Seeing Himmelman is Believing


[Abstract Image of Peter]

"There was a time when our shows were incredibly structured. There was not one word of unscripted material. It's hard to believe."
Drawing by Peter Himmelman

Interview by: Sybil McGuire
Reprinted with permission from: pro.qb, Spring 1999

We had to wait five years for Peter Himmelman's most recent studio album, Love Thinketh No Evil. Thankfully, we did have a considerable library of interesting and compelling songs to keep us going in the interim. Midwesterners remember his first successful outfit, Sussman Lawrence, a seminal Pop/Rock band with a considerable cult following. Himmelman's first solo project, This Father's Day, recorded in a little eight-track studio in Teaneck, New Jersey, was released in 1986 and was a stripped-down tribute to his father. The song "Eleventh Confession," still in libraries of many Progressive stations, made it into rotation at MTV and Himmelman was subsequently signed to Island Records. A string of format-specific, and therefore moderate, successes followed. 1987's Gematria (announcer alert: hard "G" please), 1989's Synesthesia, the phenomenal From Strength to Strength and Flown This Acid World, both released in the `90s, provided Progressive radio with many honest and evocative gems that were the best of poetry and Rock and Roll. The subjects of Himmelman's songs have been brave and wide-reaching with themes of love, romance, politics, spirituality, revenge, wonder, and perception. He's also been spending time writing music for movies and television, his latest work can be heard in the movie A Slipping Down Life, a recent entry at the Sundance Film Festival. And, we haven't even mentioned Peter's ability to transcend time and space, for both himself and the fortunate audience members in attendance, during live performance. There was the attempt to make his remarkable improvisational performance available digitally on Stage Diving. All it takes to make someone a fan is exposure to Peter's performance techniques when he's truly on. Ask any of us. The proof is in any of the packed clubs where he's playing. You won't meet any strangers in the audience.

Tell me why you left Island, again...
Isn't it obvious, now! Chris Blackwell, who brought in Six Degrees in the first place, left Island. That was the beginning of the end in my mind. I knew that there was going to be whole new bunch of people and that they were going to inherit this. I had a choice to put this album out on Island or stay with the guys from Six Degrees. The guys from Six Degrees have a great sense of aesthetic; visually and musically they have a great handle on where I'm coming from. They're very creative and smart and, as a gambling man, I thought I could do a lot better with them. Recent history has proven me totally right.

However, you did have to get a new distribution deal with KOCH.
Six Degrees did that. I was so busy working on film score projects that I wasn't that impatient. I was very busy. I made a new kids' record in the meantime, My Fabulous Plum. Joey Peters, from Grant Lee Buffalo, played drums on it. It's a really good record. I wasn't really worried that these guys wouldn't be able to find distribution. It was just a question of when.

KOCH and Six Degrees understand that you prioritize your life; you put your family before your career...
People at Epic understood that as well. I still am close to many of them. But, the bottom line is always there in everybody's mind. The idea is to sell records; it's a very commercial business. Even at Epic, people had a lot of respect for what I'm trying to do with my life, but somehow that didn't necessarily fit into their agenda. Sometimes if you're called upon to be a toaster, some product, and they say heat-up now, you've just got to shut-up and heat-up that toast.

You are not a toaster artist.
Not really, much to some people's chagrin. Ultimately what you get out of that is just a slower build towards a great longevity.

Where did you get the title of the new album?
It was a saying on a plaque from Haiti that my wife had in her house when she was growing up. It was really her idea, and I thought it was really great.

I thought it was biblical.
It originally came from a saying in the Talmud. It was later adopted by Corinthians in the New Testament. The original meaning of it, before the New Testament adopted it (the more accurate translation) is love covers all faults. It's just a different way of saying love thinketh no evil, which is prettier.

Shakespeare adapted it too. Love alters not when alteration finds...
Yes, something like that. But, what it meant is one can never be the arbiter of their own morality because their own self-love blinds them to the truth. That was one of the interpretations.

If I remember correctly all of your previous albums included lyrics in the insert, why not this one?
Flown This Acid World didn't. I took a little bit of flack from some of the fans about the lack of lyrics. I thought it would make the package look less pretty. That's my aesthetic judgment. The Internet fan site is going to publish all the lyrics so you'll be able to catch those phrases that are not clear. I'll type those myself if I have to. Sometimes I like people to just hear the music and let the lyrics sink in. In some cases, I don't mind if they're read. I made a decision and I have to live with it.

Tell me about how you came to work with Chris Vrenna on the new track, "Eyeball?"
It might be the second Rock track. It's really a cool song. I had that song as a demo around the same time that I'd written a couple of other songs on that record like "Solitude" and "Made For Me."

