Nur Peach on Following her Dreams in the Face of Being Different, Making Harry Potter Rock Music and Moving to a Big City
Nur Peach was an absolute delight to interview! Nur’s debut album, Syncopate, is due for release on the 22nd June. All photo credits to Levi Dyer.
I caught up with Nur Peach via email to find out more about her debut album, how she felt moving from her comfortable hometown in the Coromandel to Auckland and how much she loves Harry Potter.
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Hi Nur, thank you so much for your time and for allowing me to interview you for Welcome to the Gig! How is life treating you?
Nur: My pleasure, Ash - thanks so much for agreeing to interview me! I'm great, thanks.
You’ve got some very exciting things coming up such as your beautiful new album, Syncopate, which is due to be released on the 22nd June – on a scale of one to ten, how excited are you for this to finally be out in the world?
Nur: Thank you so much for the kind words about Syncopate. In regards to how excited I am about it... it's definitely a ten! It's always been my dream to release an album, and I'm so proud of how it turned out. Syncopate has existed in my head for five years now, and it feels so surreal that it's about to exist out in the world now. The recording process was delayed several times due to lockdowns and there were times when I wasn't sure if I'd get to finish recording the album, let alone release it! But I did get to finish it, and now it's about to be released, which I'm so grateful for.
What does releasing Syncopate mean to you?
Nur: When I listen to the album now, I feel like it's a time capsule of the year I wrote it: 2019, which was my first year of Uni (I did a Bachelor of Music at the University of Auckland). It was one of the best years of my life, and my first taste of independence before everything changed in 2020. I feel like, in releasing the album, I'm immortalising that year in a way.
That year was also the year I turned 18, so this album is also a coming of age story. It's about coming into my own, learning who I am and deciding who I want to be and how I want to live my life. The title, Syncopate, is a music theory term which literally means accenting the offbeats. I've used the word metaphorically to mean daring to be different and to make a difference. To me, this is about taking positive risks to create change in your life and the world, but it's also about self acceptance. I've always struggled with fitting in, and you can hear a lot of these struggles in the lyrics. But despite all this pain, to me the tone of this album is triumphant.
Sometimes, self acceptance can be as hard as getting others to accept you. The world makes those who are different feel insecure about it, and try to hide it, and I've definitely been affected by this. But I'm finding that writing, recording and especially releasing this music brings acceptance. I already experienced this back in October 2022, when I released "Offbeat" which was the lead single from Syncopate. I did a release gig in Thames, and curated the setlist around the theme of being different. It was an extremely powerful experience and probably the most I've ever bared my soul onstage. The audience was amazingly accepting and receptive in allowing me to do that and cheering me on.
Releasing that song was a lot scarier than I expected it to be, because I hadn't realised how personal it was until then. Only as the day approached did I start to see that by putting this song out into the world, I was owning something I've always been insecure about: the fact that I'm "different." I was embracing it for everyone to see, and saying I'm proud of it.
Releasing the whole album feels like it's going to be an even bigger reclamation of who I am. And I think that's really important, not just for me but for everyone. The more we're brave enough to own the parts of ourselves that make us who we are, the more others feel seen and loved, and safe to do the same. After releasing "Offbeat" some people told me that the song had really resonated with their own experience of being different. This made me so happy because it means the song is fulfilling its purpose. My only hope is that it, and the rest of the album, continues to show people that they're not alone.
You wrote the entirety of the album in 2019 and have kept it under your belt since then. Have you made many tweaks within the past five years since writing the album? If so, how has it changed?
Nur: Probably the biggest change was that "Gift From Above" almost wasn't on the album. Although it was also written in 2019, I thought it wasn't going to "fit" on the album because it was supposed to be my "first year album" and I wrote it over the summer holidays (on Christmas Day, actually!). There was going to be a different song instead, which was called "Scared" and was about not giving into fear. But "Gift From Above" was just a way stronger song and, looking back, I realised it might fit better than I thought. In 2022, when I was finishing recording the album, it was becoming more important to me to release my best songs, and I thought if I didn't record "Gift From Above" now, it would probably never see the light of day. So at the last minute, a week or so before my last recording session, I changed my mind and decided to record "Gift From Above" instead of "Scared" I'm so glad I did because it's one of my favourites in terms of how the recording came out, and it's also had a bit of radio success.
Another big change was that I actually wrote the bridge/intro of "Offbeat" (the part that goes "we're all different, all the same/sing it with me now") a year after I wrote the rest of the song, in 2020. I had been performing it without that part for a whole year, but it always felt unfinished. I tried out all kinds of things for both the bridge and intro, like instrumental sections and repeating the chorus too many times, but nothing felt right until I finally stumbled upon those words.
