Lately a lot of new acts from the United Kingdom are knocking on the progressive rock door. One of them is Returned To The Earth. A musical project which is led by Robin Peachey. They were formed in 2014 and have already released 5 studio albums. However for many lovers of our beloved genre they are still a rather unknown act. Therefore I asked Mr. Peachey to tell a bit more about them. Ladies and gentlemen let me welcome you into the world of Returned To The Earth.

First can you introduce the band members and tell a bit about the start of the band?
"Returned To The Earth consists of myself (Robin Peachey) and also my long time producer and engineer Paul Johnston. I am from Warwickshire which is in central England. Officially, I'm a solo artist but I work so closely with Paul

Robin Peachey

on the creation of these albums that I don't think of myself as a solo artist.
I had been in lots of bands when I was younger and then life got in the way. After I got divorced I suddenly found I had more time to do things that I wanted to but had stopped. Writing music was one of these things, so in 2014 I started to write material again and then went to record this stuff which became the first album. It was just for fun. I wasn't trying to achieve anything other than my own satisfaction."

Did you release your first three albums Returned To The Earth (2016), The Best Kept Secret (2018) and Erebus (2019) on your own record label and where other labels at the time not interested to release your music?
"Yes, the first 3 albums were self released. I wasn't trying to find a label as I was just doing this for fun so I never asked any labels if they would be interested."

At the time of The Best Kept Secret you said:" If you like Radiohead, Depeche Mode, The Cure, Editors, this may be The Best Kept Secret you will find this year". Where you at the time influenced by those bands?
"My early influences were bands like The Cure, Depeche Mode and then later Radiohead and Dead Can Dance. This was what informed the musical choices I made on those early albums."

How did you get in contact with Giant Electric Pea (GEP) and did they improve your record sale and made you more well known to a larger (prog) audience?
"Fall Of The Watcher was self released in 2022 and it started to get noticed within small prog circles. Then I was contacted by The Prog Report who told me they had sent the album to GEP and would I be interested in having a conversation with them? So, I spoke to Mike Holmes (IQ & GEP) and I agreed to sign with them to re-release Fall Of The Watcher in Jan 2023 and then for two more albums after that. We have one more album under the current deal and then we will see what happens after that.
I think signing has helped raise our profile a little. But we are still very much on the bottom rung of the ladder and I guess will appeal to a very small section of people. So trying to find the ears of those people who might like what we do is difficult."

On your later albums Fall Of The Watcher (2022) and Stalagmite Steeple (2024) you seemed to be more influenced by acts such as Nosounds, Steven Wilson and Porcupine Tree. Do you agree and how did this happen.
"As I started to get back into music again I started to listen to more music as well. It was Paul Johnston who first mentioned Porcupine Tree to me and so I bought Deadwing without hearing it and I liked it. This was in 2015 and then Steven Wilson brought out Hand Cannot Erase and I was hooked. I saw him three times on that tour and suddenly I had a new style of music to listen to and of course be influenced by. This Porcupine Tree/Steven Wilson thing developed to other bands like The Pineapple Thief and then Riverside etc. But I still also love Radiohead, The Smile, David Sylvian, Dead Can Dance, Sigur Ros etc. It's all in there somewhere."

How does it come that your music is on those albums mostly atmospheric, melancholic and mellow with hardly any real up tempo parts?
"Recently my main thought when writing is, I want to write something beautiful and emotional, which I guess tends to lend itself to slower paced more atmospheric music. I've written the last two albums as albums rather than collections of songs. So I am trying to create a mood to get lost in for 40 minutes."

Paul Johnston

Both albums have a great production. How did it come that your fellow musician Paul Johnston knows how to do this job so perfectly?
"Thank you! I've known Paul since 1988, when I first came to record at his studio. He has been running Rhythm Studios since around 1985 and is celebrating 40 years this year. When I started with Returned To The Earth I immediately called Paul to record at his place. He knows what he's doing and has worked with lots of different artists over the years. He's also a great musician and works as a session musician on the albums."


The Fall Of The Watcher is a very strong album which moves very much towards a concept album. Is this true and what if, what is it all about and why did you name the album The Fall Of The Watcher?
"It was certainly written as an album but probably falls short of being a concept album, although it does have certain themes throughout and reflects a period of time in my life. It was written before and during the whole Covid pandemic so we have Drowning which was about the mental health issues that I and others faced while being locked up including the suicide of a local girl. White Room was written before the pandemic and was about the loss of a friend from cancer. Sacrificed In Vain was the big covid track. April Sky was written on the evening of my mother in law's funeral and is about that day, loss and her belief in an afterlife and God. The title track is about the collapse of society and how governments have seemingly lost the plot and are disconnected from the people they serve. So the The Fall Of The Watcher is another word for government, common sense, society..."

Inside the booklet there is only a picture of yourself and not of the rest of the musicians. Does this mean you are most of the time responsible for the compositions and instrumentation on the album?
"I am a solo artist who gets help where needed. All the songs are written by me and the instruments are largely shared between myself and Paul Johnston with occasional things from others. Paul plays drums and bass. I sing, play guitar, synths and piano. But we don't just stick to this rigid way of working and Paul will also play guitars and synths when he has an idea."

Who was responsible for the great guitar and keyboard parts throughout the entire album? Most of all the guitar solos are pretty amazing!
"Guitars and synths are shared between myself and Paul. I don't mind who plays as long as it makes the track better. Sometimes I have a clear idea and know what to play. Other times we bounce ideas back and forth and sometimes Paul will do something I would never have thought of. So it really is, anything goes, between the two of us."

