Interview with Pete Sears of Moonalice

2 (58s): What's going on. It is Adam. Welcome back to bring it backwards. A podcast where both legendary and rising artists tell their own personal stories of how they achieved stardom. On this episode, we had the legend Pete Sears, over zoom video. Pete Sears has played with so many amazing artists and he tells us his entire journey in music being born in London, getting his first professional music gig at 15, he's played with Jefferson Starship and Starship, rod Stewart, hot tuna steam hammer stone ground just he's just has such a massive career sons, a Fred. We hear all about it. 2 (1m 38s): Basically. He walks us through day one of his musical journey all the way up until now in this new band called moon Alice, they've got a record coming out and they just released a music video for the single let's get funky. So we hear all about that as well. You can watch our interview with Pete on our Facebook page and YouTube channel at bringing it backwards. We'd love it. If you subscribe to our channel like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and tick-tock at bringing back pod. And if you're listening to this on apple music or Spotify, it means so much. If you could follow us there and hook us up with a five-star review as well, 3 (2m 14s): We'd appreciate your support. If you follow and subscribe to our podcasts, wherever you listen to, 2 (2m 20s): We're bringing it backwards with Pete Sears of moon. Alice. This podcast is about you in your journey in music. And obviously we'll talk about the new VP of coming out and a song coming out and what, 4 (2m 33s): Yes, yes. We have a, a song called Moonalice has a song called let's get funky coming out. It's only 11. So February 11th and yeah, and it's soundbite Lester chambers who, who wrote the song way back, back in the late sixties when he was with Jamie's brothers, really original James brothers, and he's now in burnout, right? And it's on Dylan. Chambers is also in the band. Who's a wonderful singer and a Lester wrote the song, but so we're, we we're, we recorded it just like we did time has come today. 4 (3m 14s): We, we, we recorded that rerecord 2 (3m 18s): Such a great song 4 (3m 20s): And it's very soulful cat plays great harmonica too. And, and so w we released that in November. And so, yeah, this is really, it feels good to get this. This is wonderful to play this stuff with the real sales thing, you know, it's great. And, and then we, we had a follow-up single, which was released to new year's around new year's Eve. I think we really sat and that somebody, the T sisters who were also in the band at 3, 1, 4 sisters, Rachel, and Erica and Chloe. 4 (4m 1s): And so, yeah, I think, I think we have a follow-up single coming up. Pretty soon people get ready originally recorded by the great coders Mayfield that Lester was good friends with Curtis. So that was, that's a beautiful song. Song has meant a lot to me over the years, too. Yeah. So anyway, where we're getting ready to go out on the road, finally, you know, again, the live streaming we've been doing, but we're getting ready to go out and work up and down the west coast and probably around September, we're going to move to some east coast work. 2 (4m 44s): Awesome. Awesome. Actually, I'm from California, I'm from San Diego originally, but I spent a handful of years in San Francisco in the bay area. I know you, you know, quite well, but I moved back to San Diego for a while, and then now I'm in Nashville with my family. So we, we love it here, but we've only been here less than a year, so 4 (5m 3s): Yeah. 2 (5m 5s): Well, I want to, I'm curious to know like how you got into music and everything. So can you tell me where, where were you born and raised, 4 (5m 13s): But in Bromley, in the county of Kent in south London, essentially. Okay. England born now a long time ago in 1948. And so just miss the second world war 2 (5m 31s): Clothes 4 (5m 34s): Bombed out buildings. I grew up in emergency wall, housing rows and rows of asbestos houses. Cause it was bombed so badly in the area. So, you know, we had that, it was everywhere. It was on everybody's minds and, you know, kids we'd be playing in old bill, bombed out buildings and things and, and coming across a shell casing or something from the battle of Britain don't fly. That was nothing. But yeah, cause you know, David Jones who became David Bowie grew up in the same town. And so, you know, he talks about this too, you know, in his way he talked about it when he was alive. 4 (6m 19s): But anyway, it was a pretty intense time to grow up, but wonderful, you know, and, and then became exposed to music mostly through, you know, what? My parents bought me an old piano, which was nice and old, upright piano who came home from school one day and there, it was glowing in the corner. And so I took piano lessons learned basic, just basic reading and got as far as earliest blue Danube and that sort of thing. And I then discovered rock and roll and blues and, and sort of went off in that direction. 4 (7m 1s): Flown different bands, school bands, that sort of thing. 