Episode 44 (Pete Muller)

Great, Jackson. You know, it's been a fun long week. So, yeah, I'm good.

I'm doing well. And where are we talking to you from today?

I'm actually in New York City today.

Wow. Okay, that's a great question. I think it was when I took jazz piano lessons and I was turned on to Les McCann and Eddie Harris live at Montreux.

It's a record that has a song 'Trying to Make It Real Compared to What' on it and I just played that thing to death. It was awesome.

Yeah, I took classical lessons at 10. I quit when I was 15. I was bored. And it was that jazz teacher that saved me. He taught me how to improvise. And that began my love of music because for me, music is about creating and kind of figuring out what's inside you and getting that out.

So yeah.

Yeah, I never was interested in finance, curiously. I was always really good at math and music. Those were my two passions. And I wanted to live in California. I had moved out there to play piano for a gymnastics team and realized it was a tough way to make a living. So I looked for a job programming and I was lucky enough to find a really kind-hearted company run by a Zen Buddhist econometrics professor called Barra. And I realized that finance was all math. And I jumped in. And long story short, eventually I went to Wall Street to try to use those models and techniques to try to beat the markets. And I built a group that's very successful and we spun out of a bank in 2012 and we're going strong. We have 280 people. I'm kind of more of an executive chairman these days. But I managed to balance my passion for music and math.

Yeah, that's a great question. So I never, until early the 2000s, I never sang. I always played piano, improvised, had jazz bands and things like that. And then, when I built my group, requiring a level of obsession that I'm capable of, I kind of abandoned everything, including music. I had a grand piano in my apartment that I hardly touched. And once I achieved the level of success with the group that I wanted, I realized that I wasn't having fun anymore. And when you're not having fun, it's hard to keep a relationship. And my relationship blew up. And the way I processed the tough emotions around that was to write a song. And I realized I liked that and I wanted to pursue it. So I took a break from the group and dove into music. I ended up going to graduate school at Tisch for about six weeks before 9/11 happened, but I learned songwriting and critiquing and threw myself into building a songwriting circle that met at my apartment for five years in a row. Once a week, people would bring new songs, I would cook dinner, and we would critique each other's songs. That just helped me become a better songwriter. I started recording and I put a couple records out and got excited about doing it. Then I kind of took a little break because I met the woman who became my wife and had a couple kids and moved to California. But somehow I managed to keep the group I built and keep the music. Then starting in about 2014, I decided that if I was really going to be serious about music, I better dive in. That's when I met Rick Depathy, a wonderful producer who's no longer with us. We made my third album together. That led to some fortuitous events. Meeting Rob Matthysse produced my next two, and then I've made a couple more records since then and been touring around the country with my band. It's just a lot of fun. I'm doing it for love and passion. And when people see me on stage, that's what they say. It's a really happy place for me.

So, I have seven original albums. I just released the last one last month, November 14th. It features a duet with my friend Allison Russell, who's an amazing Americana artist. That was really fun. We've gotten a bunch of radio play. NPR picked us as one of the top 10 Americana albums that week, which was a great honor. So seven of those. I've made two cover records with my band as well. And we have a live recording album out as well.

Yeah. And of course this new album is called One Last Dance, which you just alluded to. And it was interesting reading about the story of it because a good chunk of it was made in England and the other half was made in America. So what was the process like of putting it together?

Yeah, almost all of it was actually made in England. My wife was in a graduate program with the LSE and she was graduating in London and I was flying out there. I thought, okay, if I'm going to London all the way from California where we live, maybe there's something else I can do. It turns out that Peter Gabriel's studio Real World in the south of England was available that week. So I checked with the band and they were free. We thought we would all go out there and just workshop songs and see what we had. But we ran into this wonderful engineer, a woman named Katie May, who just won a Grammy actually, who's a head engineer at Real World. We worked with her and basically laid down 10 songs and by the end of that week, we had something that was close enough to being able to release. We were really thrilled with what we came up with. And then we ended up working with Rob Matthysse and Katie came over to the Power Station in New York to put down some strings, some horns, a little mandolin, a little accordion. We had some other friends join us for the record as well. But most of it was done in England. It was a great week at Real World. Such a fun experience.

