The Pete Brandt Interview
From the UK to the universal connection to instrumentation and visceral vocals across sublime signals and lavish landscapes, double bassist, guitarist, and vocalist Pete Brandt has come a long way since first starting in the 1970s with jazz-influenced outfits Steps and Slow Twitch Fibres. Having laid dormant but prolifically active over the last four decades, the musician found sonic solace with his 1980 single and magnum-opus, “What You Are / Positive Thinking,” and has since been recognized as a liberating legend within his craft.
Tell me about growing up in Bristol, UK, and how you initially connected with music, specifically the double bass. Was this relevant to your household growing up? Who were some of your earliest influences during your formative years, and how quickly did the gap from learning to play to wanting to perform and record music happen for you?
Growing up, I had an arts-based family - my father started the 1st University film course in the UK - a practical base that trained many subsequent international filmmakers (like Dave Alex Riddett, the DOP for Aardman Animations) and BBC producers. At 16, I went to an international festival in Bratislava for contemporary composers with my father’s cousin Walter Maas, who ran the Gaudeamus Foundation in Holland - with its pioneering electronic music studio - used by composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen. This created and fermented my continued interest in experimentation. At the same time, I was saturated with English rock bands - Beatles, Stones, etc. Then I was introduced to seminal jazz works: Charles Mingus’ “Ah Um,” Thelonius Monk’s “Straight No Chaser,” and Miles Davis’ “In A Silent Way”. These various influences have informed my musical life, along with an interest in world and folk music idioms. I had brief cello lessons from around 9 years old and classical guitar lessons from 16. After leaving school, I went to art college and found it very disappointing. I won a £50 premium bond and spent it immediately on an electric guitar and started a band. Shortly after, I bought my double bass from a piano-playing friend and have played it ever since.
Before releasing solo material, you occupied the radical outfits Steps and Slow Twitch Fibres. Can you tell me about these projects, specifically Steps’ 1977 self-titled, which is a fundamental fever dream as it combines experimental jazz with the fusion of rock? How did you initially meet future Gong member Hansford Rowe and longtime collaborator and friend Roy Dodds?
I met Roy Dodds through a mutual friend, and we started a band in Bradford, Yorkshire. Roy was persuaded to move to Bristol, and we had an experimental free-form rock band called Hengis Pod after a character who invented the square wheel in a Carry-On film. I have now played with Roy for over 40 years! Steps was a jazz/rock fusion band inspired by Weather Report, who recorded various sessions for BBC jazz radio and toured. I played a fretless bass inspired by Jaco during this period.
I want to jump ahead to perhaps your most compelling and atmospherically acclaimed work to date, 1980’s “What You Are/Positive Thinking” single under the moniker Pete Brandt's Method. A spellbinding effort that completely captures the imaginations of its listeners, what was the overall process of writing and recording these wonderful songs? I first became aware of your marvelous work through the fine folks over at Music From Memory and was completely blown away by the rhythms, tonal textures, and hypnotic harmonies from your voice to the choice of instrumental jams in the background.
The “What You Are/Positive Thinking” single came about because I had recorded a few songs in a Bristol studio, and Andy Leighton, hot from his entrepreneurial involvement in The Rocky Horror Show, decided to start Fried Egg Records and invited my contribution. The song’s melody came from a pentatonic scale I had played on the double bass; the tenor saxophone solo was by my friend Paul Dunmall, who had just come back from the USA where he was musical director for Johnny Guitar Watson, and consequently a veteran of soul/funk playing. The counter-melody (played in unison on violin and soprano saxophone) was an adaptation of a Peruvian folk melody. The sessions were 1st takes and done in an afternoon with no rehearsal... This single lay dormant for over 40 years til becoming an internet sensation, which my son Izaak informed me was all over YouTube and clubs from New York to Moscow! That led to Music From Memory releasing “What You Are” on a compilation and a further renaissance for the song. Roy played the single to Andy Davis - then in the international hit band The Korgis - and he got in touch with the view to forming a band in London - Slow Twitch Fibres - which became a club sensation in Bath and London. Roy drummed, Salah Dawson Miller (from 3 Mustaphas 3, who I toured with as a sound engineer) played percussion, Andy Davis on guitar, Phil Harrison on keyboards, and myself on double bass. We had a floating horn section with Paul Dunmall, Annie Whitehead on trombone & Martin Veysey on trumpet. We made an eccentric version of the Irving Berlin classic called “Face the Music,” which is somewhere on the internet. Andy has been an occasional songwriting partner for the last 30 years.
Is there anything else you would like to share further with the readers?
I was surprised and delighted that “What You Are” has had such a positive response after being forgotten for so long and that its positive message has resonated with so many people - over 420K listens on YouTube alone!
