, we know when we can be most productive together and what we need to do to make each other productive. You can’t always be in a good mood – there are days when you need a little more rest, days when you have more energy. I think we can read each other very well and understand when we can work together. There are always different things we have to work on, like writing lyrics, recording, editing. Depending on how we feel, we work on different things. But on the other hand, because we know each other so well, there are of course a lot of routines and then it’s often hard to zoom out and take a new perspective. Because we are already such a well-rehearsed team.
Who of you actually came up with the idea to call the band “peach tinted”? Why did it become this color exactly?
Emil Paiker: We definitely thought about names together.
Louis Springer: And made a long list! [laughs.]
Emil Paiker: Oh yes. Louis always makes very long lists on many topics. It’s also easier for both of us that way, because then we can decide everything much more democratically – when you have something in front of you and can see it. But anyway, the name “peach tinted” was not on the list. There were ideas on the list, and there was, for example, the idea “looking at life through rose tinted glasses”. We both thought that was very nice.
Louis Springer: Yeah, that idea of having a distorted view of life, and on the past, because our music often reflects that, as well. Our music is often this contrast of euphoria and nostalgia. And looking back, like in the track “Cinematic Youth”, where we reflect on our school days and think to ourselves, “Shit, in our youth we might have missed things”. But on the other hand, this euphoria where you say, “It’s no longer just about the past and crying over it,” but that you also do a little something new, pick yourself up and look forward. That’s why we then changed the color from “rose tinted” to “peach tinted.” Because the peach is such a summer symbol, something you long for, something that somehow sits in the future.
You have a kind of blog on your website that takes you through your life a little bit. Is this your band diary?
Emil Paiker: It’s a very roughly written diary. We always summarize certain periods there, but it’s actually mainly meant for people who listen to us to find out more information and learn more about us.
Louis Springer: There are very different kinds of fans who listen to us. There are people who only listen to us on Spotify, there are people who see us on Instagram, and then there are people who are a tad more interested and want to know what kind of people we are, what we do in our spare time and what our background is. That’s exactly the audience the blog is for. And apart from that, it’s just extremely good to write things down. It’s very nice to sit down every now and then, empty your head, reflect and think about what we’ve been doing lately, what we’re proud of, what’s been difficult. And then to share that with others.
“ACTUALLY, THERE IS HARDLY A STEP IN OUR WORKFLOW WHERE SOMEONE DOES SOMETHING ALONE.”
So do you guys really sit down together and do that? Or how is that determined – what gets written in there?
Emil Paiker: As with all things, we make a list and write down in keywords what we have experienced. Then we sit down together and start writing. The last post was the best example – we both typed stuff in GoogleDocs at the same time and it just came out that way. That’s basically how we always work …
Louis Springer: … Very organically and actually almost always together.
Emil Paiker: Yes. And actually there is hardly a step in our workflow where someone does something alone – be it with the music, be it with other things like the blog or the website. We really do almost everything together and we like it that way.
Your second EP, which you released last summer, sounds much happier and more positive than the first one, in my opinion. What is the reason for that, do your moods play a role in it?
Louis Springer: Yes, very much so. So the music is absolutely the mirror of our emotions at the time we write it and work on it. The year we recorded the first EP was generally a very difficult year for us. It was a transition year, study-wise but also relationship-wise. That’s why the first EP was a bit heavier in terms of sound, also because the first EP was much more influenced by past memories. We sort of put all the legacy that we were dragging along into this EP at the very beginning and wanted to get rid of that. That’s why it’s more of a sad, melancholic sound that we have in there.
“YOU HAVE TO TAKE THAT ENERGY THAT YOU HAVE AT THAT MOMENT, WHETHER IT’S NEGATIVE OR POSITIVE, AND TURN IT INTO MUSIC”.
But interestingly enough, we wrote the songs that are inside the second EP at the same time. We just didn’t work on them until much later. On the one hand it wasn’t the right moment to work on it, on the other hand we had enough to do with the first EP. But for the second EP, the whole setting was much happier. I think you can’t get in your own way there and say, “Now we have to record a happy song,” even though you’re not actually happy. You have to take that energy that you have at that moment, whether it’s negative or positive, and turn it into music.
