Ears Wide Open: Petey

Kevin Bronson on June 23rd, 2021

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Petey is one of those artists with whom there’s never a dull moment.

Born Peter Martin, reared in Chicago and well on his way to a Hall of Fame career based on “More to Life Than Baseball” alone, the L.A.-based singer-songwriter has been ridiculously prolific since signing to Terrible Records (home to Miya Folick, Alaska Reid, Kirin J Callinan, the Voidz and Luke Wild, among others) in 2019.

Petey today announced the Sept. 3 arrival of his debut album, “Lean Into Life,” which sounds more like a mantra than an album title. That’s confirmed if you dive into the three EPs (and you should) he released leading up to the album, “Checkin’ Up on Buds,” “High Life From the Bottle on the Beach” and “Car Practice.”

Some songs (re-polished) from the EPs — alternately sad/funny/biting musings that stylistically range from pop to indie-rock — will be on the album. (Others, including the baseball song, he’s grouped into a collection titled “Other Stuff.”)

After some pre-pandemic dates supporting the Voidz and Joyce Manor, Petey took to TikTok to spread the gospel of his music, and his humor served him well, as he’s piled up the followers. “The music and the comedy are all wrapped up together as part of the same thing for me,” he says. “Someone told me that a great way to create something original is to combine all of your favorite things and then fill in the gaps with your own personality. When I sing, I want to sing like Isaac Brock from Modest Mouse. When I play guitar, I want to play guitar like Chris Walla from Death Cab For Cutie. When I produce synth parts, I want to produce synth parts like Kanye West. And when I play drums, I want to play drums like Travis Barker from Blink-182. All those approaches get combined with my own story in my songs.”

In February, he and Folick released a one-off, titled “Haircut” (“Did you go to the barber? / Ask for a Natalie Portman?”), which followed the winking video, released last November, for “California,” the lead track on the album. We won’t say exactly how Midwestern it is to declare “I’d rather be depressed / In California / Ocean’s got the only blues I need,” but it is pretty damned Midwestern.

The title track to “Lean Into Life” arrived today, and we want to say it’s Modest Mouse meets the Postal Service. Petey says, “It’s about recognizing that things aren’t working, but instead of trying to take on everything at once, just making little changes that can start to point you in the right direction. I realized I didn’t need to take a huge leap in my life. I just needed to start leaning into things and taking tiny steps towards a healthier situation.”

The album, co-produced by Phil Hartunian, may be pre-ordered here.

||| Stream: “Lean Into Life”