Porno for Pyros Farewell Tour With Keyboardist Robin Hatch

Robin Hatch added the Novation Peak Eight-voice Desktop Polyphonic Synthesizer to her touring setup for the Porno for Pyros Farewell Tour.

PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT

Photo above: Porno for Pyros frontman Perry Farrell (left) and keyboardist Robin Hatch (right). Photo credit Carlo Cavaluzzi.

The Los Angeles-based alternative rock band, Porno For Pyros, began their farewell tour, titled Horns, Thorns en Halos, in 2024. Following a 26-year break from touring, band members Perry Farrell, Stephen Perkins and Peter DiStefano launched a 15-city tour that started on February 13 at the Observatory in Santa Ana, CA. They traveled across North America, hitting cities like Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, Toronto, Boston, and New York City,  among others, before concluding the tour at The Wellmont Theater in Montclair, NJ, on March 10. Additionally, Porno for Pyros has released three new singles in recent months, its first new music in 26 years.

Handling the keyboard duties for such a monumental event was Canadian keyboardist Robin Hatch, an internationally lauded composer and highly sought-after touring keyboardist. Hatch has a resume that reads like a who’s-who of the music industry. 

For this tour, her latest addition to her keyboard setup was a Novation Peak Eight-voice Desktop Polyphonic Synthesizer. “I was looking for a way to basically reduce my live setup and explained to the Novation folks that Peak had what I was looking for as far as a reduced digital analog synth/analog filter synthesizer, which is a particular sound, but one that I find is coming back into fashion more nowadays,” stated Hatch. “So I took the plunge and started to play around with the Peak as part of my setup, which worked out perfectly.”

For the Porno for Pyros set list, Hatch is using Peak as follows, “It’s a combination of pads, sort of organic textures that are modulated,” commented Hatch. “Then for a song like Porpoise Head, I would start with a high lead, but then modulate into a bubbly, atmospheric kind of underscore of the guitars, Peter’s (DiStefano) sort of epic solos. Almost like underscoring live theater, you’re going with what they’re doing and not really necessarily showing off as much yourself, but complementing their solos in a way that is still really engaging to you as a player.”