Peter Xan: “I’m here to redefine what it means to be a young black man making music”

“I feel like I’m going to break genre this year. Mark my words.” On the surface level, Peter Xan is making one hell of a statement, calling Kerrang! from his east London home. However, a quick shuffle through his catalogue – which features liquid drum’n’bass (Glow In The Dark), sharp indie-punk (Pressure) and production from Dan Carey (Chubby And The Gang, Fontaines D.C.) – will tell you that he’s ready to smash through any glass ceiling, guitar firmly in hand.

After experimenting with rap, pop and indie-rock, Peter’s landed on the fundamental tools to propel his sound forward. “Even when I used to [mainly] rap, I told people to only send me guitar beats,” he reveals. “Guitar plus the Peter Xan voice are the bread and butter of what I do. It’s the first instrument that was given to me as a child – it’s my comfort zone. If I did a DJ set, I’d have a guitarist there.” Raised in Walthamstow, he combines influence from Deftones, Placebo and Kanye West with sounds from his Nigerian heritage, creating a seriously unique melting pot he dubs ‘Afrogrunge’.

After embracing a confident caricature on 2023 EP God Save The King, Peter is preparing to release his second EP – Empty Space – which touches on the turbulence of his past year, losing a friend to addiction while his mother was recovering from cancer. “‘Running around and around in empty space’ – it’s very self-explanatory, how I was trying to fill that space,” he tells us. “Those things are very difficult to wrap your head around. I’m actually not that depressed anymore… that’s why I find this project a little bit uncomfortable.”

Today’s bittersweet new single For The Weekend could be a long-lost Joy Division tune, whilst the cathartic, bass-driven Opium explores addiction, through the lens of being “helplessly in love with someone to the point where you’re a junkie”, Peter explains. “I was worried [some songs] sound too pop, but it’s part of rock to be pop. What’s that Aerosmith song?” he ponders, humming the timelessly catchy chorus to I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing to prove his point.

Attracted to thick, melodic walls of sound, Peter also looks to heavy music for the “attitude” of bands like Rage Against The Machine, which he feels is creeping into contemporary music. “To see artists like Deijuvhs bring that genre to life again is dope, and give it a new face with new lyrics,” he enthuses. “Kid Bookie, Cassyette – there’s a couple of people who are really dope. I’m just excited to see where we land… I’m never afraid of a bit of competition!”

Only on his second EP, Peter dares Kerrang! to imagine the possibilities of what he might sound like on album four. “I’m here to redefine what it means to be a young black man making music,” he declares. Extremely proud of his pop and rap roots, cohesion between all of these soundscapes is Peter’s goal – and something that he hopes can be normalised.

“[People] are calling it my ‘transition’ to rock... why the fuck does it need to be that?” he asks. “That’s how segmented our society is. If a black man picks up a guitar and does rock music, it’s [considered] wild. I’ve got more work to do to blend the genres together, but the fact that you can find rap songs, rock songs, Afro songs… I’m like a walking jukebox of crazy music. When they can all sound cohesive, that’s when I’ve broken genre.”

Peter Xan’s new EP Empty Space is out November 14 via FADER Label

Read this next:

• Cassyette: “In order to evolve and for the scene to have culture, it has to have a bit of everything”
• Jazmin Bean, Deijuvhs and Cody Frost are redefining what it means to be alternative
• Kid Bookie: “I’m challenging the status quo by prodding and making people think. This is the place to practise rebellion and influence change”