Whether its opening for Doja Cat & EARTHGANG, playing local shows or festivals like M3F and VIVA PHX, to crossing state lines to perform in LA or NY, Pariah Pete is making waves in the music scene with the Mercuries. In January I got the chance to ask him some questions to which I was delighted with voice note replies. Because I thought that it was a really cool way to receive responses, I asked if I could create a video to accompany the voice note versions of the answers, to which you may listen to here. If you want to listen to the audio version, you can listen on spotify Here!
Who are the Mercuries?
The Mercurys are made up of Jacob Unterreiner on guitar, Carly Bates on keys and vocals, Gus Campbell on bass, and Malik Nelson on drums. The band started from Jacob approaching me at a festival in 2019, when he was doing a live band set with Jalopy Bungus. He came up to me after their performance and was like, “yo, we should do this for you.” So we planned a show.
Through those rehearsals, a lot of natural chemistry and friendships started to arise. Very quickly, I fell in love with the live versions we were making as a band, more than what was on my Spotify. After a couple of years of playing together, they started making original beats and demos, and I’d start writing over those. We really started building songs from the ground up, rather than them reinterpreting my older songs.
What got you into making music?
“What brought me to make music myself was honestly just falling in love with it and being so passionate about it at such an early age. One of my earliest memories is of my sisters playing 50 Cent’s “In Da Club” and all that early 2000s hip hop and R&B. Through hand-me-down iPods and scouring YouTube on the family computer, I quickly fell in love with every element of hip hop—the culture, the essence, and what it represents.”
“I love how much a rapper’s origin story is important to them and what they create and what they write. I really just related to that and wanted to tell my own story and struggles. I wanted an art medium that felt like therapy, like a diary or a journal. Even before I ever wrote my first verse, which would have been in like the third or fourth grade of elementary school, since I fell in love with rap at such an early age, I mean I used to just like rap in front of a mirror and just pretend I was other people. I really just felt like I was destined to do this shit.”
Favorite songs on the album?
I have two favorite songs: the intro and the outro.
So the intro, “Sunkissed,” I think is the thesis statement of the entire Terminal era—where I was and what I wanted to express. I feel like if you could like hear that one song, you’ll get bits and pieces of every song that follows. I just dive into it in more detail. But, it really feels like Sunkissed is like the perfect introduction of who I am, who I was I guess back then. It has a groovy vibe, an amazing chorus and rap verses, it’s got bars but it’s simple, there’s braggadocio, there’s introspection—it just feels like a well-rounded song.
My other favorite song, being the outro, “Terminal A, I mean the entire album just feels like such a soul-searching, cathartic experience, and I feel like on the outro it’s the most digestible? You know? Like, I explore three significant periods of my life and on record, I mean that third verse was such a spiritual breakthrough for me—I mean, like, I had a psychedelic-like experience after writing and recording that and like sobbed, for like days. It really altered my worldview forever and I’ll just always cherish that song for that reason.
It felt like such a spiritual channeling moment, and something that I felt like my higher self was like, informing me to write. I wanted it to be a 6-7 minute song with crazy vocals. It’s such a sick moment—lyrically, spiritually, artistically, it’s something I’m so proud of.
Influences on this project?
You know to speak for myself, a huge influence of me over the last few years will always be Kendrick Lamar, Mac Miller, André 3000, MF DOOM, but when I first started writing this album, a lot of the instrumentation was inspired by Cleo Sol, Erykah Badu, and A Tribe Called Quest at moments.
My band is such an eclectic group of talented musicians—they could probably name better references and inspirations that we drew from.
I definitely heard the name D’Angelo being thrown around a lot, especially when my bassist would come up with a new riff, but, yeah those names I mentioned really, really were significant for me.
Biggest obstacle making the album?
My biggest obstacle putting out an album of this caliber I think was being able to sit back and be incredibly vulnerable and have an incredibly intimate creative relationship with the executive producer, the guitarist; my best friend Jacob.
I mean, being able to go back and forth with him and allowing a voice of praise and sometimes critique of, you know, being able to trust knowing when to let an idea go or to rewrite something, or to really double down on something—that felt like an obstacle in the moment but something that ended up just happening and ended up helping my personal and emotional growth a lot.
Time felt like an obstacle.
Making songs like this aren’t done in one studio session—they’re done in multiple writing sessions, multiple studio sessions, multiple mixing sessions, and working with, you know, an independent local artist budget.
Sometimes we didn’t have time to like lock down like “okay, we’re gonna do this for a week.” and with how busy everyone in my band is, so.
I guess those were a couple obstacles, but honestly, in hindsight, I wouldn’t change a single thing about how it was done.
What can we expect in the future?
What can we expect?
I mean, there’s Terminal A. Naturally there’s got to be a Terminal B.
There’s a whole yin and yang, theres a high and a low, theres a colorful and black-and-white, and um, yeah that’ll definitely be coming out this year, as well as just a lot more music.
Something I strive for this year is a lot more single releases and stay a lot more consistent in that realm.
I’m such a project-oriented artist and prefer writing with a greater concept or idea in mind, but I really just want to start putting out music more frequently just to see what would happen in terms of growing my audience, especially, in and outside of Arizona.
I’ve taken some pretty long gaps in the past from releasing and it’s always been good for making sure I deliver quality, with visuals and promotion ready. But this year feels like the year of discipline for me—just showing up for my music, my art, and for my materialization of putting stuff out there and promoting it.
So yeah, you can expect more music, more shows, and hopefully just bigger things and bigger blessings. The universe has rewarded us with many opportunities, and I’m forever grateful for those, so.
Hopefully there are more of those on the way, you know!
– Pariah Pete
Check out his new music video Jaywop for their track 96 Corolla.
Arizona had another year full of incredible music and events hosted by a wide range of talented artists. From alternative, to hip-hop, to RnB, the valley is witnessing a transformation in the music scene since covid wiped out much of the industry in 2020. In an attempt to document and archive the growing Phoenix music scene, we are creating a Zine for our favorite releases of 2024 so fans can have a unique physical collectible and support local artists.
Buy our Zine to support continued support of independent artist communities around Arizona!
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