Introducing: Pegasuses

Meet Pegasuses, the Southampton-based husband-and-wife duo blending sweet harmonies with a hint of dark humor. Dave Miatt and Laura Lamb craft songs that leave listeners wondering whether to laugh or cry, with lyrics that walk the line between heartfelt and hilarious.

Their upcoming debut album, Sea of Joy, produced by Russell Marsden (Band of Skulls, Alberta Cross) at Snook Studio, dives deeper into their unique sound. Fans can expect the duo’s signature harmonies layered with lush instrumentation, pedal steel guitar, and synths—elevating their acoustic roots to a richer, more cinematic experience. For those craving music that’s as beautifully unsettling as it is charming, Pegasuses are here to deliver.

1. Your music has been described as both “lovely and gently disturbing,” with lyrics that blend the serious and the silly. How do you approach writing these bittersweet songs, and what draws you to this unique blend of humour and melancholy?

Dave: I think we’re all compelled to want to peek through both ends of the telescope to an extent. This comes across in many of our songs, no more so than in Follow Him Down, which is constructed almost like a joke with a horrifying punchline. As you say, it’s a bittersweet blend. I’m not sure its always a conscious choice on our part. But perhaps it’s our shared twisted sense of humour sneaking in.

Lamb: Yeah…I think there’s something about having the two running parallel to each other that almost makes things seem both funnier and sadder at the same time, like that contrast gives the songs more impact maybe. One of our previous singles, Patio, is about a grumpy man irritated by the sounds of nature outside his window, until he finds himself so entranced by a squirrel that he accidentally sets his house on fire…and has no choice but to embrace the natural world. Tragicomedy is the best, because is there anything funnier than something you know you shouldn’t laugh at?! It’s like being getting away with laughing at the horror of things.

2. Working with producer Russell Marsden has expanded your sound significantly. What has it been like to incorporate new instruments like pedal steel guitar and synths into your music, and how do you think it’s shaped the overall feel of Sea of Joy?

D: It has been a step up, instrumentation-wise definitely. Over the years the majority of our gigs have been performed bare bones—two vocals and a guitar. That’s also how we tracked the songs actually, live in the studio, abandoning the click track, then building it up from there. We’ve endeavoured for the most part to keep it minimal; tasteful hopefully. Not that it wasn’t tempting to go overboard…Russ has an incredible collection of vintage gear—synths, tape delay, and of course, some beautiful guitars and pedals. Most crucially though, he has a good critical ear. He always knew when we had a good take, or when the songs had sufficient colour and texture, when to reign it in if suddenly felt overcooked.

L: I think it’s expanded our sound but also the way we view Pegasuses too. When we started working with Russell I think we had kinda limited expectations in terms of where we could take our music or what sort of shape it might take. I think I was fully expecting it to be a pretty like for like version of our live acoustic sets, but actually it helped us see that there was potential for more, for adding different textures and colours to embellish what was already at the core of the songwriting itself. Even the tiniest sprinkling of something, a tuned wine glass or recording parts of vocals through an old tape dictaphone, things like that—it all worked to build a much richer sense of the kind of stories we were trying to tell. We really loved working with him; it never felt too serious or strained; it was a place to kind of mess around, pressure off, and through that process we found new ideas that surprised us in a good way and helped build the finished record.

3.  Your songs often leave listeners wondering whether to laugh or cry. What role does storytelling play in your songwriting, and how do you balance the line between light-heartedness and emotional weight?

D: Storytelling is central to the songs for sure—while some have autobiographical elements, other tracks are much more fictional. We definitely believe in weaving a narrative, even if to the listener it’s not particularly clear what the story is about, it’s important to us that the lyrics aren’t just words about nothing in particular.

L: We’re influenced and inspired by so many different forms of storytelling, so music but also film and books, and are suckers for folklore snippets we pick up along the way. Painting that kind of strong visual imagery with the lyrics and general feel of the songs, that’s really important I think.

4.  This year, you were awarded the Turn it Up Associates grant, which gave you the chance to perform with a full band for the first time. How did performing with a full band transform your live sound, and what was the response from your fans?

L: It felt like a big step up for us. We’re so used to just playing as a duo and it made us have to look at the performance elements in a different way—in order to involve other musicians we needed to get better at being able to communicate our musical ideas beyond our own brains. It was such a great opportunity and felt very validating that we were selected for the Turn it Up grant—like someone was saying actually, you’re alright at this, and we want to help more people hear and see you play.

D: We were rehearsing for about three months with the band and it was such a great experience. By the time we got to the show, it felt like we’d really gelled together.

L: We’ve been pretty much mourning that we only got to do one show together because it was so lovely. Having three excellent musicians (Russell Marsden, Frankie Knight, Michael Davies) behind us was like having a supportive group of mates that happened to also like playing our songs with us. And hearing all five of our voices harmonising together was pretty magical. The audience seemed to really enjoy it too, so that’s nice haha!

5.Your latest single, “My Friend the Moon” captures a contemplative, nocturnal feel. Can you tell us about the inspiration behind this track and how it fits into the themes of Sea of Joy?

D: My Friend is probably the oldest song on the album so it’s gone through a couple of iterations before making it to this point. I used to perform it solo before me and Lamb started playing together. It’s great to be able to finally share this version with people and hear what they think about it.

It’s quite a reflective sort of song, I think, about not really fitting in with the normal waking world, finding you have more energy and drive in the hours when most people are asleep, but also how that can easily feel quite isolating and lonely…something like that.

L: For me, I always think of it as like…being on the outside of something looking in, being drawn to the moon and the nighttime and disconnected from  other humans. But also how peaceful that can be at the same time. But that’s just my own interpretation of Dave’s lyrics!

In terms of how it fits with the themes of the album, I think there’s a kind of wistfulness that floats through a lot of the tracks—something quite dreamlike in a way, in the silliness and the sadness. We’re both fans of the surreal and the absurd…hopefully the stories told through the songs on Sea of Joy communicate that too.

Find Pegasuses at Instagram.com/Pegasusesband, linktr.ee/Pegasuses and on all streaming sites.