Every South African metal band will at one point in their career be faced by the same conundrum, how do we play festivals and shows overseas where the scene is infinitely bigger than in SA? Peasant has an answer to that problem.
Ahead of their upcoming European tour, they have a fresh sound being showcased in their video for single “Into the Mirror”. And guitarist, Pieter Jordaan, thinks that the new sound could be contributing to their booking shows overseas.
“The new one – video for Into the Mirror”- is probably one of the funnest videos that’s we have done before,” he says, “We just went into our practice room and acted like a bunch of idiots. It links a bit to how the song sounds and feels, it’s definitely a bit more thrashy kind of punkish style which is a bit different from the previous two singles that we released. We wanted to try and lean into that because it’s not something that we have done before.”
Mainstream media in South Africa simply doesn’t cover bands like Peasant due to their extreme style, but that doesn’t change the fact that they have not only toured Europe before, but are now about to embark on a nine-date tour to Sweden, Germany, Austria and one of the biggest hardcore festivals in Italy.
“A lot of the spots we are playing are new. We have played one or two spots in Germany and we’ve played Vienna before and Austria, which will be our second time there, but most of the shows will be completely new, mostly because I booked it all myself. I was trying to find some new contacts to hook up with,” says Jordaan.
“Over there it’s a completely different thing, because culturally it’s a lot more prevalent,” he continues. “People are a lot more nuanced about the kinds of heavy music that they listen to. The cultural side of hardcore is a lot bigger there than it is here, and we are excited to get involved in that.”
