Pete International Airport release dreamily psychedelic Flowers Of Evil

Pete International Airport, the solo psychedelic project from Dandy Warhols guitarist Peter Holmström, have released Flowers Of Evil, the first track from upcoming album Safer with the Wolves…, the follow-up to 2010’s self-titled debut. The new album is released on November 17.

Flowers Of Evil is just over four minutes of hazy, slow-burning psychedelia fronted by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club singer Robert Levon Been, and it’s been a long time in the making.

“I’ve wanted to work on something with Pete for years,” says Levon Been. “And one day he played me this really dreamlike instrumental track I just fell in love with, and I told him that if he ever let anyone else sing over it I’d kill him. All the while this melody starts scratching at the walls in my head ‘…it hides under the bed like a frightened kid’, and the first half of the song was done, but I just couldn’t figure out how to finish the story. So I promised Pete that i’d finish all the lyrics in about six weeks. And about six years later it was done. Thankfully Pete’s not a big stickler for punctuality.”

“I still have the message on my phone from Robert telling me that the song was done,” says Holmström. “It was a pretty important moment… it set the standard for the record. It was so good all the other songs had to try and come up to its level. This song has been an ongoing project since the first PIA record. I had asked Robert to write lyrics and sing on it because it was my favourite piece of music that I’d ever come up with, and he is one of my favourite singers. It took a little longer than planned, but it was so worth the wait I can hardly believe it.”

The album also features contributions from Alex Maas (Black Angels), Lisa Elle (Dark Horses), Jason Sebastian Russo (Hopewell, Mercury Rev), Jsun Atoms (The Upside Down, Daydream Machine), Emil Nikolaisen (Sereena-Maneesh) and Jeremy Sherrer (The Dandy Warhols, Modest Mouse, The Shins).

Safer with the Wolves… will be released by Anton Newcombe’s A Recordings label, which may come as something of a surprise to fans of infamous rock documentary Dig!, who will recall the intensely difficult relationship between the Dandy Warhols and Newcombe’s own band the Brian Jonestown Massacre. It’s out on November 17.

Safer with the Wolves… Tracklist