Girls like naming inanimate objects. Not all girls, of course, but it’s a definite feminine trait. So when Katy asks if the antiquated SOURCE dictaphone has got a name we’re not especially surprised.
And anyway, it’s easy to imagine that the dark haired singer-songwriter and her curly haired singer-songwriter friend Rosa have names for their guitars. It’s the kind of cute thing they’d do. So we offer them the chance to baptise it, giving complete free reign. Based on the offbeat songs we know and love from the pair it ought to come as no surprise if it comes back from the lesser-thumbed part of a baby names book.
“I think he looks like a Porridge,” Katy says after some thought.
“I think you’re right,” agrees Rosa, eyes sparkling.
Welcome to the world of Peggy Sue, a world that is now without Pirates (more on this later), a world of friendship and quirky folk songs that are full of playful energy. It’s a world based around the edges of things, where nothing is too serious. It feels like a whole world, undoubtedly thanks to the fact that Rosa and Katy are best mates, going back to the tender age of seventeen when they met on the bus going to a rave.
“Rosa was older than me so a bit cooler,” say Katy, dredging for memories. “Well, I thought she was cool but now I’m not quite sure. I was still going through my garage phase – that’s why she was cooler than me. Now I realise that garage was cooler.”
“We mainly made friends about music,” adds Rosa. “The first music we bonded over was Regina Spektor.”
“I wish we had a dramatic meeting story,” says Katy, ignoring the fact that an alt.folk (more alt.soul until recently) duo should meet raving. “We should make one up. We should steal Crystal Castles’ story. Apparently they met reading to blind people on community service. I’m not sure anyone would believe that of us though.”
The community service or the being nice to blind people?
“It doesn’t count if you’re forced to be nice to blind people,” laughs Katy.
Rosa picked up the guitar first but claims she’s nowhere near as good as Katy (“You’re better at plucking, I’m better at strumming,” says her friend). But they pretty much came to each other when they were in exactly the same place. They both wrote songs by themselves, didn’t play in bands, couldn’t really play the guitar.
“We were never skilled enough to play the guitar together,” reckons Rosa. “Now we’re better, we’re playing guitars together. It’s amazing!”
Peggy Sue is like two solo projects that merged. There’s more of a sense of humour when they write together, they say. It has more energy. What made them stand out when they first started was the irreverent subjects of their songs (although Escargot on the new EP is about the sadness of stepping on snails).
“We were both writing songs separately that were quite poetic and a bit sad, in a young way,” says Rosa. “And when we got together we started to write songs about absolutely nothing.”
Katy: “But I think it was really wicked. And it taught me a lot about songwriting to do that.”
Rosa: “Our songs were about pop culture really. But that was what a lot of people were doing at the time. People like Lily Allen.”
Katy: “Why did you say that! Why did you mention Lily Allen?”
One person definitely worth mentioning is Kate Nash, who has been a particularly passionate and vocal fan of the band from the days when they shared almost open mic-type bills, all the way up to shouting about them on the TV and in interviews and having them support her on tour.
“She’s very gracious and very supportive,” beams Rosa.
Do her fans like you?
“I think they might like us less now,” ponders Katy. “We did three tours with her and the first tour was amazing – small gigs with real MySpace crowds. Everyone knew all the words to the songs and knew who we were. And then she got bigger and we didn’t go down so well.”
“But we did get to play Shepherds Bush Empire,” says Rosa with a broad smile.
Kate’s fans probably won’t fall in love with the new Peggy Sue EP as, with a move from the imaginary Pirates, the pair take on a more gypsy folk feel.
“We were going throw a crisis of identity basically, and we did a collaboration with a London band called Left Of Pictures who are very folky,” explains Katy.
“There’s a whole lot of banjo on our record,” adds Rosa. “We’ve been listening to a lot of Laura Marling and stuff. We’re making another EP after this and it’s going to be totally different. We wanted to check out different ways of making music.
“We were trying to stop people being confused about us being Peggy Sue & The Pirates cos of Pete & The Pirates but now I think this is going to be really confusing. Mark Reilly told us it was a terrible idea.
“I hated those Pirates until they were gone,” muses Katy, “and now I miss the Pirates.”
“It was just a funny name,” says Rosa. “It was a name that was supposed to be original and individual, but then another band came along. It sums up the first period of our band though.”
The girls stop for a moment.
“We’re just ranting at you aren’t we?!” worries Rosa.
“This is like counselling,” smiles Katy.
We could listen all day, but maybe poor Porridge needs a rest.