2 (7m 4s): Yeah. Real quick on the P on the piano. No. I'm curious where you obviously had an interest in the piano, your parents would have just bought it or was it something that you, I mean to come home and have a piano in your house, like how did that conversation start where you kind of poking at your parents? Like, Hey, it'd be cool if you had like a piano, 4 (7m 23s): That's a good question. I I'd actually been playing, hanging out at a friend's house up the road. And he had a, he had a piano and I was punking plunk away at it. And then I must've mentioned that they somehow knew this, so they knew I was primed for it. It was, it was intense thing. It was literally glowing. That's 2 (7m 50s): So cool. 4 (7m 53s): Oh, the worldly experience really, you know, and they had this blind piano tuner that would come by and he played so beautifully and played classical and 2 (8m 6s): I've heard that's a really big career for people that are blind actually 4 (8m 13s): Properly. 2 (8m 13s): So I interviewed That Sam Harris is in a band called the X ambassadors and his brothers in the band and he's, he's a blind and he he's a keyboard player, piano player. And that was what he, before the band became successful. That's what his draw. I mean, that's what he went and learned and his job was to tune pianos. So 4 (8m 34s): Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. That's, that's, that's great. Yeah, no, it's Stevie wonder. Right? Well, these guys are just beyond amazing. 2 (8m 48s): Yeah. 4 (8m 49s): But yeah, no, I, you know, just, just plunked around for a while. But when I got into the blues, my elder brother was, was into de Brubeck and, and then he, he put on a Jimmy Reed album or single actually, and that kind of blew my mind, you know, those things. And, and a friend of mine, a friend of mine at school, he had his older elder sisters, that sister was married to this guy that ran a record store in Bromley, in south London. And he had all the old Folkways recordings. And so I was exposed to big bill Broonzy and the champion Jackie prey on the piano that was sort of may I know to span those guys and Freddie king or guitar player, those muddy waters, all that stuff internally. 4 (9m 43s): And a lot of those guys would come, come by it, come to London. They liked to come over there and play heroes, which has a bunch of wo any white suburban sort of played for the kids. Right. But we, we idolize these guns, they came over, they, they literally let they'd land at the airport and be like the Beatles or something. Wow. Maybe not so much screaming. It's just people they had to really, really dig it. And, and what Ms. Sonny, Terry Brown and McGee, you know, they'd come over and in the suburbs of London. And I mean, obviously other places as well, that's just when I relate to, but they had these blues clubs, you know, you could like you get, you see a sign, actually. 4 (10m 32s): I remember seeing a sign and a little alleyway, they said blues club and you go down and people would sit around playing records. Wow. That was be cool. Yeah. Yeah. And so it was, it was pretty intense. That's a lot of people sort of got there. A lot of those bands that kept notes that sort of did our own strange English version of British Virgin of blues or whatever, which was sort of a combination of blues and Caltech and, well, I don't know what, but it, which I liked, I liked it, but it'd be, we were heavily influenced by it by all that and gave them tremendous. 4 (11m 14s): We always gave credit, you know, to try that the origins of that music, you know, have some of the managers maybe possibly might have, you know, done some Providence and things. I don't know whatever, but the musicians anyway were young naive sort of guys that just enjoyed that music. And you know what I was going to ask you, how old were you when you started playing your piano? Oh, about eight and the piano. And then, and then I would be turn professional professionalism. 4 (11m 55s): As, as, as we used to post to play in a band, we play clubs up in west Wickham and all these big inhaled, but hillside is youth club and we'd play these towns and we'd have people like the Conrad. So it was David David Jones. Dave David was in that band and George onto it became a fine artist, maybe played with David Bowie for awhile, but he painted a lot of those early album covers, you know, T-Rex and Bowie and Athens. 4 (12m 35s): And he became, is now really, you know, sold off to fine artists. And so he left the music business, but he used to sit in with our band member. But so anyway, I have a picture anyway, but so, and then, then one thing led to another and I was going to London. I was 15 years old. I was going to night school and I was working all day long in London. And then I, I, and I met this guy, Nick Hutchinson on the train and we started jamming and, and he was just ridiculous. He got a good job. And one day he showed up with a bunch of guys in a van. I thought, I, I didn't know who they were. I thought I was going to get beat up or something. 4 (13m 15s): And, and it was, it turned out to be Mick and, and, and, and the band called the sounds of Fred. And we turned pro I joined, they said, we need a bass player. I know you played guitar, but you got any interest. I said, sure. You know, different children. And then, so we found out that we were semi-pro that we found a backup agent, got a record company and went pro you know, and that was it. And that was early 65. 