Is Pierce Kingan Finally Achieving Inner Peace?

By Cole Young

A few years ago I interviewed The Prettys and after a few hours of feasting on tapas - can you guess what album they were about to release - and discussing music Pierce and Josh hit the hay. Luke, Code and I stayed up a while later to finish our beers and continue the conversation. At one point Pierce came up and Code had nothing but nice things to say about his old friend. He thought that releasing 4 song EPs was a genius way to put music out, he loved the songs he wrote and he also told us a story from years before from when they were working at a bar together.  Pierce had brought an acoustic guitar into work one day and some douchearoni tried to make fun of him for it, and said something along the lines of “you gonna play us a song or something?”.  Instead of fighting with the guy, or shying away from the conflict Pierce just said “ok!”, hopped up on the counter and started playing and in that moment everyone crowded around and listened to him play. Code said every girl there wanted to be with him and every guy there wanted to be him, he always had that magic. Based off of the latest batch of songs the man has put out he still hasn’t lost it either.

Four more classic Pierce songs paired with another Pierce pun. Achieving Inner Pierce has everything you want out of a Pierce Kingans EP. Catchy, melodic songs with honest lyrics the whole way through. As usual Pierce helped develop my vocabulary, teaching me about the hospital terms code pink and code blue. Blue being code for a heart attack and pink for a missing baby. He works them both into the opening lines of the EP “Call code pink cuz I miss my baby / Call code blue cuz my heart stops for you”.  Seemingly never running out of original ways to express himself, even in something as common as a love song. In a world full of them I can’t say I’ve ever heard one quite like this.

For me the stand out song on this project though is Validation. Between the lyrics themselves, the delivery of the vocals and the overall groove of the song it’s got me coming back to it again and again. Sprinkled with the bit of bawdy lyrics we’ve come to expect and love Pierce discusses the need and means of validation from sex. It’s a simple song, as so many of the best songs are, it sucks you in with strong rhythm and a faint Pretty Woman-esque teaser riff, then keeps you enthralled with the fun style of the singing and upfront words. As you come out of the third verse you get into a bridge outro reminiscent of moments off of Tapas with little spacey synth sounds floating around.

I know I wrote this as if it was all Pierce but I mean what’s a man without his band. On this one especially I find each member adds so much to each song. Pierce’s old Prettys bandmate Ian Browne is slamming the boom booms and long time collaborator Zac Martin is on the keys again. They’re also joined by Jay Slye on guitar and a guest appearance by Wes Cook playing bass on I Willed Love. 

Overall Achieving Inner Pierce is nothing less than what I’ve come to expect. These guys are machines, they’re pumping out quality tunes like no one else in the city. As usual I highly recommend getting this into your eardrums right away, listen here.