In 2019, you moved from the Coromandel Peninsula to Auckland. How did you find that change? I know from what you’ve said, it has affected your mental health, being so far away from some good nature. What did that move teach you and how did you cope when you felt low because of your newfound city surroundings?
Nur: I think this move is the reason there's such a strong theme of taking risks on the album. I was really nervous about it, because it was my first time living on my own, and also my first time not living in the Coromandel Peninsula (I was born and grew up there). However, I was also excited. I used to visit Auckland a lot as a kid, and always thought the city was so fun and exciting. There was so much more to do in the city than at home. This excitement didn't completely wear off when I was actually there, as is evidenced in songs like "Cover to Cover" I loved the city and I felt like this was when my life really began. However, it was also quite overwhelming and I did end up quite disillusioned about city life.
A big thing I learnt was to be grateful for what you have, because so often, you really don't know what you've got until it's gone. When I lived in the countryside, I thought it was "boring" and just wanted to escape to the city. But once I was there, I really started to see how lucky and blessed I'd been to grow up with nature at my doorstep. I saw that nature was more important to me than I'd realised, and I really started to miss home. The house where I spent much of my childhood has beautiful big gardens and a short walk down the road to the beach. I wished I'd spent more time enjoying these things while I could.
"This Is Home" the first track on Syncopate, is about all this. I wrote it when I was home for the weekend. I'm actually living there again now, and have been since I finished Uni. I still need that song as a reminder, especially the line "now my mind is done deceiving" That line is about acknowledging that what I think I want isn't always what's best for me. It was about not appreciating my incredible surroundings and wanting to go to the city. Now that I'm back here, I'm struggling to spend enough time outside again, and I do sometimes dream about living in the city again. But this song reminds me of what's really important.
In regards to how I coped - to be honest, not very well! But there were a couple of things which I remember really helped. The first was going for walks in parks - being with trees and grass really helped me come back to myself. The other thing was songwriting. I'd been writing songs for most of my life, but it was only around that time that I really started writing constantly as a means of coping with life. Songwriting helps me get in touch with something bigger than myself in the same way that being in nature does.
From what I’ve seen on your social media, you come from a musical family, with your Dad also being a musician. Have you always felt inclined to take on a musical path in your life?
Nur: I definitely have. I've been singing for as long as I can remember, and I wrote my first song when I was five. My dad, Dylan Wade, is an incredible and diverse artist in his own right, and is actually the featured artist on "Gift From Above"! He's a professional singer/songwriter and guitarist who also teaches music. He started teaching me guitar when I was nine, and I also started learning piano the same year.
Music has just been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and I couldn't imagine life without it. Singing and making up songs always just came naturally to me. My dad was always singing and playing guitar around the house and we often listened to tapes and CDs. I used to love playing make believe games both on my own and with my dad, and they almost always involved songs. I was really young the first time I performed on stage - probably only about four or five, at one of my dad's gigs. He played guitar for me and I improvised words over the top of it. I sang at a lot of his gigs, and as I grew older, I had sets of my own at festivals and the like. After I started writing "proper" songs, I would sing those instead of improvising. I always just found music and performing really fun!
Speaking of your Dad, you were in a band called the Joy Collective together. Are the band still together and if so, tell the readers more about this journey?
Nur: Unfortunately, the Joy Collective no longer exists because the other members decided to go their separate ways. My dad and I still perform together from time to time, and still play a lot of the songs we played with the band. Although I'm sad it ended, I'm really glad I got to be in that band. It was my first experience of being in a proper band, and I learnt so much about working with other musicians. It was a real challenge, but it was also amazing to be part of a larger group, and gave me a sense of purpose during a time when I'd just finished my degree and was feeling pretty low.
Besides music, what other things should we know about you, Nur? What else makes you YOU?
Nur: I'm short with really long brown hair and blue eyes. I live in Waiomu, a small seaside settlement on the Thames Coast, with my parents and 12 year old brother, who's my best friend. I'm vegan, as is my whole family. Both me and my brother have never tried meat and neither of us ever intend on doing so. I love nature, animals and healthy food. My favourite animal is a seal, because my childhood favourite toy was one. I still have him, and there are also several other toy seals in my house! I have this particular thing about the sky: I'm obsessed with stars, sunrises, sunsets and blue summer skies, which I associate with happiness.
