At first glance, it’s easy to assume the boys behind Peachcake might have downed mushrooms one too many times. In interviews they’re prone to outlandish, nonsensical rants, and their onstage fashion typically includes neon ensembles and the occasional animal mask. But once familiar with their Arizona hometown— the ‘50s-born, master-planned community of Carefree— the power-pop band’s eclectic style makes perfect sense.

Home to both the Western Hemisphere’s third largest sundial, not to mention the motto “Home of Cowboys and Caviar, Where the Old Meets the New,” Carefree is not your average, sleepy suburban community. Even its street names—Tranquil Trail, Easy Street and Ho-and-Hum Roads— are hard to believe. psychoPEDIA caught up with Stefan Pruett, lead vocalist and one-half of Peachcake (the other being John O'Keefe), pre-album launch (the band’s What year will you have the world? is slated for release this spring) to ask about his Carefree (and adjacent— Phoenix) hangouts:

Are you from Carefree originally?
We’re actually from a place called Planet Awesome. We’re currently residing in Carefree, Arizona, which is a real place. A lot of people don’t believe we’re from there, but we are and it’s a really beautiful place. It’s in the middle of the desert. It’s really special because it has true natural organic surroundings—all those hallmark skylines. I highly recommend it.

Is the "cowboys and caviar" motto fitting?
Yeah, that totally makes sense because it’s a rich retirement community mixed with an old cowboy-esque town.

What are the residents like?
It’s a really sheltered town in comparison to a large city or metropolis. It’s really mellow; people are kind of quaint. It’s essentially a retirement town that has experienced a mass influx of multifarious people. It’s grown a lot over the last few years. It’s the most rapidly expanding metropolis in the United States. So now there’s a much larger population of youth—the schools have expanded.

It sounds like a pretty interesting dynamic—the young and the old…
It brings up a really interesting topic. Carefree is very mild-mannered, very heavily watched and guarded. We can’t practice past 8pm or the cops will show up. Imagine Pleasantville in the desert if it was full of run-of-the-mill upscale folk who have nothing to do but go to ACE Hardware and walk around the neighborhood and look confused about an abandoned trailer sitting in front of someone’s house.

Is the trailer in question yours?
Yes. We have it for touring.

Any restaurants you hit fresh off tour?
The Carefree restaurants are great, but they’re mostly upscale. For Mexican food I really like El Encanto in Carefree. It’s family-run; I just like the atmosphere a lot. I’m a vegetarian, so I’ll get their vegetarian tacos, which are really good.

Do you eat out mostly in Phoenix?
Yeah. There’s a great place in Phoenix—my ultimate favorite restaurant of all time—Fate. It’s Asian fusion; the best Asian cuisine anyone will ever have. They’re more focused on Thai food. The Pad Thai is really good; they have awesome fried tofu, and this rice dish that I think is called the Citron. I also really like this place called That's a Wrap in the heart of Phoenix, and there’s a great Mongolian stir-fry place in Tempe called YC's. That’s a wonderful place.

Where do you go to see live music?
A great place is Modified Arts. We’re playing there March 15th. It’s an art gallery and they just do a bunch of shows. They’ve become one of the more premier venues; they have no bar, it’s a straight art gallery. There are not a lot of great venues in Arizona to be honest. There’s a cool place called the The Trunk Space, where small, lesser known bands play. Their max capacity may be 70 people but they’ll sell it out to 125. But I like that place; it’s a really awesome atmosphere.

What about Phoenix nightlife?
As far as nightlife is concerned, it has a lot of potential to be awesome, but it’s so stuck in itself. It has everything to allow it to flourish, but for some reason they keep themselves confined. We have First Friday of the month art walks with lots of art galleries, lots of little cool things that are very non-mainstream. They’ll open their doors and showcase the art for the month and everybody conjures there. But the problem is that it ends at 11pm. It starts at 7pm and doesn’t even break into the midnight hour, which is outrageous. If something like that were to take place in San Francisco or NYC it would go on until 3am, ‘til the bars close.

What about bars?
I hate bars, but I have a lot of friends who like them…Tempe, that’s where the bar scene is and it’s where all the hipster bars are. There is a place called Graham, which a lot of people go to. There’s a great DJ there called William Fucking Read and Shake! is another night that seems to be pretty popular.

Who is your favorite Arizona-born or based celebrity?
David Spade, I like. I like how volatile his humor is, and it’s in such a subtle way. Wasn’t Jesus born in Arizona? Steve Nash, love him.

John McCain is Arizonan too. Do you have a pick for the presidential election?
I don’t like McCain. Anyone who’s been a POW should never be allowed to be president. When you’ve been a prisoner of war and have been involved in it so much, it’s engrained in your blood. The ones I like are the underdogs— Dennis Kucinich, and Ron Paul, who offers an interesting agenda. I’m not the biggest fan of any of them. If anything, I might just write Peachcake on the ballot. Hey, if you don’t like any of the candidates, if you don’t like the choices you’re given, write Peachcake on the ballot. Peachcake goes beyond a music entity. It’s a lifestyle entity; we try to encourage self-awareness and worldly awareness. We’re trying to unify people and bring people from all walks of life together.

Have you ever been to Jenna Jameson’s strip club, Babes Cabaret, in Scottsdale?
What? No! I haven’t and I don’t really like strip clubs, but hey, to each his own. I feel like it is very exploitative, but I’m all for checking things out. I had no idea that existed there, but now I might be interested in going…

~Alisa Gould-Simon

Go There:
Want to see Carefree for yourself? Pruett recommends lodging at the Carefree Inn: “That place is cool; it’s kind of like a maze and it’s got an old time-y feel.