PUT SOMETHING OUT AND ROLL THE DICE
A CONVERSATION WITH PETER HOLMSTRÖM OF PETE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
Peter Holmström is most known for being the guitarist of The Dandy Warhols, one of the defining alternative rock bands of the late ‘90s and early 2000s with hits like “Bohemian Like You”, “Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth”, and “We Used To Be Friends”. His other musical project, Pete International Airport, sees him experimenting with different sounds, guitar tunings, and themes, but will appeal to any fan of The Dandy Warhols. I recently talked to Holmström about Pete International Airport’s upcoming EP, Sea of Eyes, and his time with The Dandy Warhols who are celebrating 30 years as a band.
Reflecting on what led to Pete International Airport’s upcoming EP Sea of Eyes, Holmström states, “I really wanted to showcase Alexander Hackett’s vocal contributions to the record. There’s just this insane depth to his lyrics, and his voice is fantastic. The way the initial rollout of the album happened his songs weren’t the singles… I needed to do something to put that out there, and because I’m gonna be working with him in the future, it was something I wanted to do. It also was an excuse to reach out to Andy Bell and see if he’d do a remix and get some other friends involved.”
Sea of Eyes features several interesting remixes. Commenting on the remix process, Holmström says, “I always love hearing other people’s interpretations of the tracks and what their ears latch onto and where they take the track from there. There’s an Alex James quote about remixes that I absolutely love; ‘It’s like letting somebody take your dog out for a walk, and they come back with a different dog’… There are some tracks where I prefer the remix.”
The creative process for The Dandy Warhols, Pete International Airport, and Sun Atoms “used to be very different,” remarks Holmström. “When I would bring something to the Dandys, it had to be written in standard tuning, and it had to be no more than two parts. And I don’t want to say simple because there’s nothing wrong with that, but more traditional chords. Whereas Pete International, I tried all these weird alternate tunings to make my brain break up the usual process of ‘these sounds go in this order.’ Not that I know a lot, but I know more of what I’m doing in standard tuning. Alternate tunings I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what chord shapes I’m making or if they’re actual chords. I just put my fingers in different places and figure out, ‘Well, that sounds good. What goes with that.’ Sun Atoms, I keep my contributions to that since everyone brings music in, to things that I write on the bass.”
Recently, with The Dandy Warhols and Pete International Airport, Holmström has collaborated with many artists, such as, Guns N’ Roses’ Slash, Blondie’s Debbie Harry, and Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell. Holmström loves collaborating, exclaiming, “It’s my favourite thing about making music. It would be so boring to do something all by yourself. Not that it wouldn’t be any good… I could listen to my songs again because there were other people who made decisions that I have no clue their thought process and why they did things. If it was all me, I would know the whole process. There would be no wondering about things. [Also], people’s skills that they bring, like I can’t play like Slash. I was caught up in trying a little bit. There’s just no chance I could do that… But [“I’d Like To Help You With Your Problem”] needed something like that. We started at the top of our list going, ‘Who would be the most amazing person to have on to do that.’ Slash is the top there, and somehow, he said yes. Same with Debbie Harry. That was something I didn’t even know was on my bucket list. Rachel [Goswell] bought my previous record, so I knew she at least knew about [Pete International Airport]. It was a little easier to go, ‘Wanna sing on one.’”
PRE-ORDER SEA OF EYES VIA BANDCAMP
Portland, OR rockers The Dandy Warhols reached a huge milestone this year as it marks 30 years as a band for them. Reflecting on their 30th anniversary and favourite memories, Holmström notes, “Definitely didn’t think 30 years was a possibility. Didn’t think five years was really a possibility. That was probably longer than I’d ever done anything. But there was something when we first got together that was probably just excitement because it was the first time I was in a band that actually did something that was slightly different. It didn’t take very long for people to latch on to what we were doing. It was probably about six months, and we had a decent following in town. Right after that, we went to San Francisco for our first time and met [The Brian] Jonestown [Massacre]. That connection helped. There was a lot of inspiration back and forth, and it helped us grow.”
“A lot of the people we got to meet is the most amazing thing. We got to go on tour with David Bowie for two months in Europe. I watched every show and every sound check. I took every opportunity I could. I realized that wasn’t something everybody gets to do. I definitely took advantage of that. We got to open for Tom Petty a few times and The [Rolling] Stones… The places we got to go was also incredible. As a kid, Australia was the place I wanted to go the most, and now I’ve been there so many times that I have no idea what that number is.”
When I mentioned to Holmström that I recently discovered The Dandy Warhols and instantly fell in love with their music, he replied, “It’s funny how there’s so much music out there, so the possibility of running into a band that’s been around for 30 years is quite common and it’s like new and you’ve got so much.”
Throughout their career, The Dandy Warhols have done an excellent job recreating retro sounds and styles from various eras of music while still sounding like The Dandy Warhols. Holmström comments, “Having it end up sounding like a Dandys song seems to be something we can’t avoid. In the beginning it was definitely our skill level was not good enough to actually mimic the things we were influenced by. Later on, the influences are there but just not as obvious. It’s more stylistically, anyways. Like the latest record, Rockmaker was all about creating songs from riffs and definitely more guitar-based on the heavier side. Thirteen Tales [From Urban Bohemia] was more ‘70s acoustic; [Welcome To The] Monkey House was more ‘80s synth driven… It’s never one band we were trying to emulate. It’s more styles, feels, and vibes.”
Reflecting on the huge success The Dandy Warhols achieved with their albums … The Dandy Warhols Come Down, Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia, and Welcome To The Monkey House, Holmström states, “So much of it is down to luck. We had a couple of songs that hit over across a whole broader spectrum of people than we could’ve ever expected. We couldn’t have done that if we tried. We were just making music for ourselves the whole time.”
The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre were subjects of the controversial cult classic documentary Dig!. Holmström finds Dig! to be frustrating, noting, “The way it was presented to us in the beginning was it was going to be about the music and the creation process, and that’s just not part of it. It probably wouldn’t have been as interesting of a story, and it probably wouldn’t have been nearly as successful of a film if it’d gone that direction. Instead, the filmmaker [Ondi Timoner] decided to latch on to the ‘us vs. them’ sort of thing. It existed a little bit, but it was more a friendly competitive thing. It wasn’t a rivalry in any way. There was so much that was left out of the film. Like Anton [Newcombe] was at my wedding. He got up and sang a song for my wife and I. That’s not part of it. That would ruin the story completely.”
On Sept. 19, The Dandy Warhols and The Black Angels start their co-headlining tour in Europe and the U.K.. Holmström is excited for the tour, especially seeing The Black Angels play live, stating, “We did that with them, a co-headline tour last year… It was so much fun. Having a band that good, before or after you, makes you have to be better. Everybody’s performance levels went up… To get to do that in Europe [and the U.K.] makes it all better.”
Pete International Airport’s Sea of Eyes drops on Nov. 20. “The hard part is just getting anybody to hear it,” says Holmström. “It’s kind of, put something out and roll the dice. Maybe it will connect somewhere or somehow.”
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Photo Credit: Mary Martley
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