2 (13m 44s): And you were what? 15? He said, 4 (13m 46s): I just turned 16 when we went pro. Yeah. Yeah. And, and when we went, played six or seven nights a week, all over the British Isles, you know, you know, vans breaking down and we're kinds of adventures, you know, 2 (14m 8s): 16 to be like a professional musician. And that's your gig and you're touring and everything that how'd your parents feel about that were they, 4 (14m 16s): Well, they were really supportive, you know? I mean, they wanted me all the way to the end of their days. They wanted me to get a real job, you know, but, but, but they were quite happy to, especially when I bought them a house and everything, but no, they were always very supportive. They, the first cause we used to play a TV, like they're very steady. It goes live and did thank like his stars and, and he wasn't a famous band or anything, but we did have a sort of a following, you know, and it's singles we'd record at Abbey road, which is EMR. So things are moving that they were sort of happy for me on one level, another level, they, they didn't trust the music business for good reason, you know? 4 (15m 5s): And so they wanted me to go to art school basically. And that's what I was going to night school to study to, to get my GCEs, to go to art school and her music. Or did you have another interest in our other interest in art? And I thought, that's what I'd want to do, but music took over, you know, and so just different bands like flooded Elise. And then another is a band on there that was a band that when I first met Hendrick Jimmy Hendrix, and there's a long story, but anyway, he was jazz Chandler just brought him over from Americas before the experience. 4 (15m 47s): And so at least a couple of the guys were staying at Eric burden's house, the animal's house in London. And I was over there visiting. And then, and Jimmy walked in and, you know, you say ready on assuming cool, friendly, no on any ego trips, you know, just a really cool guy, you know, and maybe we it's about half an hour and no idea. I knew he played with, I think, you know, Richard or something and obviously a great guitar player. And, and, you know, then he came down, Chaz brought him down and he, he overdubbed on an Al a record. We were making, we were doing the song amen. 4 (16m 28s): And depression. And I was playing piano on that band, first band, I played keys bass and then piano. And then, and he put, but nobody knows what happens in the acetate, you know, but yeah. So yeah. Then later on then after that band, I joined Sam kapala dream, which is like a psychedelic Indian Indo jazz rock sort of band with Mick Hutchinson and Sam good Paul as a trio. And we played all the psychedelic clubs and Jimmy actually sat in with us. That was nice. And wow. 4 (17m 9s): So yeah, we're just a lot of London was really alive back then, you know, and just did a lot of session work, play with a band called steam hammer, played on their first ever Freddie King's UK backing band. And I played on their first album in 69, right before I came to America for the first time 21, you know, what took you to America music? Yeah. I Mickey Walter, who is a really good friend of mine. And one of those guys that really sort of key and instrumental in your life or helping you out, you know, he, he played drums with Jeff Beck band was on the Jeff Beck truth album and unbelievably good drama and just a regular little kit, just like Kelly Watts. 4 (18m 0s): They were good friends, you know, an amazing player, but he introduced me to Lee Stevens in early 69. And Lee was in London. He was an American from the bamboo chair and, and he, he came over to do a solo album. And so he was living in this little muse cottage with the old lady and Liz and, and, and then we introduced ma making introduced us and we hit it off, you know, and he gave me, he gave me this bass guitar yet just on the spot, just, wow. Just, we just really hit it off, you know? 4 (18m 42s): And then he said, if you're, if you're ever in the states look me up, you know, and he adds a little bit of paper. He tore off the corner of a piece of paper and scribbled a diagram of Santa Monica pier with America around them stairs and an arrow. And that was it. You know what I said, Dole doorway, you know, above the merry-go-round and that was it, no phone number or address or anything, and said, if you're ever there, look me up, I'll probably be here. And so six months later I saved up enough money and, and got there. And so anyway, so long story I got there and they were still there. 4 (19m 24s): We played on Venice beach and used to rehearse there and then just fall. And we formed a band called silver nature, both the San Francisco big. So, and ended up going back to England to record. And so, yeah, it was, but then I could go on a pretty, pretty boring. 2 (19m 45s): This is incredible. I appreciate it. Like, wow. Like, I mean, the, the, the, just the, the history here with the people that you've met in the artists that you've worked with, like, it's, it's so cool. And you've also, I mean, around that time was when you're doing, that's probably around the time when you started playing with rod Stewart as well. Right. When you got back. 4 (20m 7s): Yeah. I was still in the major and then we went to England and then Mickey again, Mickey Waller who played with rod and Ronnie, Ron, Ron word in Jeff Beck band, right. The original band. And, and so he introduced Mickey, introduced me to rod and Rob was doing a second solo album, which was gasoline alley. And so I came in and played on piano on country comforts and then bass on it, Eddie Cochran song cut across shorty that we run was covering those songs. And, and then, and I know I never wrote about it. 4 (20m 48s): I did his next album as well. Next three albums that they had, every page tells a story and played playing piano. I played a little bit of bass on a couple of his albums, but mostly