Because you just said that you wrote the songs of the second EP already back then, and only worked on them later: Do you do everything yourself with your songs – from the lyrics to the mastering?
Emil Paiker: We do absolutely everything ourselves. We want to keep it that way. So it’s not a lack of connections or anything where we say, “Later we’ll have someone else do it,” but we’re very happy that we can do everything ourselves. It’s so much more natural and organic for our sound that everything comes from us.
Louis Springer: Of course it’s more work, especially in the beginning, because we had to learn a lot about what software we were using, and generally getting a feeling for mixing was insanely difficult in the beginning. Knowing what has to be how loud, finding good references to other musicians and good songs, and knowing how it has to sound. But I think the result is very valuable because we have complete control over how we sound. Even if it’s not absolutely perfect, it makes us develop our own sound that only we have. And mixing is as much a part of it as recording itself, or writing the song.
Which of these processes would you say is the longest for you?
Emil Paiker: Definitely the mixing and the mastering. The writing is incredibly fast.
Louis Springer: Yes, definitely. If we feel good on a day, have the energy and are inspired, then we sit down and have the framework of a song built within a few hours.
Emil Paiker: Mixing and mastering takes a super long time in comparison, we sit on a song for a couple of months until we say: “Okay, now it doesn’t get any better”.
Are you very perfectionistic, so it’s hard for you to put an end to it?
Emil Paiker: Perfectionism is a difficult word because it means that it’s perfect. We have different opinions about that, I think. For me, nothing has ever been perfect. When I sit there and compare our song with others, I can always find something that could be done better.
Louis Springer: You can always improve songs. I wouldn’t say it’s perfect either. It’s more like we’ve heard one or more songs so many times that I personally can’t listen to it anymore and think to myself, “it’s good enough now”. You can certainly still change something, but this development curve is already so flat that it doesn’t pay off anymore. You can also edit things too much. If you sit on something for too long, it kind of loses its soul. At some point it deviates too much from the original, from what you actually wanted. You always have to find the balance between authenticity and the perfect sound.
Emil Paiker: It’s also interesting that time changes the perception for me. When I hear songs from our first EP now, I think to myself with some of them, I wouldn’t change anything now. With the second EP I still think that some things could be improved.
“FORTUNATELY WE HAVE VERY SIMILAR TASTE regarding OUR MUSIC AND ALSO A VERY SIMILAR FEELING OF HOW SOMETHING HAS TO SOUND.”
How do you handle it when you have different opinions?
Emil Paiker: What is very pleasant is that we basically often agree. We fortunately have a very similar taste regarding our music and also a very similar feeling how something has to sound. When we disagree, we try both versions.
Louis Springer: Exactly, just trying different things, comparing, often letting it rest a bit.
Emil Paiker: It always became apparent which was better. Or we find something completely new by chance.
Louis Springer: That’s what’s so weird about it. There are a lot of different versions of a lot of songs – there are little things like how you can play things differently. But this whole process – nobody sees it. Nobody finds out later how much work was actually put into a song, because there were so many different versions and little details. In the end, there’s just this one piece that lasts maybe two or three minutes. You think you can do it in two or three weeks, but no, it’s actually much more time-consuming.
Are you planning to shoot music videos in the future? There are none on your channel yet.
Louis Springer: Definitely.
Emil Paiker: There are videos on the “I’m cyborg but that’s ok” YouTube channel that she has edited together. She uses movies and series for that, and just our music. That has kind of served the function of music videos for us so far. But we definitely want to make music videos in the future, we already have a lot of ideas for that.
Louis Springer: It just hasn’t come to that yet. It shouldn’t be just anything either. So I don’t think we could stand up right now and say, “We’re going to do some video for this song,” because our music is very important to us and there’s a big story behind every track. We have to do justice to that somehow. I think you can’t do that blindly and rashly, you have to put creativity and planning into it. That’s why when we make a music video, it would have to be something special and also very personal. Because we do everything ourselves, it’s a lot of little tasks that we have to juggle at the same time and then we’d rather sit down to the next track or take care of live shows before we shoot a music video. But it’s definitely something we want to tackle soon.
Thanks a lot for the interesting conversation!
Katharina Reiffenstuhl
Translated from the German original by Arianna Fleur Alfreds.
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