Petey

One Liner:  TikTok star through wholesome funny videos also makes pretty solid synth rock

Wikipedia Genre:  indie rock, emo, electropop

Home: California

Poster Position: 13
Both Weekends.
Sunday at 2.

IHG Stage.

Thoughts:  When I pulled this up, there was a slice of my brain that was hoping it was Petey Pablo and he had just dropped the Pablo from his rap name.  I really liked that "Raise Up" track with the bit about waving your shirt like a helicopter.

This is not that.  Wikipedia says he is Peter Martin, a social media personality and musician who rose to prominence on TikTok during the pandemic.  His early life is kind of weird - born in Michigan, raised in Illinois, and played in an emo band called Young Jesus before going to Loyola University in New Orleans.  He then moved to California and lived for a period in a friend's backyard in a hand-made tent.  Mmmkay.

But when the pandemic derailed his music career, he started making "wholesome" and "absurd" TikTok videos, which lead to him amassing more than a million followers and collaborations with all sorts of sponsors and other people of note like Fred Durst.  There is also apparently a pianist named Peter Martin, but a search for Petey got me some videos (I can't TikTok on work computer!)

Yeah, I grinned a few times.  That is kinda funny.  I watched two others that were less funny.  But wholesome and absurd makes sense.  Strange thing - he's playing the Moody Center in September (obviously opening for someone) but that is too close to the Fest!  Here is a significantly longer thing called LEAN INTO LIFE (Original Drama) that incorporates some of his musical sounds into there.

(don't feel like you need to watch that whole 22 minute thing unless you really want to as I'm not sure that I laughed at all before the first commercial break, just FYI)

His album releases seem weird on Spotify.  First is 2021's Other Stuff, then 2022's Lean Into Life.  Seems like the "Other Stuff" album should have been the second one, a b-sides collection after the first one did well.  Huh.  And that 2022 album has his biggest streamer by a lot - "DON'T TELL THE BOYS" racks up just over 7 million streams.

Sort of a silly tune, and the music is kind of a mix between that Bleachers guy and the LCD Soundsystem stuff.  Petey kind of looks like the dude who lives across the street from me, except my friend has a lot more grey in his beard.  

But it is 2023's USA that is a really good disc from front to back.  There are a few tunes on there that made me stop what I was doing and listen - they hew more rock and less synth.  "The Freedom to Fuck Off" is great, for a moment I was like "is this dude a Christian artist?" but it ends up he was just integrating that into the well-written lyrics.  I think that song is very cool.  And "Did I Mention I'm Sorry" is good too, but so far it is "I'll Wait" that is winning the streaming wars.  3.3 million.

Something in his voice sounds Canadian.  Out of curiosity, I pulled up his live set at Bonnaroo, and it is much more of a full-band experience than I expected.  The LCD synths play such a major role in my head that I expected more of a laptop show, but of course that had to be wrong with the guitars you hear in so many of the songs.  If you are also curious, here you go.

I could do with a little less of the voice shedding yelps.  You can sing.  Just do it.  I find myself liking this more and more as I listen along.  That new album is definitely good.