Orville Peck brought his uniquely emotive brand of cowboy-tinged country to Jimmy Kimmel Live! Monday evening, delivering a rendition of single “C’mon Baby, Cry” awash in the glow of numerous large-scale neon light installations.
Backed by a full band and decked out in a genre-appropriate Nudie-inspired suit, the masked crooner was flanked by oversized cacti as he performed the track, which comes off Peck’s newest album, Bronco. In February, Peck offered fans the first preview of the album with the release of four tracks, compiled into a collection called “Chapter One,” alongside a video for “C’mon Baby, Cry.” The Austin Peters-directed clip features cameos from comedian Margaret Cho and RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Kornbread. The second chapter of Peck’s Bronco rollout dropped in March, accompanied by a video for “The Curse of the Blackened Eye.”
Peck has said his lovelorn, mysterious persona is partially inspired by his transient lifestyle “I have a very hard time talking about my emotions and feelings,”the singer told Rolling Stone in 2020. “I’ve traveled my whole life and never felt settled down, so to me the country-western, over-the-top version of who I am is like the Lone Ranger, a storybook cowboy who goes around town to town and lives from heartbreak to heartbreak, because that’s sadly kind of the reality.”
Peck performed at Coachella over the weekend — and he’ll be on-hand to perform at the second installment of the California-based festival on Sunday. (For those not headed to the desert, Peck’s set will be broadcast on the official Coachella livestream.) He’s also in the midst of a U.S. tour in support of Bronco, which wraps June 14 in Oakland, California.