piano. And then the, and McLagan played the B3 in from the, from the phases and Ronnie, Ronnie cos played guitar and marching quitting to help write a lot of that music and an am was amazing keyboard player. He played all the B3 and, but right, every, every solo album that he did, he bring the faces in to the studio as a band, one track brought that their own record and he'd bring them in. 4 (21m 39s): And so they did, every picture tells a story. That's a great song losing you. It was a great piano and that's, that's Ian on piano and that song, but all the rest of the piano for better or worse, that's me. And then, then we went on to, but I go back and forth, you know, joined long John Baldry was on that album. And so they asked me to play bass with him on his first you trust to us, to us. And he was an amazing blues singer, you know, one of the original guys that sort of the part of that early British scene, you know? And so that was good. 4 (22m 20s): And then, then, then I've also did never dull moment was relevant. Then the last album I did with him was smiler. So were you just on the recordings with him and or would you tour with him when he played <em></em> studio stuff? That was pretty much a session guy. You know, he just, they just brought me back for those four albums and that's amazing. Now I go to, we go to a, to his house in the afternoon, it'd be H you know, play the song on an acoustic guitar or something. And, and then we go down the studio and there's usually like one take, you know, stakes and everything, what he cared about, what was the field really, you know? 4 (23m 1s): And it was, and it all sort of averaged out into this call sounding thing, you know, and I think every picture tells a story is one of the, you know, the favorite albums, I think of what playing on a lot of good albums and a lot of bad albums, but that is gotta be one of the best I think, you know, it's just feels, wow, spoiled. Maggie may, you know, Maggie may, all I played on that song was a Celeste. Just hear a little threatened noise, like a little toy piano sound at the end and that's, but anyway, that was a good song. 4 (23m 42s): I think it was Mary Jackson. Was it mandolin? Yeah. But anyway, yeah, so back and forth, you know, I ended up joining Jefferson. Well, I did a lot of blues stuff and blaming John chip, Lena, you know, during those years and, you know, I met Nikki help kit, and then I left copperhead John's band and stone ground was Tom Donahue and those guys, and then, and I am Nikki Hopkins and asked me to, when I left stone, when I left copperhead with John J Bellina, Nicky Hopkins, piano player asked me to play bass in a band. He was getting together and he went off on tour with the stones and, and he rented me a, I did that album, never a dull moment, flew back to fly back really fast, to get, take possession of the house. 4 (24m 31s): And Mickey was renting me. So for the first time in mill valley, Bryn county, the first time I had, I had a house and some money to, as I went and learned to fly, which I've always wanted to do. So, oh Yeah. I started, I got my pilot's license back then. I started the process during that period and then that everything fizzled out and carried on. Got it. And that was came out of my passions for awhile. You know, I'll buy things, you know, airplanes. So yeah, I should do it all by plane and join the tiger club in red hill, in England for the, through, through their old tiger moth ACDC. 4 (25m 20s): And anyway, yeah, no, I, 2 (25m 25s): Wow. 4 (25m 27s): Anyway, so that carried on a bunch of different and Jefferson Starship, 2 (25m 32s): He played in Jefferson Sargent for a while and then what became Starship, right? 4 (25m 36s): Yeah. Yeah. I don't like to think about that. <em></em> it helps, sorry. No, I'm joking. It's all good. No, Jefferson Starship, it's almost an unrecognizable band from the night when I started it. I'm starting with the band in 1974. And we did our first album as a band, which was a dragon fly. It became a sort of unrecognizable band to what became Starship, you know, suddenly in 1980, when Paul left in 84. And if I bought, but Starship was a very well produced, very, very good playing, you know, it's, it's good stuff, you know, but it just, wasn't my cup of tea. 4 (26m 25s): As I say, I left in 87, but 2 (26m 30s): David and Donny Baldwin before for this I've interviewed Dani Baldwin and David fryer for, for this. 4 (26m 38s): Yeah. Two of my dear friends, I mean, Dave Freiburg and I David pretty much, you know, I was playing in, you know, I played with John T Bellino. David was in Quicksilver with John, you know, and messenger service. So I got to know David, and then I was, co-producing an album for Cathy McDonald put insane asylum in, in San Francisco in 1973, early three. And, and then grace was upstairs. Great. Slick was upstairs doing recording a solo album called manhole. 