After cutting their teeth playing the Chicago indie club scene several years back, Peppermint Heaven aka Juno (Vocals, Keyboards) and Spark (Vocals, Bass, Drums) separately made the long trek from Chicago to LA eventually winding up together in the summer of 2011 when they began creating their own tasty brand of 80s-influenced indie pop, replete with heavenly harmonies, Juno’s delicious keyboard hooks and Spark’s inventive bass ‘n’ beats.
Taking their name from an obscure pre-Smiths Morrissey song, Peppermint Heaven found a home at indie band playground The Bedrock in LA’s storied Echo Park area and several months of playing, writing, recording, mixing, and honing their sound followed. After a wintry trip to London in early 2013, the boys decided that the UK would be the perfect launching pad for the band. This made perfect sense, as many of their influences hail from the UK (Tears For Fears, Pet Shop Boys, Simple Minds, New Order, Howard Jones, Psychedelic Furs to name a few).
Having unveiled their debut EP, the aptly titled The Delicious EP, last year, the band were thrilled with the loving response the record received, including a Top 10 placing on Music Week’s dance chart. Building on their earlier efforts, the band returned to the studio impassioned by the response.
With echoes of David Bowie, Morrissey, Erasure and Pet Shop Boys, but also boasting a distinctive Peppermint Heaven edge, the duo return with their ambitious debut album Precious Things. Hypnotic album opener Stranger Than Fiction is a clear demonstration of how the boys have raised their game. An intriguing dancefloor filler which sees Duran Duran meeting New Order, Spark and Juno show that they are plenty capable of reaching the arena highs of their musical idols.
Journeying through Erasure driven explosion of the uber-cool Decide 4 Yourself to the social comment of tantric The Cage That We Live In through to the uplifting breeze of The Girl I Used To Know and the irrepressible earworm Foreign Feeling (think Heaven 17), Precious Things is an ambitious debut that delivers what the duo have always promised – a big nostalgic 80s driven, contemporary pop record.
To accompany Precious Things, Peppermint Heaven have teamed up with video director Pierce G. Wilson and Taiwanese illustrator Jeremy Zheng to create a series of videos that explore the narrative of the album. An exploration of teenage freedom, the videos are as striking and compelling as the album.
www.twitter.com/pepperminthvn / www.peppermintheaven.com / www.facebook.com/