From the studio to the stage – Pete has toured and played with numerous local, regional and national acts, and his dad — in their band, Snidely Whiplash.
Not long after he learned to walk, Pete was sitting at the piano or behind a microphone. He got it honestly, from a father who was part of the music scene in Cincinnati in the 1960s and a mother who used to play music all the time. “I grew up listening to everything from The Rolling Stones and the Beatles to Robert Palmer, Eric Clapton, Peter Tosh and the Talking Heads.”
“My dad and I were always playing music and singing together,” Pete recalls. “He would sing me to sleep almost every night.” When his dad wasn’t strumming his guitar or jamming with friends or family members at home, Pete was constantly listening to music. “We had these huge Pioneer headphones with the individual volume knobs on the sides,” he remembers. “I remember listening to my parents’ records all the time.” Billy Joel was also a huge influence. “That was my first concert,” Pete recalls.
He was always banging around on the piano. At Christmas time, his family would all gather around the electric organ at his grandmother’s house as Pete sang and played. I had this old miniature reel-to-reel tape recorder,” Pete remembers. “Between that and a little cassette deck we had, I’d play records on my sister’s Fischer Price turntable and pretend I was a DJ.”
It was in middle school that Pete took a serious interest in music production. His dad traded an old guitar for a Fostex multitrack cassette recorder. That was a game changer for Pete. “That’s basically how I learned multitrack recording,” Pete remembers.
Pete’s first time on stage was performing the song “Johnny B. Goode” as part of a three-piece band called “Risky Business” for his freshman talent show. In high school, Pete and his friends formed a band called “Spare Change,” playing covers of songs by KISS, Van Halen and others.
In college, Pete took a serious interest in audio/video/music production. While at Ohio University, he spent many hours in the school multitrack recording studio, as well as the Synclavier studio in the college of music. He wrote music for a number of student-run television shows, and wrote and performed original music for a number of video projects and stage productions as well. With two quarters of college left to go, Pete took a job at the now defunct Audiocraft recording studio in Cincinnati, where he worked on a variety of audio and music productions, including playing on Jason Allen Phelps’ debut CD “Simple Man.”
While in college, he met Chicago guitarist T.D. Clark and played keyboards on his debut album Personalities.
Pete played a number of gigs with T.D. and his band before finishing college. Upon graduation, Pete started working behind the scenes as a production assistant. at WLWT in Cincinnati – but had to leave after just a few months when he got the opportunity to tour with T.D. Clark opening for classic rock icons Ted Nugent and Bad Company.
Before going out on tour, Pete’s had started playing some gigs with his dad in the band Snidely Whiplash. Upon returning home from the Bad Company/Ted Nugent tour, Pete and his Dad started playing gigs together on a regular basis. One of their regular spots was the legendary “Blue Note” on Cincinnati’s west side. Fun fact: Snidely Whiplash was also the first band to ever appear on “City Nights” when Pete helped launch the live music cable access program in 1999. Snidely developed quite a following – Pete and his dad would continue playing countless shows together for the next 20+ years, becoming regular fixtures at the Mt. Adams Pavilion and other live music venues, including a number of outdoor festivals. Snidely Whiplash has also played the Arthritis Foundation’s annual “Bone Bash” masquerade party for more than 14 consecutive years.
While playing with Snidely (and working multiple jobs in radio and music retail while trying to book on-camera and voice work) Pete met up with Cincinnati funk artist Chris Sherman – known as Freekbass. Pete was familiar with Chris’ background as bassist for Shag, and had actually booked Freekbass on his cable TV show “City Nights” when he struck out on his own. The two hit it off right away, and Pete toured with Freekbass for nearly two years – winning two Cincinnati Entertainment Awards (CEAs) along the way. Pete left the band on good terms to pursue his broadcasting career (and made sure to invite Freekbass onto the show when he started working mornings at WLWLT). Pete also played keyboards for the first-ever SHAG reunion show at Bogart’s and another SHAG reunion benefit at the 20th Century Theater.
While Pete’s broadcasting career has taken center stage for many years, he always made sure to keep his foot in the Cincinnati live music scene, while still actively writing and playing in his home project studio.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has put most live music plans on hold for now, Pete is actively revisiting many of his abandoned projects from the past, and is currently working on new material – hoping to return to writing, recording and producing music with a renewed sense of creativity and inspiration.