Orville Peck
A masked country singer whose debut Pony (Sub Pop, 2019) opens with "Dead of Night", a torch song about two hustlers crossing the Nevada desert.
The mask
Orville Peck is a country singer-songwriter and actor who performs in a fringed mask and does not show his face. Wikipedia describes him as South African by origin, emigrated to Canada in 2003 and later based in the US; the same article notes that attempts to tie the persona to a named person are speculation, which the artist has not confirmed, so we leave it there. He trained in acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and played Peter Pan in Peter Pan Goes Wrong in London's West End in 2016 and 2017. He told Teeth in 2019 that he designs and sews the masks by hand, owns about fourteen or fifteen, and takes inspiration from the costumes of old country stars, Nudie suits and 1950s and 60s rodeo stars with a bit of occultism.
He names Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Johnny Cash, Gram Parsons and Dolly Parton as influences, with Roy Orbison, Lana Del Rey and David Lynch outside country, and 80s synth, shoegaze, punk and grunge. W Magazine heard a deep, calm bass-baritone recalling Cash and Orbison, and The Line of Best Fit compared the croon to Chris Isaak.
Pony and after
Nylon posted the "Dead of Night" video on October 20, 2017 and called it his first song; the single is dated January 16, 2019, and the album Pony followed on March 22, 2019 on Sub Pop (SP1293), longlisted for the 2019 Polaris Music Prize. It was produced by Peck and recorded and mixed by Jordan Koop at The Noise Floor on Gabriola Island, British Columbia, mastered by Harris Newman in Montreal, 41:52. He called it a love letter to a classic country album, and Sub Pop's description is shoegaze-style ambience with classic American country. Metacritic scored it 77; The Line of Best Fit gave 8.5, Hot Press 8.8 and AllMusic 4.5 stars, while Saving Country Music gave 4 out of 10 and called him a gimmick.
The EP Show Pony came out on Columbia on August 14, 2020, Bronco (produced by Jay Joyce) on April 8, 2022, and on Warner the duets album Stampede on August 2, 2024, with Willie Nelson, Noah Cyrus, Kylie Minogue with Diplo, Beck and Shania Twain among the guests. He made his Broadway debut as the Emcee in Cabaret on March 31, 2025, and won the Libera Award for best breakthrough artist in 2020 and a GLAAD Vito Russo Award in 2024. Wikipedia lists a further album, Mule, for September 18, 2026.
Albums
Songs
- Dead of Night Pony · 2019
The opening track of Pony, a torch song about two hustlers traveling through the Nevada desert.
Sources
- Orville Peck, Wikipedia
- Pony (Orville Peck album), Wikipedia
- Bronco (Orville Peck album), Wikipedia
- Interview: Orville Peck, Teeth (2019-10-10)