Artist Spotlight:
Interview with Pezzhead
The first LP by UK artist Pezzhead, BLUE Turtle Dove, stands astride what remains of the trap metal music scene. Never quite fitting in with the standard Cameron Azi / ZillaKami sound of the previous decade. Time has only validated Pezzhead in his creative efforts.
The fusing of trap metal, metalcore, death metal and hyperpop blend seamlessly to create his unique sound. The UK rap metal scene is thriving due to his and his comrades efforts including other trap metal artists. Especially scene legend BvdLvd. Their recent national tour has helped to see a resurgence of the rap metal scene in the UK since the 2020 pandemic.
We partnered with Pezzhead and launched BLUE Turtle Dove to AllMetalEverything.Bandcamp.Com so fans can purchase his music directly. 100% proceeds go to him. In the streaming landscape where one play is a fraction of a fraction of a cent, artists everywhere are getting the short-end of the deal. This is why BandCamp is so important to musicians everywhere.
We sat down with Pezzhead recently to discuss his musical background, philosophy and to get more insight into the process behind BLUE Turtle Dove:
AME: Can you tell us more about your musical background? How did you come to be a musician? Do you have other musicians in your family?
Pezzhead: I was mainly inspired by my older brother, he got me into metal at a very young age (9/10). My parents aren’t musical, my grandpa was but he died before I was born. My gran also plays piano.
Where does the name ‘Pezzhead’ come from?
Pezzhead43 was my older brother’s Xbox live gamertag. As an ode to his influence I asked if I could use it for my solo music. The name Pezz has also ran in my dad’s side of my family for years.
Top 3 UK snack foods?
Damn. Prawn cocktail Wotsits, the giant ones. Graze Smokey barbecue tings and space raiders.
Best part(s) of the tour?
Best parts of tour was performing and the traveling in between, I like covering distance in a short period of time. Seeing different parts of the country in quick succession is dope.
Worst part(s) of the tour?
Worst parts of tour was probably drinking loads and eating like shit. Also just feeling like a ghost after shows, feeling like I can’t socialize with anyone.
Mental health is a prominent topic in your music and general online presence. How do these weightier and deeply personal topics influence your creative process?
They influence it so much to a fault, I never intentionally made these things part of my image. What I’ve dealt over the past few years has just been so heavy that I couldn’t not to include. It’s relieving having a positive impact through negative experiences but I can’t help feeling it’s kinda contrived and cliche to be honest. I’m looking to create richer narratives in the future and become burden-less.
BLUE Turtle Dove… What does that mean? Can you tell us more about the concept behind this project? Who is the dude with the bird on the cover?
The dude with the bird on the cover is me, this album is about my personal narratives. My first ep RED Turtle Dove was the less thought-out version. Romance is an ongoing theme throughout the project, so is neurodivergence. Specifically masking it and what you can get out of doing that. It’s an abstract title but it’s narcissistic, being a turtle dove in a world of pigeons. It’s about standing out and having pride but also being pathetic and visionless.
Can you tell us more about your creative process in general? With this project, out of 22 songs there are only 3 listed features. Do you produce the music entirely yourself? What is the typical method for a Pezzhead song, start to finish?
I produced everything myself except track 14 where I have to credit immeshesdead for additional sounds. I handled mixing and mastering but my friends lent ears where they could. The 3 features are also friends and I chose to keep it as that because I wanted to keep the experience authentic.
I worked in multiple different studio spaces with different microphones and studio monitors throughout the process. Ultimately ending up back in my room with headphones and my dynamic ting. This project the songs took a long time to finish, countless revisions and re-recording. Re-mixing and re-mastering. Changing names and the order of the songs. My process is usually a lot more spontaneous and I’ll finish a song in a few days. Most of the songs on this project took a year or 2 to finalize.
Top 5-10 Pezzhead musical influences.
Carti, Kendrick, Ye, Periphery, Brakence, Tyler, Bvdlvd, Opeth, Biv, Pezz.
Favorite TV Shows?
My favorite show of all time is the Sopranos I also fuck with breaking bad a lot . . . (and) . . . SpongeBob and the Simpsons.
For people outside of the UK, how did growing up in East Kent influence your approach to your sound, if at all? Do regional sounds/influence matter to you if they ever did?
Regional sounds matter to me so much, even though it might not be clear in my music. I grew up around spitters and MCs against my will, usually through buying weed in my area. Where I’m from emo’s were into rap music way before Suicide Boys, I was one of them. Moving from a sheltered area into a rough one taught me I could use my words as a weapon against chavs as I could splitz it clashed a lot with my interest in rock music which left me feeling split in two.
When I started going to London a lot more I was influenced by drill and EDM from going to different parties. The uk is rich in music and it’s also really concentrated. Where I’m from there isn’t much music apart from clubs and cover bands. Being a renegade is what I’m into.
Opinions on music where I’m from are usually really narrow minded so it’s been an interesting one winning people over in time.
Can you tell us more about your approach to Interludes? Any influences you drew from in particular?
With the interludes I just wanted to capture me traveling on trains. I also felt with the long runtime it needed to cut up into parts.
I feel there’s 5 parts overall. I been influenced by long rap albums recently but think they lack flow so I wanted it to give people some time to think in between the songs and possibly come up with their own meanings. I also sampled voice notes and ideas that were important to me in the process of making this album.
What is love?
I think love is sacrifice and not judging someone. Life is crazy and unpredictable and none of us are perfect.
For more Pezzhead you can find him on Instagram, YouTube, SoundCloud and Spotify. Support BLUE Turtle Dove on our Bandcamp today.
(Pezzhead interview by All Metal Everything.)
Subscribe to All Metal Everything on YouTube
For more updates follow All Metal Everything (@trapmetalupdates) on Instagram
Follow the ‘All Metal Everything’ playlist on Spotify
Check out our other Blog posts
All Metal Everything 