Cover art Fall Of The Watcher

Who made the album cover and does it have a special meaning?
"All of my covers use photographs either taken by myself or my partner Dawn. I have developed the style of using multiple images layered. I stay away from AI and want everything to come from real images that are mine to use. The Fall Of The Watcher cover is actually a photo of Dawn taken in the 1990s through a kitchen window that was heavily condensated. I saw this photo in her collection and immediately wanted to use it. I liked the idea of her praying. I then combined it with three other photographs that I took while walking on the beach in the UK. These extra photos gave all the texture needed for the final image."

Also the follow Stalagmite Steeple is again a very strong album which was inspired by the tragical events that happened during the pandemic. For those who don't know the concept can you explain what the album is all about?
"This album is more of a concept album as it was about one story viewed from different perspectives. We had a situation during the first big lockdown where care homes were closed to visitors. One local couple were separated during this time and the lady in the care home passed away. The thought of her living over 80 years only to die alone because someone in power said it had to be this way, angered and upset me. So I wrote the album about this event. Starting with the care home system itself, the separation and ultimately loss and grief. Side 2, I used to talk about wider society and the album closes with The Raging Sea which is about both the individual trying to survive grief and also about society and whether we can survive from ourselves. Will we sink or swim? You have to get in the water to find out. I left the question unanswered."

The first three songs of the album, which would form side one of an LP, explore the couple's story from a more personal viewpoint while the second half broadens its scope to consider the tragedy in the context of society as a whole, while still referring back to the personal narrative. Why did you divide the story in two parts on two separate album sides?
"My original idea was this was to be my first album released on vinyl and so I wrote with two sides in my mind. When I started recording this album I hadn't yet signed to GEP and Fall Of The Watcher was yet to be released by GEP on vinyl. So I was 100% committed to making this a self release vinyl & CD. After signing with GEP they released a Fall Of The Watcher vinyl but sales were not high enough to get them to release a Stalagmite Steeple vinyl. At the end of the day it's a business and although I'm happy to lose money I can't expect GEP to think the same. So my big idea didn't come to fruition.

Side 1, starts with Dark Morality which is about a care home system that costs a lot but delivers very little. The Final Time was about the separation and loss and Stalagmite Steeple is about the journey of grief. Like mentioned earlier for Side 2, I used to talk about wider society and the album closes with The Raging Sea which is about both trying to survive grief and also about society and whether we can survive from ourselves. Will we sink or swim? You have to get in the water to find out. I left the question unanswered."

Cover art Stalagmite Steeple

For this album you wrote all of the compositions. Does this also means you did play most parts on the guitars and synthesizers?
"Yes, as mentioned I write all the songs and then I work on those to different degrees depending on how rigid I feel about what I'm doing. So in terms of guitars and synths, some are already worked out and I just play the parts and others are worked on in the studio and then Paul will play his ideas. If it sounds good it's probably Paul haha!"

Who made the album cover and does it have a special meaning?
"The Stalagmite Steeple cover was again made by me. I had a photo from the early 2000s I had taken at an Abbey in Germany and I used this with a photo I had of St Pauls Cathedral in London. I combined these two photos with two other photos of scratched and rusting steel and this made the final image. The cover represents our journey through life towards an end point we can't avoid. St Pauls is in the background and represents the afterlife or the question of what lies beyond."

Erebus (Reissue 2024)

December 2024 you released of Erebus a remixed and remastered version. I guess because of the 5 year anniversary of the original album release. I think it was with a pressing limited to 100 copies on vinyl. Why only 100 copies and why was it not released on CD by G.E.P.?
"I decided to put Erebus out on vinyl. The problem was we didn't have the original files for a vinyl remaster (long story). So I had to remix it as well. I then changed the track listing and I hope, made the Erebus album that I always wanted. I decided to press two colours of vinyl, 100 pieces of each, purely because GEP had pressed 200 copies of Fall Of The Watcher vinyl and we haven't sold them all yet. So I knew 200 would be in stock for a while and would be more than enough for this project. As I mentioned before, because we didn't sell enough Fall Of The Watcher vinyl, GEP haven't released Stalagmite Steeple on vinyl. So if Erebus on vinyl was going to happen I would have to finance it myself. I could have done a CD as well, but it all came down to cost and whether I thought I would get the money back."

Are you in the UK already starting performing your music in front of a live audience and do have any plans to bring your music to the mainland of Europe?
"We have been asked by IQ to support them in December 2025 at London, Islington Assembly Hall. This will be the first time we will have played some of these tracks live having not played live since 2018.

We aren't allowed to have a drummer for this gig (due to logistics/set up time for IQ), so we will play versions of some tracks with a line up of

• Robin Peachey - Vocals and Guitar
• Paul Johnston - Guitar
• Steve Peachey - Synths
• John Jowitt - Bass

We also hope and are trying to play some festivals in 2026 but it depends on the festival organisers if they want us to play so will see how it goes. Europe is a distant dream to play and something I would love to do but it is difficult from our very low level. But never say never."

What's next?
"Rehearsals for IQ will start later in the year. In the meantime I am currently recording the next album with Paul which was started in January. We are also joined by Marion Fleetwood on Violin, Viola and Cello for this album. The aim is for it to be released later in 2026. But it's just a guess. It will be ready when it's ready."

Thanks for answering my questions!
"My pleasure! Thanks for showing interest in what we've been doing."