"Turn the song on for someone who lived through the 80s and they will probably think they are listening to a new wave deep cut, it is that good."
- The 405

"“Immaculate jangle meets harmonic bliss” pretty much nails it. ."
- Brooklyn Vegan

f The Orange Peels got paid each time a music critic said, “It’s the kind of music that makes you feel like you’re speeding down the Pacific Coast Highway with the top down,” they’d be billionaires.

The Orange Peels formed in 1997, rising out of the ashes of Allen Clapp and his Orchestra—whose debut album 100 Percent Chance of Rain was heralded in the heyday of the burgeoning American indie-pop movement.

The band has featured members of The Mummies, The Ocean Blue, Half Japanese, and Continental since its inception, and has never stopped evolving. In this decade, the lineup has solidified with Clapp on vocals, guitars and keyboards; Jill Pries on bass; John Moremen on lead guitars; and Gabriel Coan on drums. 

This incarnation is now into its third album together, exploring ever more sophisticated pop landscapes while keeping melody as its North Star.

Clapp’s ear for pop magic has landed his tunes and vocals in major ad campaigns for Coca Cola, Target, and Samsung. On the band’s last tour opening for Matthew Sweet in the summer of 2015, Sweet fell in love with guitarist John Moremen’s playing during the soundcheck for their first show together. The next two years would see Moremen recording and touring with the pop legend leading up to the release of Tomorrow Forever.

On its 7th album, Trespassing (April 2018, Minty Fresh), the band doubles down on melody and experimentation making perhaps the ultimate Orange Peels album. Recorded at the band’s redwooded retreat in the Santa Cruz Mountains, it’s a study in contrasts—organic outdoor drums vs. programmed digital computers; tack pianos and string quartets vs. icy synthesizers. After all, they’re looking at life from both sides now.

In the dawn of 2018, it almost feels like the world is finally ready to discover The Orange Peels.