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In fact, when Peck, known for concealing his face in public, headlined the Budweiser Stage on July 3, he revealed to the audience that his life had greatly improved after cancelling the remaining dates of his Bronco Tour in the summer of 2023 to take a mental health break — a move that he advocated for anyone in a position to do so.

During a Zoom call a week later to discuss his star-studded new duets album, “Stampede,” Peck explained his reasons for recalibrating.

“I was at a breaking point,” he said. “After the pandemic, so many of us were eager and desperate to get back to work in our fields that had been soft for a year — especially, of course, concerts, which were completely stopped for quite a while. As artists, a lot of us were saying ‘yes’ to absolutely everything to try and make up for lost time.

“It was taking an increasingly large toll on my mental health and on my physical health. I was touring like a crazy person. I was also enjoying quite a jump in my success after COVID. Venues were suddenly much bigger, and I was grappling with a lot of the intricacies that come with success that a lot of people are not prepared for.

“So, yeah, it was really, really hard. When I cancelled my tour, it was really serious.”

Peck also felt that the breather was necessary on his path to self-discovery.

“I went away and did everything possible to dive into myself, which is something I’d never done,” said the 37-year-old, whose distinctive baritone combines Roy Orbison’s resonance with the intensity of Gene Pitney. “I’d been touring since I was 18 and I’d never really found out who I was, if I wasn’t a performer.”

He began doing transcendental meditation and tried ayahuasca (the South American psychoactive beverage used for healing and spiritual exploration). He became addicted to working out.

“I stayed at home and cooked, bought a dog, hung out with my partner and did things that really fed my soul,” he said.

“It was a slow process, but pretty early on I could see the benefits of (taking) care of yourself. That just got easier every day, and with that also came the excitement to get back to touring, but with a totally different mindset.”

Head cleared and soul restored, Peck also determined that other adjustments needed to be made, including switching record labels from Sony — which had released his “Show Pony” EP and “Bronco” album — to Warner.

“It became clear to me in my break that I needed a change in pretty much every aspect of my life and new challenges,” said Peck, a classically trained songwriter, former West End theatre actor and ex-punk drummer.

Earlier this summer, he also relocated to Los Angeles from ɫɫ��, where he had lived since 2018 and had worked at such establishments as the Greater Good bar and Sam James Coffee Bar.

Peck said that his time in the city was instrumental in launching his career as a musician who now boasts a monthly listenership of almost 2.8 million on Spotify alone.

“ɫɫ�� is where I found my original band,” he said. He moved here, having written and recorded (mostly by himself) all of “Show Pony.” After receiving his demos, record labels were eager to see him live, and he hoped to find musicians here who could back him. Within a month of arriving, he had made friends with a post-punk group called Frigs and convinced them to play country music with him.

Peck said he only intended to recruit them for a few showcases, but fate had other plans. Three of the members — singer Bria Salmena, guitarist Duncan Hay Jennings and drummer Kris Bowering — ended up being his bandmates for six years. Bowering remains his drummer.

New album’s guest stars

Peck’s new album, “Stampede,” is an entertaining 15-song collection featuring a surprising array of artists that Peck invited to collaborate on both originals and covers.

Among the country, bluegrass and Americana singers on board: Mickey Guyton, Margo Price, Molly Tuttle, Nathaniel Rateliff and Canada’s own Allison Russell.

Then there are the A-listers: Beck appears on the original alt-pop number “Death Valley High,” Elton John joins in on a cover of his own raucous “Saturday Night’s (Alright for Fighting),” and both Kylie Minogue and Diplo feature on the mystical “Midnight Ride.”

The whole thing kicks off with Willie Nelson on “Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other.”

“It was his idea,” claimed Peck of the legendary Texas nonagenarian, who initially recorded the Ned Sublette song back in 2005.

“The very first time I met Willie he asked me if I wanted to do that as a duet over two years ago. That was the catalyst, really, for what would become ‘Stampede.’ It got me thinking, ‘Maybe this is the time to do the duets album,’ which is something I’d been wanting to do for a while.”

Peck said that with “Stampede” he was up for creating “something fun and different.”

“I wanted to do something that was adventurous: I knew that I would have other country artists on the album, but I also wanted to have people that were the furthest thing from country to see what we could do together.

“I’m so glad I did it that way, because it reignited a lightness and creativity with regards to music that I think I started to lose, working in this industry — that playful creativity that you have when you’re a teenager and you’re in your bedroom writing songs on your guitar.

“It felt like that again, where I would ask someone totally out there if they wanted to do a song — like Beck — and I got to sit down and think, ‘What would a Beck and Orville Peck song sound like?’

“It made me passionate about music again.”

The Johannesburg native, born Daniel Pitout, said he was “wholeheartedly prepared for every single person on this record to say no.”

But he learned he had big fans in high places. “The first time I spoke to Elton John was a few years ago. I covered a song of his and he called … me and wanted to talk about how he was a fan. There’s no amount of self-esteem that’s not going to leave you shocked in that situation.”

Minogue was the first person he asked when he was putting out feelers. “I thought Kylie would be an amazing person to work with because she has such a cool, distinct style of pop, and there’s a disco vibe to her.

“I thought combining that with a dark, film noir-esque country-western feel would be something pretty cool.”

Not his problem

While acceptance of openly gay artists in the country music community has improved over the years — singers Chely Wright, Ty Herndon and T.J. Osborne are among the most prominent — Peck said the issue of his sexuality has never been a factor throughout his career.

“For whatever reason, I have always had confidence in that area,” Peck said. “Often, I was the only openly gay person in many rooms when I came up in the punk scene, but I just had a confidence that it wasn’t going to be a problem — and if it was, it wasn’t going to be my problem.

“I wasn’t going to allow anybody to tell me what I could or couldn’t do, especially if it was something I wanted to do. I’ve experienced homophobia. I still do. You can scroll down on any one of my videos and see tons of homophobic comments, but they’re heavily outweighed by the immense amount of love and positive comments.

“And not all of those positive comments are from other queer people: I have a huge fan base that are true-blue country fans — most of them heterosexual, from what I can see. I don’t think country music is homophobic; I think there is a certain type of country fan who is homophobic, and they try to make country music their whole identity and their political agenda.

“But I’ve never felt excluded by country music. I’ve only ever felt excluded by people.”