Great Peacock
Sounds Like: Festival-ready Southern rock of the Whiskeytown persuasion
For Fans of: Ryan Adams, Tom Petty, Americana with both gentle acoustic harmonies and fuzzy, plugged-in anthems
Why You Should Pay Attention: You can’t ever say that Nashville’s Great Peacock is lacking a sense of humor: they started their band as bit of a joke. “It was right when the Fleet Foxes were getting big,” says Alabama-born frontman Andrew Nelson. “We’d always played rock, so we said, ‘Let’s do some acoustic stuff, and we’ll name our band after an animal.” They wrote a tune called “Desert Lark,” went with “Great Peacock” and put the song online: to their surprise, their friends loved it, and they did, too. Five years and hundreds of shows later, Great Peacock have expanded from a twosome of Nelson and guitarist Blount Floyd to a full band, honing a textured, roots-influenced breed of rock & roll on their newest LP, Gran Pavo Real that’s seriously good – but never too serious. Case in point: “Let’s Get Drunk Tonight,” a little bit of healing, hedonistic honky-tonk.