4 (27m 18s): And David was there w you know, with Paul Kantner and the David invited me up and I ended up playing on the album. So they all, that's when the idea of Jefferson Starship came about. But yeah, he had done an album called blows against the empire, which is a solo album, 1970 and eight mentioned Jefferson Starship and the letters, the, I, the idea had come to him, you know, man. And he wanted, and he told me he was going to try and get a band together called Jefferson scholarship and asked me to play. And then I went back to England to play with rod and smiler and came back and joined them in 74. They started out with Peter calc and then on bass touring with them, their first Jefferson Starship as a band recording was dragon fly. 4 (28m 6s): And that's when I joined and then went off, then I was with them for 10 years. And then that sort of went through all these changes and then with a big variety and Laura lion Germany, and yeah, it was, it was wow. I didn't hear that one. Oh God. Yeah. The equipment throw it over. And grace was us amongst grace. My God. Yeah, we were, we were, it was our 1978. It was Al it was LRM big European tour. We were doing the idea. And then grace we're in Laurel light, which is an ancient amphitheater overlooking the Rhine river. And that was as it was an afternoon show and the audience was sitting through a light drizzle and one of the acts hadn't showed wave of the headline act. 4 (28m 58s): And so by the time it was due for us to play, they were already pretty upset. And the, well, I was going in the second car cause I had my wife, Jeanette and my son, Dylan, who was only one year old, the hotel in baseball. And so I came down to go up to go in the second car with a pole and grace and Marty Balin and the manager. And I got these long faces and everybody was Christ was in a room, locked in a room would come out. She was sick and God knows what else. And, but usually that didn't stop us, you know, but, but Paul said no way, you know, we can't go on without Grayson. 4 (29m 43s): And so they, so we, we, we, we instructed the road manager and David Freiberg who was at site to go out with the manager one way with the promoter and tell the audience, they can have their money back and we'd come back and play for free. And he left that bit out so that they get having, given their money back. They left it cause he was in German and we didn't know what he was saying. And so the crowd went nuts. They started, they, they honestly thought we weren't there. You know, they, I thought that the, the gentleman promoter, they was writing against him. 4 (30m 23s): Ah, yeah. Well now equipment was there ready to go? I have guitars. I lost all my guitars and B3, my piano and all that stuff gone. And then somebody got some gasoline set flight at the stage. Somebody started chopping up the drums or the ax rotaries were falling, you know, like wounds to their head. The whole thing was just, and then somebody slide at the stage and people were throwing stuff over the cliffs into the river. And it was pretty intense thing. I mean, we were at a hotel, right. 4 (31m 5s): But it's still, oh my God, the next day I went out and there was like a bomb had gone off, you know? So anyway, Marty, we went on to play net-worth in England and on the bill with Genesis. And, and then I, Marty, you know, grace flew back to the states instead of playing there, she flew back to go into rehab and, and, and then we, we did net worth without grace on borrowed equipment. And just Marty was going to carry on, you know, but we'd gone back dates and decided you had enough. 4 (31m 48s): And that was that. And so we, we had the bad gritty, took on a whole new sound after that. My dad, beginning of 19 80, 79, it, it, new singers knew, well, grace went away for one album, came back. It was, she came back and different record producer stared at good, bad, but just different, you know? And then so at the beginning of the ages was definitely still a rock and roll band. And when, when grace left, I used to write songs with her, you know, like hyperdrive, it was on the first album and things like that. 4 (32m 28s): But anyway, but I, so my wife, Jeanette and I wrote songs together too, we always had. And so I started writing like songs like stranger, save your love and to change some of those songs that, but then then new, we've got a new record producer came in and, and he really wants to take the band along without vocalists making new, but no vocalists in a, in a, in a new direction, more commercial direction, you know, which I understand. And they wrote, the producer, wrote this song a couple of, some of our hits, you know? 4 (33m 12s): And, and so we gradually went in this more commercial direction, ended up in, in the, the last album I did, which was knee deep in the hoopla with built the city on rock and roll. And then they're gonna stop us now, which you know, and which I wasn't happy at that point and 2 (33m 35s): Change in direction. I would, you know, from what you guys were doing in Jefferson Starship to we built this, 4 (33m 42s): Well, this is it. You know, it wasn't a massive change, you know, but, but it was well crafted, you know, I mean, I mean, that's, that song was pretty much crafted on the, on the same clap here, you know what I mean? Anyway, so, 2 (33m 55s): I mean, it's still, it's everyone knows the song, right? I mean, it's timeless hit 4 (33m 60s): Once he said, yeah, it is it's, it's it looms its head every now and again, humorous, humorous way. 2 (34m 8s): It was a matter, you'd hear that song anywhere. And you're like, that's one 4 (34m 12s): And that's fine with me. You know, it's just part of a long career, you know, just be happy to be in a part of it, you know? So anyway then after that went on to all kinds of stuff 2 (34m 26s): He did for awhile, 4 (34m 28s): I planned, well, first I plunged back into the blues with Nick <em></em> nights in Chicago. And you know, we played earth day in 1990 at Crissy field there. And that was a big, that was fun. And just, I love playing with Nick is a great talent. And he wrote for Janis Joplin as well, and