Daniel Pitout is a South African singer-songwriter and musician. Spit Gifting, That’s My Man, and Eat Your Mind are some of his most well-known songs and albums. He was the drummer for the well-known Canadian band Nu Sensae.
The band is closely associated with the queercore or queer rock genre. However, in recent years, Pitout has taken on a new appearance, one that conceals his face behind an exceptional mask. His current allure as Orville Peck has recently become the topic of much of independent country music and Americana.
With his current appearance, he has created his own cult following. The musician who performs with his face disguised beneath a fringed mask seemed to be bound for the outskirts of pop culture.
Critics and fans alike are swooning over his mod-styled gloomy music infused with Western imagery. Peck/Pitout, who now never appears in character without his mask, is coy about his age and upbringing.
Read on to learn more about him, beginning with the puzzle of whether Daniel Pitout and Orville Peck are the same person. Learn more about his early life, songs, and popularity.
Orville Peck is Daniel Pitout.
Page Contents
- 1 Orville Peck is Daniel Pitout.
- 2 Pitout Wears A Mask For What Reason?
- 3 Daniel Pitout was born in Johannesburg, South Africa.
- 4 Before becoming Orville Peck, Daniel worked as a drummer in two bands.
- 5 After Becoming Orville Peck, Daniel Pitout
- 6 Other Achievements of Daniel Pitout or Orville Peck
- 7 Daniel also speaks out on Aids awareness.
- 8 Pitout battled mental health issues.
- 9 He enjoys splurging on gorgeous homes.
A few sources argue that Orville Peck is actually Daniel Pitout and vice versa. Peck has also been identified as Daniel Pitout, the former drummer of the Vancouver punk band Nü Sensae.
Peck’s manager at the Troubadour in 2016 called him Daniel — the first part of the name that appears in published accounts from London’s West End, when Pitout played in a musical comedy based on Peter Pan in 2016.
Pitout now since Peck always wears a mask when performing. And Peck’s masks and theatric stage presence immediately capture the attention of the audience.
The top half of the mask is made of leather, and from the bottom hangs a strand of long fringe, which he sometimes braids to each side to display his scruffy chin—his distinct appearance is a cross between the Lone Ranger and a BDSM fan.
Pitout Wears A Mask For What Reason?
Pitout previously stated that he studied his famous mask as an art form for two years and believes there is a misperception regarding the face shields. The five-foot-eleven-inch-tall artist claims that his mask permits him to perform on stage. It also allows the queer musical star to be upfront, transparent, and vulnerable about what he is singing about and saying.
Daniel Pitout was born in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Pitout was born on January 6, 1988, in Johannesburg, South Africa, and he still considers the city to be his home. Daniel claims to have grown up in South Africa, just north of Sophiatown (an apartheid-era enclave of Black ingenuity). Peck stayed there until he was 15 years old.
Pitout did not have professional music training as a child, so he trained himself to play an acoustic guitar and an old Casio keyboard. Daniel is a sound engineer’s son.
Pitout did voice-over work for cartoons and other media as a child. He also trained in ballet for 12 years and participated in musical theater as a child.
Pitout had been on national musical tours by the time he was in his early twenties. The homosexual cowboy with South African and Canadian ancestry traveled to London in his mid-20s to pursue acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and later starred in a West End play.
His grandfather was a horseback sheriff in [South African province] KwaZulu-Natal when he was younger. Peck claims his grandfather was a true cowboy, and as a result, Pitout developed an obsession with all cowboys as a child.
Before becoming Orville Peck, Daniel worked as a drummer in two bands.
Pitout was the frontman for alt supergroup Eating Out and the drummer for scuzzy punk act Nü Sensae before donning the mask and going by the name Orville Peck. Daniel released the album Burn in 2013 with Eating Out. Along with it came a fantastic, 90s-inspired music video and the standout track “That’s My Man.”
Following that, he appeared in Chemainus, British Columbia, in a production of The Buddy Holly Story.