Apart from music, my other passion is books. I love stories, especially of the speculative fiction variety (fantasy, sci-fi, dystopian etc., but especially fantasy!). I get really attached to fictional characters and they feel like real people who I know intimately. Most of my favourite characters tend to be heroes, because they're just so inspiring and amazing, and mentors, because they're so wise and you can't help but look up to them. I love stories that create a world you can lose yourself in, but I also love stories that say something important about our world. I love lots of parallels with real life and, of course, inspirational messages about the power of love and how we can all overcome. One of my dreams is to write a novel. I usually have one or two ideas I'm trying to write, but it's really hard and can get overwhelming, so I don't write as often as I'd like to.
My writing doesn't stop at songs and attempted novels, though. I write a lot of poetry, which is a great way to get things off my chest, and sporadically keep a diary. I'm also a freelance music journalist. At the moment, I write for NZ Musician and AudioCulture.
I see that you’re a big Harry Potter fan and even once did some Harry Potter music! That’s some amazing dedication, right there. What’s your favourite thing about Harry Potter?
Nur: Wizard rock was something I discovered in 2021. Believe it or not, there's a whole community of people making music about Harry Potter! And most of them are way more dedicated than I, who's more focussed on my "muggle music" I got really inspired by listening to other wrockers (as they call themselves) and started to write my own wizard rock songs. The wizard rock community is small, but the great thing about that is that it's really easy to get noticed! I started posting my songs on Facebook, and was very quickly noticed by the tastemakers in that community. I ended up being featured on a wizard rock compilation in 2022! My wrock project is called Leviosa, and I'm trying to get an album together for it.
In regards to my favourite thing about Harry Potter, that's really hard because I love so many things about it, and also it changes. When I was 12, the series was my first experience of not being able to put down a book! That's definitely one of my favourite things about it: how you can just lose yourself in that world. When I read the books, I don't feel like I'm just reading about Harry: I feel like I am Harry, and I'm really attending Hogwarts and going on a high stakes quest to save the world. And I can't just not mention how much I love the inspirational messages about the power of love and Harry's triumphant hero's journey arc. There's a lot of symbolism in the series which, to me, has a very deep spiritual meaning and is relevant to everyone's inner struggle.
How do you feel that your music sets you apart from others?
Nur: I struggled with answering this question because at first I thought that everything that makes my music what it is has been done before. I'm not the only one writing lyrics with a positive, uplifting angle - most of my favourite artists do that. I'm not the only one making electropop, or the only one making guitar/piano driven folk singer-songwriter music, or even the only one making both styles. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised how, in trying so hard to come up with something that sets my music apart, I was missing the fact that much of it is about being set apart. I'm not a normal person, so how could my music be? Even when I'm not directly singing about it (which I do a lot), my experiences of being different inform everything I write.
Being a young musician in New Zealand, how have you found getting yourself out there? What kind of advice would you give for newer, aspiring musicians that are trying to get into our small country's music scene?
Nur: I struggle with getting myself out there. I'm a completely independent artist and don't have a team, so I'm basically doing all the work myself, and I'm also very new to the whole promotion thing so often feel like I don't know what I'm doing! So I think my advice would be that even if you don't feel like you know what you're doing, just go for it. Learn by doing. Don't get discouraged by rejections, people not responding or people criticising your music. Put yourself out there and don't be scared of seeming annoying: you have to go after what you want.
The road of the musician, especially the independent musician, is not an easy one by any means. You have to be resilient and able to back yourself. It's really important to know when your artistic instincts are speaking and when you're just being inflexible. Learning the difference is crucial in achieving your full potential and working well with others.
If you could liken your music to any city in the world, what city would it be and why?
Nur: With this question, it was important for me to keep in mind that I've written a lot of music both before and since I wrote Syncopate. I feel like I have more of a tendency to associate my music with nature imagery than city imagery, probably because I've spent most of my life living in the countryside, and I love to use nature imagery in metaphorical ways in my lyrics.
However, Syncopate in particular does have a city association for me, and that city is Auckland. This is obviously because I was living there at the time I wrote it, and I feel very strongly that it's where the album is set. So many of the songs were written (or at least partially written) when walking Auckland's streets to and from class, so whenever I think of or listen to the album, I always picture those streets in my mind.
To round off the interview, is there anything else you would like to add?
Nur: Thank you so much for all your thoughtful questions, Ash. I just wanted to let everyone know that they can purchase Syncopate here.
I'm having some really beautiful CDs made, and you can get those at this link, or a digital download if that's more your style!
Thank you so much for your time, Nur, I am really looking forward to the release of Syncopate!
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For more on Nur, please check out her socials below -