back in the day and anyway, Nick electric flag and all those guys, but we, so I started playing the blues again, you know, so it was really, really enjoyable. And then I was playing a saver benefit with, for wavy. 4 (35m 11s): I see I used to volunteer play in his cafeteria sometimes because saver is a nonprofit that restored sight to many people in India. They were, you know, Wally was, was it Woodstock, a guy that's speaking at Woodstock, but he and Larry brilliant had started save it together. I first met those guys when I was playing with stone ground in 1970. And they went on to India, you know, and, and they, and so they formed saver, which they would give operations to pour to people that couldn't afford people that were blind and they they'd do cataract surgery and stuff like that. 4 (35m 58s): I mean, cause Larry brilliant was a doctor. And so they, they really set this organization up as a massive organization. Now they do all kinds of human rights work. And Larry, Larry brilliant was instrumental in helping to eradicate smallpox, you know, and he worked in India, wrote a book about it and, and waive your cost is just, does amazing. It does so much human rights work and has Kevin a rainbow. And he and I are real close. We've done a lot of work together and yeah, so that was, that was so I saw him years later, you know, we worked together and I was playing with Nick and then I, and then I was playing a saber show us. 4 (36m 53s): Right. And sorry, Lisa. I remember what I was saying and 2 (37m 2s): That you're a member. I mean a lot of different bands, right? It's not like you were like, I played in this one band for 25 years and then I started this year. I know 4 (37m 10s): You've 2 (37m 12s): Played with so many different people in so many legends it's 4 (37m 15s): I don't know, trying to remember what I said five minutes ago is not always easy. So, but anyway, so I was always playing in the cafeteria, I think, hot tuna where I'm playing the bill on the main, the main, one of the main acts and Johnny hooker who ended up ideas later too. But, but, but, but so, you know, I'm playing and I was kind of in a kind of a melancholy sort of head down, just bluesy kind of thing. And I was just almost detracted myself from that whole part of life. You know, that, that whole, the glamor part of the music business had no had lost all interest in that, at that point. 4 (37m 59s): And I was just kind of playing the blues with naked different things. And, and, and then I was playing the play on the piano and my head down and I got a tap on the shoulder. I looked up and it was your money. You know, I'd met yummy years ago. I knew Jack a bit. And w I knew back in his quad days when he made that before I joined Jefferson Starship, because when I joined Jefferson Starship, cause Jack and Yara, nothing to do with the original Jefferson Starship. But, but they, but they were, but I'd still, I kind of lost touch with those guys, but hematoma was tapped me on shoulder. He said, do you want to come down, sit with what tuna we're playing show of the Sweetwater tomorrow. 4 (38m 41s): And so I came down and sat in the, in state 10 years. So you'll know that you almost want it for you. Don't run Jack. And then when Jack wasn't around, I think he did. I ended up playing with Paul who had left Jefferson Starship at that point. I mean, left start left to form his own another version of Jefferson Starship. Next generation Jack played with them for a couple of years, I think, in the nineties. Right? And so this is a nineties I'm talking about now. And I, so I played, but when Jack was doing that, then I played with you Alma in the Norma Calkin and trio, and we toured all over Italy. So that was a lot of fun. 4 (39m 23s): Is it good? Great Yom was wonderful. And every, you know, every way, man, just an amazing human being, an amazing seeing plays, this amazing picking guitar and the Reverend Gary Davis style and just a great guy to be on the road with, you know, and he and Michael , who's, you know, active in the heavy active as well still right now. And then you'll ride. And I went on to play, teach at his camp there for a piece peace rock guitar camp in Ohio taught piano originally. 4 (40m 3s): And then, and then bass, you know, so 2 (40m 7s): You played with them wet up through 2000, right? 4 (40m 11s): That's about with my own band, have an album called the long haul with a lot of friends on it. And what's fire was back in ADA, the album that Jeanette and I, because we Jeanette and I got involved in human rights, pretty heavily, you know, refugees in San Francisco. And back in the mid to late ages, the refugees was fleeing the war, which a U S backed civil war. And, 5 (40m 45s): And we're back with breaking news. 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And that they would come to the bay area flea there of free a fleet of the alignments and the ins would send them right back. And then they usually ended up, they be, they be killed. They were set back, you know, by the right wing dictatorships. And so we were trying to help them. And I did a food drive, you know, Jeanette and I would help try to, we did a food drive to raise food and clothing and the bay area and stuff like that. And we did an album called watch fire about the rainforest and all that stuff, not a commercial thing, but we got, you know, and Jeanette was a lyric, was a lyricist, as I mentioned earlier, and she wrote the words and we had Jerry Garcia, Jerry came down, he ended up putting, putting the album on grateful dead records, label, Redwood records. 