"Seven Circles" is even older, isn't it.
Yes, but this one came of that era from "Time Just Flew" and "Solitude." I somehow overlooked it when we were putting the album together. I used the actual demo as the record and wanted to get somebody that could do some drum looping and make it sound interesting texturally. Six Degrees came up with a list of cool people instantly; the next day as a matter of fact. I thought Chris was cool and we worked together on this. He added the icing on the cake.

I noticed it was more layered than other tracks on the album.
We turned the tape over and did some backwards guitar licks and there's this cheesy analog synthesizer part that's really hidden but adds to the texture, and some vocals that are really subtle that you can feel if not hear.

What artists do you find inspiring/enjoy listening to?
I really like Beck. He's the greatest, for a number of reasons. On his new record, Mutations, I like where he's going harmonically and melodically. He's riding on the crest of a really great creative wave. I love Grant Lee Buffalo. I love Lucinda Williams' record. I like that Peter Wolf record, it was really well produced. Just the sound of it was incredible.

I understand that you had written quite a lot of material that never made it to the new album... what happened to those songs?
Nothing ever gets lost, especially if it's good. There are hundreds of songs that are in demo form that I like. Some may see light on the next album. There's also a project that we're coming out with sooner than later called The HimmelVaults [available at Peter's live shows]. This includes some very beautiful and wonderful songs that have never been released, as well as some really incredibly weird stuff, improvisational stuff that I've done in my studio and incidents that had happened live. It's really quite a nice collection of things. The first one is called The HimmelVaults Volume 1. A lot of things that don't have an opportunity to appear on my regular records might find a home on those.

Does it bother you that Progressive is still primarily a "fringe format" and there's not a lot of crossover?
It has never really bothered me; maybe that's the problem. I make a really good living. I have a really nice family and I'm able to wake up every morning and do things that are fun and creative. I have every confidence that I offer something that nobody else offers, particularly in terms of my live performance. I'm really quite confident that in the end it's definitely going to connect in a way where all the dots will start to connect and the popularity will increase. I always see it increasing; whether it takes this meteoric blip to the top doesn't really concern me. I'd rather have a real organic build than a hyped one, because I see how short-lived that can be and how very fragile it is.

You're in the midst of a big radio promo tour. Do you get a chance to listen to these stations?
I get a sense of the differences; some are subtle, some are more overt. Obviously, they're all the stations I would listen to, along with Public Radio, if I lived in those cities. I feel close to the music that they play, and the people that I've met seem to have a lot in common with me personally.

We're a close-knit community. It's a combination of really liking good music and wanting to do radio differently or better.
I also understand the struggle that everybody goes through because I have a sense of it myself.

It's an aesthetic understanding.
For some people the bottom line is simple: Let's get as many listeners as possible by any means possible. For some artists that's the way as well. We want to succeed on a quantitative level and we'll take off our clothes or whatever it takes to do so. These people at these radio stations are saying, I think our primary goal is to create a really great radio station with music that we really feel passionate about. That comes in conflict with the other agenda which is to make money for the owners, so I don't think there's ever a real comfortable place for these sort of innovative people. It's the "idealists of radio."

You haven't taken any audiences into the streets or to diners lately have you?
The street thing we haven't done. The last stunt of that nature (first of all it's got to be weather permitting)... in Chicago quite recently we had a string of five dates. I took the audience to this person's backyard near the venue -- 300 or 400 people in somebody's backyard around midnight. Very, very strange. The neighbors were frightened at first. They poked their heads out of the window; this woman wearing her nightclothes. It was pretty strange, but it was a great setup. I don't really try to do this, it just happens. It forms a sort of mini temporary community; a bond between everybody -- not just performer and audience, but everybody. The audience feels like we're all on one team. It's all very funny in a way; it's very ironic.

You don't do this intentionally...
Obviously, the intent for me is to come to this level, performance-wise, where I feel really comfortable. I'll try anything to achieve that. Almost anything.

Why new band members...just growth?
There are a couple of reasons. Whenever I make a record, the impetus comes and I do it really quickly. I set out the initial stages. So when the muse hit for this one (and it hit hard, I remember the night very well), the guys that I normally work with were not in town. And, I'd been doing the film scoring and television work, and I'd been in touch with so many different types of musicians, that I was really excited to make a record with these people. It was a very good decision.

Who is on tour with you?
Greg Herzenach, who has been with me on guitar for about eight years. He's helped me produce this album. His knowledge of different styles is enormous. On keyboard is Jeff Babko. He plays Bee Bop style, Swing. He also plays trombone. He's got perfect pitch and is essentially a musical genius. On bass is John Button. He studied Jazz and Bass and Music Theory at North Texas State, which is a prestigious Jazz school. If you want a Beatles' sound he'll take out a Rickenbach and sound just like Paul. He plays upright bass; he can play Swing. On drums is Jimmy Englund, whom I've been playing with quite a bit in Los Angeles. He plays percussion, drums. He was in Stomp for about two years on the road. He really makes me laugh, and that's not easy. One of the things we might do on the road is have audience members give Jimmy some object on their person and have him make a percussion instrument out of it. We'll play new and old songs and there'll be a lot of improvisation.

