Great Peacock

You can call Great Peacock a folk band... but don’t expect them to make music for campfires or square dances. Raised in the Deep South and headquartered in Nashville, they’re a group of red-blooded country boys who aren’t afraid of the big city. Case in point: Making Ghosts -- the duo’s harmony-heavy, guitar-driven debut album -- whose 11 songs find the middle ground between rootsy, down-home Americana and super-
sized arena pop/rock.

“To us, it’s just pop music with organic acoustic instruments,” says Andrew Nelson, who shares lead vocals and guitar duties with co-founder Blount Floyd. “The album has some fiddle, some pedal steel and a whole lot of acoustic guitar, which sounds like the traditional setup for a country band. But this isn’t a country record. It’s not really a folk record, either. It’s a pop/record... with folk tendencies.”

Nelson and Floyd first crossed paths in their early 20s, bonding instantly over a shared love of cheap beer and good Southern music. After logging several years together in a loud, Tennessee-based rock band, they split off to form their own project, swapping
out the amplified swagger of their previous group for a straightforward sound anchored by acoustic guitars, anthemic melodies and two intertwined voices. Like an old-school harmony duo retuned for a new generation, they started off with a handful of classic influences -- the country croon of George Jones, the working class rock & roll of Bruce Springsteen, the heartland hum of Tom Petty -- and expanded their sound from there, turning Great Peacock into the sort of band that’s simultaneously rooted in tradition and headed toward new territory.