4 (44m 17s): And then, then it went to a grateful dead records for awhile and then relics. And now it's just any old place, you know? And, But anyway, let later on, you know, the author, the end of what tuna I did, the long haul, which so I had John Lee hooker labeled him a couple of times in his live shows, but he came down and played on my album, which was nice. And Francis clay, muddy waters, drama, he's on the album. And yeah. So anyway, we, then, then after that, I started playing with Roger McNamee and, and flying other brothers. 4 (45m 5s): And that was actually a lot of fun to do. And then that sort of morphed into moving Alice. 2 (45m 10s): I was going to say it didn't that kind of turn into what, what the project now, right. That's members from flying other brothers and 4 (45m 18s): That's right. It's gone through all these different versions, different variations, you know, and we had J Smith and Jack was in the band for watch at Cassidy. He was in the band for a while and I played keys. And then, then just, just gradually kind of moved around and Roger played for them and wrote and sang. And we had Jimmy Sanchez on drums. Like it's all Taurus. And then John Malone joined the band on drums when he wasn't out with Phil Lesh and, and, you know, playing on the, and with a filum friends shows and John joined us and he's been with us ever since. 4 (46m 1s): And then, but then, you know, we did a lot of work and it was fun, but then when Lester and Dylan Chambers joined and then the two sisters, three amazing singers, all great singers in their own. Right. All three of them and all of a sudden, oh yes. Okay, great. You know, it was just great to have to have them fronting the band and singing because we musically, you know, there's certainly barriers in amazing guitarist of John's a great drummer and Jason Crosby on keys, Jason displays keys and, and fatal, you know, he's out, I think he's out with Jackson brown right now, music, just an amazing musician. 4 (46m 49s): And so we already enjoyed playing with Lester because we get to play those old soul tunes, Dylan and the taste sisters. I mean, just we'd get to play all that stuff just with the real deal, you know? 2 (47m 8s): Yeah. You've been able to kind of keep building onto the band sounds. 4 (47m 12s): Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And the two sisters, they have their own, the songs they've introduced and, and we've been, they all sing individually as well as harmonies. And I'm like, woo. As I say, which was LA, it was the same old we released him and I'm around new year's Eve, all these, all these singles are valuable in the streaming world. Right. Which I don't know much about. 2 (47m 39s): Right. Oh, I was going to ask, cause like on your S on Spotify, you've got to just have a bunch of, of EPS that like Dave's way volumes one through eight. Yeah. 4 (47m 52s): Yeah. That's right. We got a lot, a lot of stuff. We've got a lot of Dave way albums before Lestern and the G sisters joined to Mona songs and they're available, I think, through moonalice.com you know, all those, but, but you know, we sort of, I sort sorta, I personally, I can't speak for anybody else in the band. I view this as a new bank, a different bank 2 (48m 22s): With this new record 4 (48m 24s): Lester and, and the two sisters and Dylan came on board, it's it really, it, it, to me, it's just a whole new direction 2 (48m 34s): And that's what this whole, this new, the new music you've been releasing is a part of this is when you guys, when you got the T sisters and everybody else involved, they weren't, they weren't involved prior to that. 4 (48m 43s): And we still, we still do like Barry and the band. And we will go off in, in, in the middle of these tunes, we go off in psychedelic jamming things. So we still doing all that, you know, and, and, and because a lot of the, some Lester's songs actually lend themselves to that because they were one of the sort of original psychedelic soul bands, really with time, that time has come today, you know, and then this new song let's get funky. You know, that's pretty much stays in the funk groove of the whole thing, but things like time and love, peace and happiness. Another there songs that we do and the middle that goes into freeform sections, a psychedelic, and it always did when the chambers brothers recorded, they always had that psychedelic moment where they would go into the improvisational. 4 (49m 34s): So they played a Russel band, but they just went into the psychedelic thing too. And so we, it was like perfect for us because, you know, we already did a lot of this psychedelic improvisational stuff. So this as a medium to, to go there as well, you know? Sure. 2 (49m 50s): Yeah. Because even time has come today, the chamber brother version is like seven minutes. Isn't it? It's like a really long song. Oh 4 (49m 56s): Yeah. You know, it's got, it's got its share of jabbing 2 (49m 60s): And that is on the original recording. 4 (50m 2s): Well, yeah. I mean, they had to, obviously there was a, you know, the, the, it was a big hit right here too. I wish it was, that was edited down. Right. Of course. Like, like, like, like when I was with Joseph's now shit, we did, we had a number one hit single could do you believe in miracles? Right. Bass and piano on that song. But, but that was originally like seven or eight minutes long, maybe longer, or the album version, but the single was just three, three. Right. Cause you had to do that for radio. 