Give PEACE a Chance

Every once in a while, a band comes along who are destined to change the world and the only thing you can do is sit back and enjoy their ride to glory. Birmingham’s PEACE are probably not that band, but they do make being in a psychedelic rock group look like the funnest thing on the whole planet, which it is. Everywhere we’ve looked this year, the grinning mugs of Harrison Koisser (vocals, guitar), Sam Koisser (bass), Douglas Castle (guitar) and Dominic Boyce (drums) have been staring out at us – and we're proud to help this tradition continue.

VICE: Hi. Who are you?
Harrison Koisser: Hi, I'm Hazza from the band PEACE. Members also include Sazza, Dugga and Domma.

How did you all come together to make music?
Me and Sam are brothers, so we met in 1991 when I was born. You can thank our mum and dad for that. Dominic and I met at college a few years ago. He thought I was a prick because someone told him I had pushed a girl down some stairs at a party. He soon believed my innocence and it turned out we both thought John Bonham was brilliant, so we became pals. He had a mate called Doug who he played in a funk band with at school, so he was in immediately. It took a while for it to come together, but, slowly and surely, PEACE was being formed.

With a name like PEACE, people might think you’re all VW Beetle-driving conspiracy theorists.
Peace has always been a thing with us. I don’t want to go too deep into our past, but there were robes and a whole lot of relaxation. No, but seriously, at first we thought: 'You can’t call a band Peace.' And then one day, we all decided we could call our band PEACE. So we did. We got signed to Columbia after an A&R guy saw us play a house party in Birmingham.

How was the video shoot for the single, “Bloodshake”?
Good. We got the opportunity to write down a list of all the things we wanted to see in a music video, then make it real. The director was great and understood what we wanted to do, which was basically to burn a white Stratocaster, throw barracudas and catfish around and slice and stab limes and watermelons.

Be honest: how big an influence are the 90s?
I think we’re partially influenced by the 90s because they were the first years we began experiencing culture. I have fond memories of buying Aqua’s “Doctor Jones” from Woolworths in Kidderminster – it would be hard not to be influenced by that.

When can we expect your first album?
If all goes according to plan, it should be ready by spring 2013. A debut shouldn’t take too long to knock out, right?

Maybe. I don’t know.
Oh well.

Peace’s EP Delicious is out now on Columbia and the band tour the UK this month. More at peaceforever.co.uk.

Want more music? Try our music site, Noisey. It's full of music. Duh.