They're going to have to learn an awful lot of songs, aren't they?
These guys devour music. Jeff Babko can hear a song once and before it's ended he knows exactly how to play it and will never forget it. They've got a lot of work to do, there's no question.

How did you develop your performance style and ability for improv? Have you always been a natural ham?
I always had a sardonic sense; the ability to juxtapose unlikely things together. It's really the essence of what makes comedy.

You're very quick on the up-take.
My dad was pretty funny, and I always had to be funny to get noticed at home. When we were teenagers and in our early '20s in Minneapolis, we'd play these clubs by lakes with neon beer signs and in order to avoid getting beat-up, I always had to be kind of clever. Nobody really understood what I was saying, and when we finally went to New York and played The Bitter End, I was so happy! They got my jokes! I finally felt like I was home.

That probably opened you up to even more experimentation.
There was a time when our shows were incredibly structured. There was not one word of unscripted material. It's hard to believe. Everything was set-lists. I knew exactly what I was going to say. I did that for about two or three years. The show was incredibly (I don't know what you'd call it) professional, but it wasn't good and it wasn't distinctive. A lot of shows are like that; they're very professional but they have no humanity. I started rebelling against that. It was the idea of some manager that we once had, and he probably had the idea in a cocaine haze. We were so hungry to get famous that I would have done anything. Now, I don't really care so much about being famous. I do really care about being great.

You want to give value for the tickets.
I really think about that. I always think about that. They're paying $18 or more to get to the show. I want to make damn sure we all hit that point together where we can literally transcend time and place. As you know from being at some of the shows, it really can happen. You don't know what time it is or how much time has passed. It's like peeling away the skin of an onion. It unfolds in an organic fashion.

That's how I can tell a movie, book, or live performance is really stellar. I don't care about what time it is.
It's not an issue. You've jumped out of the confines of time. That's why I take the people to the backyard or the lake because that setting provides a really nice context for the songs that I'm singing. It's able to take people away from their prejudice about what a show should be...

Here we are in the club, sitting in a chair, watching the performer.
It just naturally occurs to me to break down those little formalities. It's not a system, it's just how I am as a person.

Was it ever a problem for band members?
It definitely was for the band, the long-time band, when we started throwing away the set-list.

The first time I saw you perform I wondered about that. Did they ever say, "Peter, I cannot do that!?"
They did say that at first, and I tried to explain why I was doing things this way. And even toward the end, there would be a couple of people that were uncomfortable with some of the things that I would do. I would try to explain: "Can't you see what I'm doing? Where are you? What script are you holding to?" Actually it changed for a couple of the members of the band when they saw me do a solo show and they weren't on stage. They saw it unfold as a member of the audience. They came to me later and said, "Man, that was like the coolest thing I've ever seen. I guess you do that every night but I never really got the sense of what you're doing because I was so nervous on stage." These guys, particularly the guys that I play with now, have a background in Jazz and improvisation. My favorite music to listen to is always Jazz. Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk. That's the music that I always put on. Jazz musicians I've played with (of course I don't play Jazz at all), say that what I do in my shows is the essence of Jazz. It's going to a place using your skills and talents that you've never been before, and creating a moment on stage that's never been before. I think they'll be pretty excited about doing that in a Rock and Roll context.

Since this album was over a year old when it finally was released, will we have a shorter wait for the next studio album?
You definitely will. That sounds presumptuous, but as long as things hold up in my record situation, I would like the energy and effort that everyone's putting out, not have to go down to ground zero again before the next record comes out. The question is, "What do I want to say on the next record?" I've purposely left that very nebulous. If it was just a matter of making a record, we could start doing that next week.

When you put songs together do you try to have a connecting thread or theme?
Yes I do. Maybe people don't see it, but for this record there was a certain melodic sense that put a song like "Everything And Nothing" and "Solitude" along with "Time Just Flew."

Why a duck?
That's a beautiful question; I'm really glad you asked. My daughter Raina's kindergarten were incubating four eggs, and four ducks hatched. I really wanted that duck so we put it into a little box and I took it home. We raised it from a tiny little duckling. It was the studio mascot for a couple of years, until it started coming to the studio and leaving digestive waste all about. Ducks have one fatal flaw, they need to wear a diaper. We took the duck to a pond and she's prospered and done pretty well at the pond. Her name is Quacky. Actually we though it was a boy until one day I discovered an egg in its cage. This duck was really weird too. It used to wait outside the studio door until I was done with a tape. She'd just wait for me because she had attached herself to me. One thing about ducks, they poop and they eat -- like a lot of friends of mine.