The Nu Sensae founded in high school in Vancouver when drummer Daniel Pitout and bassist Andrea Lukic met, and they first played gigs when they were 18 or 19.
Pitout used to do home shows in Vancouver during his early days with Sensae. After a while, the band gained guitarist Brody Mcknight and played a total of 12 concerts in hot South by Southwest in 2013. Sundowning, Nü Sensae’s first album as a three-piece, was released in late 2012 on the prestigious Northwest label Suicide Squeeze.
After Becoming Orville Peck, Daniel Pitout
Pitout rose to prominence as the drummer for punk-grunge duo Nü Sensae, but he reached new heights in 2017 when he chose to transform into the fringe-masked, queer indie country singing, Orville Peck.
Since then, he’s topped indie charts with his debut album “Pony” in 2019, followed by “Show Pony” in 2020. Orville announced in July 2020 that Show Pony would be delayed until August 14, 2020, in commemoration of the Black Lives Matter movement and protests against police brutality in the United States.
Pitout featured every issue after Pony and Show Pony, and he appeared at Dior presentations in a special suit and mask. Pitout or Peck has also worked with Canadian singer Shania Twain on the song “Legends Never Die” from the latter’s album.
In 2022, he will also perform at the Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals. In April of the same year, he released his second studio album, Bronco, with Columbia Records.
Bronco was released in three “chapters” by the South African-born, Toronto-based singer: the first on March 5, the second on March 11, and the final on April 8. He also worked with Bria Salmena, an ex-Sub Pop labelmate, on his other album, “All I Can Say.”
Daniel has also contributed to the albums of White Lung and Hunx and His Punx. He has also hosted an episode of the Netflix documentary series This Is Pop and signed with Sony Music.
Other Achievements of Daniel Pitout or Orville Peck
Peck performed “Dead of Night” on Jimmy Kimmel Live in January 2019. Peck’s Pony made the original longlist for the 2019 Polaris Music Prize in June 2019.
The album was also nominated for an Alternative Album of the Year Juno Award at the 2020 Juno Awards. The Vocalist/Guitarist appeared on American drag queen and singer Trixie Mattel’s EP, Full Coverage, Vol. 1, in April 2021.
Pitout has also appeared on Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash’s duet “Jackson.”
Orville Peck will appear as the sixth performer on Lady Gaga’s album Born This Way The Tenth Anniversary in June 2021, reworking the song “Born This Way” in a country manner.
Daniel also speaks out on Aids awareness.
Pitout has long advocated for AIDS awareness. Daniel once disclosed that AIDS had taken the lives of friends and family.
He’s also used his musical networking skills to generate funds for AIDS research. He also runs a non-profit organization, the AIDS Day Music Project, which promotes HIV/AIDS awareness via music and art.
In 2012, the Toronto-based goth-country singer founded the AIDS Day Music Project. Pitout is also one of the DIY punk scene’s few openly gay members, and a highly active, forward-thinking one at that.
Pitout battled mental health issues.
Daniel also battled depression. In reality, he wrote his second studio album, Bronco, just as he was recovering from a severe depression. Pitout revealed during the development of Bronco in March 2022 that he was really dissatisfied.
He appeared to be on the verge of quitting music entirely. He was also in the worst possible situation. But the moment he decided to begin writing Bronco, he felt incredibly cathartic, liberating, and “sort of like therapy.”
Pitout claims to have cried a lot while composing Bronco.
He enjoys splurging on gorgeous homes.
His songs and lifestyle reflect his passion for housing. The openly homosexual singer paid $1.9 million for a treehouse in Beachwood Canyon, Los Angeles, in 2022. The house was built in 1944 and is on 0.16 acres. The house itself is 1694 square feet in size and contains three bedrooms and three bathrooms.
Pitout purchased this stunning home in 2020 from Jack Nicholson’s daughter Jennifer Nicholson, who purchased it from Meryl Streep’s daughter Mamie Gummer. This mansion was purchased by Red Hot Chili Peppers member John Frusciante sometime in 2005.
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