2 (50m 33s): Oh yeah. I'm, I'm, I've worked in radio for a long time. That's how I've lived in San Francisco and, and all of that. So I know how they, they nowadays even change. If a song is too slow, they will speed it up to put it on more of like a top 40 format. It's, it's very interesting how that works. Cut off the whole intro to make sure that goes like, because people's attention spans now is what, like three to five seconds of, they don't start hearing the vocal right away. It's they already have changed the channel. It's quite the world. 4 (51m 5s): Oh yeah. Yeah, no, I, I, I didn't know. Ashley sped that stuff up, but 2 (51m 9s): Some of it, when it goes, it depends on the record, but like, if you hear a song I've come from alternative radio. So we would play the most original version of it, unless it was like a, they chop something down out of it. But once it would crossover into the pop top 40 that there would always be some like subtle remix to it where it would speed up the BPM to make it a little bit more like upbeat for people. If it was too slow, I had to hit a certain registered of BPM to make it like more, you know, there was probably some study behind it. You know what I mean? 4 (51m 45s): Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's still that kind of thinking started out in the disco period, you know, and it was like, in a way, disco was the kiss of death for soul music. A lot of great funk, funk music, you know, was just suddenly got swallowed up in disco, you know? And it's like, and everything had to be a certain pumping kind of rhythm. Right. Cause it's good to dance to. I mean, I understand why these things happen and it's, and it's no fine if that's what it's really all about entertainment, isn't it? I mean, we can all, I mean, I mean, obviously you, you can go off and improvise and do everything and just have fun improvisation or on, on your instrument and interacting with band members and you get really some of the finest moments that when the band is interacting together, you know, and just moving together without thinking, you know, that's, that's the best time, but you know, but there are times when you, you realize that maybe this is entertainment, isn't it we're supposed to be right about where there's an audience out there. 4 (52m 56s): And the best times are when the best times are when the audience is feeding the band and the band is feeding the audience it's cyclic, or they're the moments when the loop, the roof lifts off 2 (53m 7s): And you will have that experience again here soon enough. Right. I get you get to get up back on the road. That's exciting. 4 (53m 13s): That's it? I hope so. So, you know, doing those, doing, going up and down the west coast, you know, and the playing felt coming up in a, in a week or two here and attendance, Bruce, and then we're playing the sweet water, you know, in mill valley coming right up. And then we're going to be moving to going to be, I think probably around April, you know, around that period. But yet we have a single around four 20, around April four, 20 April journey. We have a, an EAP with, of these, all the singles, plus people get ready, I think, included, it's going to be coming out. 4 (53m 56s): We're going to releasing that. 2 (53m 58s): And you're doing a four 20 fast right. In San Francisco. 4 (54m 0s): Yeah, that's right. That's right. We do that. And then, and then we're moving kind of go up and down the west coast and then yeah. Off the labor day, I think like in September, we're going to be moving, doing some dates on the east, east coast and in Ohio places, like 2 (54m 19s): So exciting. Exciting. Well, thank you so much, Pete, for doing this. I really, really appreciate your time. It's been so much fun and it's so cool to hear your stories of, you know, all these years that you've put into this industry. I really appreciate it. 4 (54m 34s): Well. Yeah. All right. Thank you, man. Sorry about the rambling. 2 (54m 38s): No, that's what this is about. It's about the rambling. 4 (54m 42s): Yeah. I just, I just finished up a new band. I played with the 1969 called steam hammer. We just, we, we were going to get, we're supposed to play Glastonbury in 2020, then COVID hit. And that was council. So, so now w we ended up recording an album, so that's kind of fun. That's coming out in June on a job. You gotta make a vinyl record of it, but blues, British blues, good old style blues. I refer to King's UK backing band back in the day. And, but that's not Martin purely a guitar player. John went on drums telecom. But so yeah, that we haven't actually played live in a long time, but, but w we're going to do that at some point to just, but yeah. 4 (55m 30s): And their David Nelson band, you know, do that, feel it, and zero would be playing. Steve came up from zero a lot. We're supposed to play the film or last week, but that was canceled because of the COVID thing. Oh, really? Yeah. So, but 2 (55m 47s): That's one of my favorite venues. Yeah. 4 (55m 50s): Yeah. Anyway, so yeah, just keeping it all together, trying to keep it all, going to my wife, Jeanette wrote a book, you know, a light rain of grace, which has a really nice forward my Grayslake and influence. So anyway, we'll just John to make it all work it swore I'd get that in there. I love it. 2 (56m 14s): Well, I have one more quick question for you before I let you go. Do you have any advice for aspiring artists? 4 (56m 20s): Yeah. Practice