Oh, I'd love to. First is Skip Ward on bass. I've been playing with him forever. Back when I was living in New York City, we would have a monthly gig down at Cafe Vivaldi and Skip would always play with me. He's a wonderful bass player. He's played with tons of people. When Steve Martin pulls out his banjo, he'll play with Skip. So Skip's on bass. On drums, for the last two years, I've been working with a fellow named Andy Mack who also plays some acoustic guitar with us. When we do a trio, Andy's with us. He's an amazing drummer and a singer-songwriter in his own right. He plays in New York City all the time. He does our harmony arranging. He's really fun and quirky and a crazed Buffalo Bills fan. So his mood really depends on how the Bills do on any given Sunday. That's the bass and the drums. On guitar is Eric Donnelly, who I've known for a long time. He's in my songwriting group. He's an amazing songwriter. He plays for a band called The Alternate Roots. But we have him with us whenever we tour and he's an amazing guitar player. In England, he laid down 10 different guitar parts on every song. He would stay up late with Katie. We would all be done by 8:30 or 9 after an 8- or 9-hour day and he would stay another two or three hours and keep adding things. He's a wonderful man with great songwriting sensibilities. That's Eric. And then rounding out the band on fiddle is Martha McDonald, who is an amazing fiddle player and an amazing singer-songwriter herself. She's been on Broadway in the Bob Dylan 'Girl from the North Country' musical. She's just an incredible presence on stage. When we tour as a smaller band, it's a trio. It's Martha, Andy, and myself. Our three-part harmony is kind of the core of what makes the band.

Yeah. There you go.

All of them together probably has been just a couple years. Skip forever. Andy's been two years. Martha probably six years, something like that. Six or seven. Eric I've known for a long time. We've played on and off for many years. So this collection of five that really works is the last couple years.

Yeah. So, for people that don't know, Power Station was a legendary recording studio. It was probably one of the top 10 in the world, kind of in the same place as Capitol Records or Abbey Road Studios or RCA in Nashville. I made my third record with my friend Rick Depoffee, who I mentioned before. We made it at Power Station. I had such a great experience and I realized that I really wanted to keep doing music seriously and throw myself into it. So I asked Rick to see if he could find me a studio apartment in New York that we could build out. He came to me one day and said, 'Pete, you know, remember Power Station where we recorded?' I said, 'Yeah.' He goes, 'They're going to sell it and make it condos.' I had this dream that maybe you could buy it and save it and maybe make it the Berklee School of Music in New York. Because I was on the board of the Berklee School at the time. I said, 'Rick, you're absolutely crazy. I don't want to do that. That's just an amazingly messy, crazy project.' Well, I went to sleep that night and I realized somebody has to do something crazy like this and give back to the world. Why not me? So I did it. I found my friend Steven Weber, who was also very friendly with the president of Berklee, Roger Brown. We both trusted Stephen and Stephen took on the project and we saved Power Station. It's thriving now as a master's program at Berklee and I have a studio on the fifth floor. I'm actually heading there right after this interview to do some recording. So it worked out great. It was quite a few years of pain, but we got New York City to cooperate and participate. They were thrilled to both save the studio and bring Berklee to New York. It was a win-win story.

I was thrilled to be able to do that. They just filmed the Bruce Springsteen biopic there.

