The Orange Peels

The Orange Peels: Celebrate the Moments of Your Life (July 16, 2021)

“You have to get used to the idea that you might be saying goodbye to everything you know. That you might need to start over from scratch,” says bassist Jill Pries. "And that’s probably a good way to think about our new album."

After a year where the real turned surreal, and reality itself seemed up for grabs, music was a refuge for the three members of The Orange Peels (Allen Clapp: Vocals, Guitars, Synthesizers; Gabriel Coan: Drums, Programming and Synthesizers; and Pries on bass). Even without the lockdowns, confusion, and fear of the global pandemic, the band went through the ringer.

Clapp lost his father to cancer just prior to quarantine. And before summer was out, his mother was gone too. Then the band’s Santa Cruz Mountains studio and headquarters was nearly lost to the worst wildfires in California’s recorded history. Clapp and Pries escaped with their 8 animals and the hard drive containing the new recordings.

“When you spend weeks wondering if you have a place to live, or even an address, it changes you,” Clapp says. “You have to forget your old life to a certain extent just to keep moving forward.”

And during all of this, they were making the music that would become the band’s first double album, “Celebrate the Moments of Your Life.” Stay tuned!