As many people know, Homeshake is the musical project of Peter Sagar; former guitarist for Mac DeMarco. I spoke with Peter before he left for tour this past summer. During our short phone call we spoke about his hate for encores, his song Khmlwugh and more!
Photo by: André Varty
How has Montreal influenced your music?
When I first got here I didn’t have much money and it clearly being expensive to live here, it gave me a lot of time to work on it. I actually feel pretty isolated from the rest here.
Your tour starts soon, what's one thing you're looking forward too?
I’m excited to play this festival in L.A on Saturday, that’ll be nice. Touring isn’t my favourite thing in the world. I like to record a lot more.
There’s a video of you ‘ranting’ about encores, why don’t you like them? (watch the video here )
Is there? Shit, I hate the internet. But yeah I don’t do those, I don’t like them.
Why not?
I don’t know, just play all the songs in a row. It's such a given now if you’re playing a show to play an encore and everybody expects it and its kind of a whole circumstance thing that I just don’t buy into. We just play all the songs we would play anyway without saving one or two for the end. It's a little awkward sometimes when I play the set and no one takes me seriously until the end and they’re like "oh shit he really meant it." Also, I think its also kind of arrogant to assume that everybody wants one and then play them anyway so it's a pretty tricky subject but yeah, I don’t like them. And when I go to shows I don’t stay for them.
You said in an interview that your songs are written a long time before they’re released, how do you keep them alive and relate to them even if you’ve had them for so long?
I don’t. I get really tired of them and completely move on. Its a pretty regular thing, its kind of changing with a lot of modern music where people are just releasing it suddenly which I like a lot, there’s no time frame. But if you’re trying to have your release date coincide with the ability to purchase a physical record and whatever, it takes a lot of time to work that out and labels need time to build hype. Its a little frustrating and I understand and its fine but I really dissociate from what I recorded while waiting for it to come out. I try to avoid it actually, so I can just go back to it fresh.
Are you already tired of Fresh Air? Yeah, pretty much but I haven’t been in the right headspace to start recording again so when I do that then I’ll be really sick of it. I mean its not a huge deal, when I play songs live with the band, everything is different from what's on the record. But yeah, every record is a previous self.
Have you been writing a bit but just not recording? Yeah, well after I finished the record I was still sort of in writing mode so I kept making the instrumentals. I have a bunch but I just haven’t found the right time or place to sit down and start finishing them.
So you released a video for Khmlwugh (Kissing hugging making love waking up getting high) how was it making the video and how did the concept come about?
It was fun! We went to the Poconos in Pennsylvania and it was fun riding around on ATVs and shooting fireworks and exploring in an abandoned swingers motel, it was a good time. And Jim (director) just kind of asked me if I wanted to do it and he had made the video for Give It To Me as well so I figured yeah sure.
For that same song, how did you come up with that phrase?
I was walking down the street actually with Selena. I had the instrumental and it sort of just popped into my head and I just started singing at her and she was like “what are you doing?” and I was like “I figured it out! I figured out the thing!" It was actually kind of embarrassing, but it just popped into my head.
And when you write lyrics for your songs, does it happen randomly like that or? Um, no. Sometimes its a really long, dry and horrible process. They certainly don’t come quicker or as naturally to me as the instrumentals but yeah it definitely depends.
You were on tour with Mac DeMarco for a while, what’s one thing you learned from him?
Maybe that if you tour too much you’ll go insane. That’s the main takeaway I have from that band.
Fire Round
First concert you’ve ever been to?
Tool
A city you’d like to play in?
Seoul in South Korea
Favourite song from Fresh Air? I don’t have one, they’re all the same