Ah, well, I don't do the arranging. My friend Rob Matthysse, who's probably the best string or horn arranger on the planet, does them. He actually produced my next two records. It was funny. I met him because we threw a party after we saved Power Station and he tracked me down. I knew who he was but I had never met him. He said, 'Do you realize what you've done? Do you realize what you've done? Do you realize what you've helped save?' I said, 'Yeah, cool.' He goes, 'Whatever you need, Pete. I'm so grateful to you.' I'm like, 'Well, unfortunately, my producer Rick Depuffy had a brain tumor and is not going to be able to make my next record. I need a producer.' And he said, 'Sure.' So I ended up working with Rob on my next two records. I still work with him whenever I write songs. He's a great sounding board. He did the arranging of the strings and the horns. He's really good at it. It was super fun to watch him do that. When he's doing it and playing in the studio, I'm there watching and listening and going, 'I like this, I don't like that.' Then we argue back and forth. Sometimes I win, sometimes he wins. But he's really good at that.

Oh man, there's always that question. What's next? I've been writing some. I probably have half of a new record written. I might do a solo cover record. I've been having a lot of fun doing some covers as well. Right now December is a pretty heavy time for the business. So I'm going to think about it more in January. But I'm excited to travel around. We're playing in Florida in January and looking at booking dates later in the year. So, playing music, writing music, having fun. My kids are also in high school, so I want to be home a lot because they'll be leaving for college. My son has one more year and my daughter too. So it's a crazy transition time.

Indeed. Okay.

I am ready.

Okay.

I actually have a guess actually, but I'm going to start with: is the defining song the title of the album?

It is white, yep.

Oh, it's got to be Born to Run.

Yeah. So.

Oh man, that album is fantastic. My favorite. I love Springsteen. I love his writing. I love his passion. I love the two records before Born to Run, which I discovered. I was raised in New Jersey and it took me a little while longer to get into Bruce than I'd like to admit. When I was young, I could have seen him in very small venues and I had some friends going and I was like, I don't know, I'm not sure. But Born to Run changed my mind. Thunder Road at the beginning of that record is such a beautiful song. The piano on that is awesome. The lyrics are so evocative. When Bruce writes and sings, he puts his full heart into everything. It's amazing. I saw his show on Broadway, which was amazing. It's also available on streaming. Jungleland is on there too with an incredible solo from Clarence Clemons. It goes on really long. I remember listening to that song in the car with my kids. I was on this station I listen to called Eclectic Rock that pulls random stuff out of the air and Jungleland came on. I'm playing it while driving my kids to school and I'm completely getting into it. Then there's a minute and a half sax solo and my kids are like, 'Dad, when is this song going to be over?' Oh my god. Back in the days when it was okay to get away with a seven or eight minute song, but that sax solo, I know every note. It's amazing. Meeting Across the River is on there as well. The title cut Born to Run is just a beautiful album. I think a lot of it was made at Power Station. There's a great picture of Bruce on the walls there from those days when he was making the record.

No, it um, I'm there with you for sure. It was like for me, Born in the USA and Darkness on the Edge of Town were the first two that really got me into Bruce. But like you mentioned Jungleland, that was the one that made me go, 'Oh man, this guy is for real.' Because it's such an epic song and that saxophone solo you can't beat it. It's also an interesting record. I personally think if I am introducing someone to Bruce Springsteen, I think this is the album you start with. Because it was really where he figured out his style and his musical persona. It was his breakthrough album and it needed to be his breakthrough album because his first two records didn't sell well and it was sort of a last chance for him. That's why it's such a grandiose album because there was a lot of pressure for it to be a hit.

Yeah. No, it's amazing. In those days, you could actually put out three albums before they gave up on you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That picture on the cover when you open it up and see him looking at Clarence.

No, no, the other side, the front cover.

Yeah, that cover.

That is such an iconic image.

Yeah, you know, I have not seen him enough times. The earliest time I saw him was at the Meadowlands, which was a little too late. I would have liked to see him in a small club. I did hear him play some songs at a Music Cares event, which was really great. The quiet room with Bruce is amazing. But I think seeing him on Broadway, nothing beats that.

Thanks, Jackson. It's petemuller.com on the web, a link to all things Pete. You can also find me on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, wherever you go. I regularly post on Instagram at PeteMullerMusic. So all those choices are there. And if you like what you hear, I love hearing from people that enjoy the music. So feel free to ping me. Sounds good. Yeah.