Peter DiStefano

[ LiB ]

Peter DiStefano

I interviewed Peter by phone while he was in his car. He's so busy that that was the only way to do this.

I recorded it into my computer with a 99-cent suction-cup microphone stuck on my phone. I made an MP3 and sent it to Mike Kelley in Detroit via Microsoft Instant Messenger. Mike transcribed it, I proofed it. [4.]

[4.] Mike Kelley adds: "You know I was thinking how strange it was that you recorded an interview with the suction cup thingy on your phone in Silver Lake from a guy on a cell phone in a car somewhere in LA, loaded it into your computer as an MP3, sent me a 21meg MP3 file through instant messenger, I loaded it into Sonic Foundry Vegas and transcribed it into a Microsoft Word document (34kb), and mailed it back as an e-mail attachment!

"You might wanna add all this in the intro as a lesson in technology maneuvers."

Peter DiStefano played guitar in Porno for Pyros. I met him when I was procuring certain substances for him and Perry and Martyn a long long time ago.

Figure 18.11. Peter DiStefano. Photo by Davis Factor.

graphic/18fig09.gif


He's also played on albums by Scott Weiland and Peter Murphy. He plays in Hellride with Mike Watt and Stephen Perkins. He's scored commer- cials for Avis and done TV work on "Larry Sanders Show," "America's Funniest Home Videos," and "ElimiDate." He played on the film scores for Coyote Ugly , Private Parts , Spy Game , Jimmy Neutron, and Shrek . He did music for the PlayStation 2. He's also produced countless bands.

Peter is incredibly sweet, very polite and loving, and always the consummate musician, doing anything and everything musical to keep busy and make art and support his family.

Web site: www.peterdistefano.com

Michael Dean. Any advice for people starting out in music today?

Peter DiStefano: Do it for fun and make a dollar at least.

I would say listen and learn everything you can about the bands you love. You know, study their songs, their looks, their attitude, and if you still really really love 'em and what they do, figure out a way to really be honest with your talent and with yourself.

MD: Any regrets in your life?

PD: As of today? No. But I miss my father.

MD: But you spent a lot of time with him.

PD: Yeah, I spent a lot of time with him at the very end.

MD: What's important in your life these days?

PD: My wife and my child. And trying to not let my head take advantage of me, you know, by saying, hey, there's a better wife out there for me, there's a better band , there's more sex, there's a better body out there for me. You know, to be content with the lot that I have in life. And to not get caught up in some plastic surgery or some midlife crisis.

MD: Why does everyone want to be a rock star in whatever field they're in? Why can't people be happy making good stuff but not being the top dog?

PD: I think there are a lot of people who don't like their lot in life. Everywhere, not just in California.

MD: What's different about the music industry from 10 years ago?

PD: No more diamond artists , just platinum .

MD: How do you keep sane and balanced?

PD: By having a good balance of family time with work. You know, if I don't have enough work I go nuts 'cause I'm freaking out about the bills. If I have too much work, I can't sleep at night. Then I'm not present when I'm with my wife and child. My mind's somewhere else.

So I'm excited to clean up my plate a little because I'm probably the busiest I've ever been in my life right now.

MD: What kind of soundtrack stuff do you do? And how do you get the work? Tell me about that.

PD: Harry Gregson-Williams, a top film composer in Hollywood. I'm his crony, his guitar player. So I get to play guitar in all the films he does. There's a couple here and there where he doesn't need my guitar playing; he might need a complete authentic Brazilian guitar part, not a Santa Monica, California first-generation-from-Sicily surfer dude guitar player.

But mainly by being lucky. And I think social skills are the most important thing for getting work.

Also, I do my own scores, independent films and commercials, you know, big ones with Harry and then small ones by myself .

MD: Is that what most of your living comes from now?

PD: Uh, it comes from everywhereproducing bands, record deals, advances, royalties, uh sessions, live gigs, um, and then movies and television shows and commercials.

MD: Do you still get money from Porno for Pyros?

PD: Yeah, and then I get residuals from . I mean Perry owns my publishing, but he pays me my share.

MD: Were you happy with the business deals in that band?

PD: Oh, yeah. Well, at first I wasn't, but then I realized what Stephen and Perry, what Perry gave me, the opportunity that he gave me and I was very very very lucky.

MD: What was it like playing Woodstock?

PD: It was surreal. 350,000 people in front of me, and then it was being simulcast live across the world so it was live to a few million people. It was like the biggest live thing ever to this date, ya know.

MD: Was it fun?

PD: Um, yeah, it was incredible. I mean the helicopter was fun and the suit and the girls .

MD: You were wearing zoot suits , right?

PD: Yeah I had this $2,000 sharkskin suit.

MD: What's it like going from playing really big shows to doing smaller stuff? How does that jive with your ego?

PD: It's a very painful experience, and I keep doing it. Like I'm gonna go play solo acoustic next week in this beach restaurant where you just go sit in a corner and play; it's miked, it's a couple of stories, you're piped into the bathroom, and no one claps after you play. They're just eating dinner, ya know? But the pay is actually really good.

MD: And you're feeding your family.

PD: And I'm feeding my family. But I embrace the pain, the ego, you know? Like the last gig I played was onstage with Jane's Addiction, "Jane Says" in front of 17,000 people. That was last Saturday. And my next gig is going to be at a place called The Red Cove which is a coffee-house in Ventura for, like, maybe three people.

MD: That's beautiful.

PD: So I go from extreme changes; you gotta love the coffeehouse level; that's my opinion if you can't do the coffee houses . And I hear musicians say "Man, one day I'm gonna get out of here and I'll never have to do this again." Well, it's good to have that goal to have to have that kind of drive, but you have to never burn bridges with the small stuff because you can always end up back there.

MD: That's fucking beautiful. That's so . So did you play one song with Jane's Addiction or the whole set?

PD: I played the second stage with my solo stuff and Perry and Stephen got up with me and the crowd was cheering; you know, it was an amazing experience. They paid me a fat amount of money to play at Lollapalooza and then they asked me to do an encore so I did um I'm sorry, can you hold on a second?

MD: Sure.

PD: Hold on. ( Puts me on hold. Comes back after a while .)

PD: Hi, Michael Dean?

MD: Yeah?

PD: That's the band that I'm supposed to produce and they're like, "Where are you? We're at the studio!"

They're supposed to start hitting their first note at like 10 a.m. I'm such a loser, but anyway, I'm going to finish this up with you. What were we just talking about?

MD: Um, I think we got a good close in on that. The only other thing I was gonna ask for is if you got a blurb for me. One-liner, two-liner.

PD: Okay, are you ready? "Michael Dean, definitely one of the most powerful and knowledgeable and experienced living legends still around from the heyday of, I guess you would say from the grunge post-experimental, you know Porno for Pyros and Bomb was the post-experimental era and he's, if anybody knows and if you want real punk rock it's Michael Dean."

MD: That's great. I'll probably shorten it though. I'll run it by you.

All right. I'm gonna let you go, man.

PD: Thank you. I got the band on the other line. So listen, brother, I love you, and I'll talk to you soon.

MD: I love you too, man. Thank you so much, Peter. Bye.

[ LiB ]


[d]30 Music School
The Angel Experiment (Maximum Ride, Book 1)
ISBN: 1592001718
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 138

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