Washington
State born / NYC-based singer songwriter Peter Galperin has released
a number of critically acclaimed albums including Just Might Get
It Right (2014), A Disposable Life (2013) and Perfect
World Today (2011). The 2017 CD release of his 4th album, This
Burning Sun, is a postmodern pop-rock masterpiece that establishes
Peter Galperin as a 21st century Phil Ochs—redefining the significance
of the modern day pop musician. It’s a testament to Ochs that
50 years after the tragedies of the Vietnam war, culminating in the
end of the Nixon era in 1974, America’s younger generations are
in the midst of fighting the latest anti-science power brokers while
also trying to establish a kind of 21st century bill of rights on
a range of long underrated and too long neglected issues. A strong
critic of the current swing to the right in American politics today,
Galperin’s forte is crafting catchy pop-rock melodies that touch
on a range of significant societal concerns—global warming issues
for example, and he brings back the lost art of the protest song with
an animated video single from This Burning Sun, called “King
Of You And Me”. Living up to the time-honored tradition of
musicians standing up in moments of heated political discourse, Galperin
further states, “The only weapons that artists have against
evil are satire and ridicule, and since “King Of You And Me”
is so topical and timely, I decided to try to create an animated video
to go along with it.” When Peter Galperin sings ‘What’s
normal to you, Isn’t normal to me’, from the album’s
lead off track, you better believe he means it. The alien-nation
of the 21st century cyberage, the infamous 2016 Presidential election,
and the effects of global warming on a planet already damaged by faulty
science—all are put under Peter Galperin’s musical microscope.
With its urgent lyrics and profound pop melodies, This Burning
Sun is one of the coolest albums of 2017. www.petergalperin.com
{In addition to the 2017 CD release of This Burning
Sun, Peter Galperin’s new rock musical, Bulldozer: The Ballad
Of Robert Moses is scheduled to premier off-Broadway in New York City
on November 24th, 2017. With a cast of five actors and a live four-piece
band, it will run for a limited engagement at the Theatre at St. Clement’s
through January 7th, 2018. For more information about Bulldozer please
visit: www.bulldozer.nyc
mwe3.com
presents an interview with
PETER GALPERIN
mwe3:
What’s doing in NYC this summer ‘17? How long have you been
in New York? You're a bright light on the NYC music scene but I keep
forgetting you’re from Washington State. What can you tell a
typical New Yorker who has never been there, about the state of Washington?
Peter Galperin: Hi Robert, it’s great to talk with you
again, you know I’m always a little worried about you down there
in the ‘sinkhole’ state. I moved to New York City sight
unseen in the spring of 1981. I came straight from Seattle after graduating
from the UDub. If you went to the University of Washington in Seattle,
which is the only school that matters north of Berkeley, California,
you always refer to your alma mater as the UDub, short for UW. If
you call the University of Washington anything else, you’re not
from the Pacific Northwest. And that’s what I would tell a New
Yorker about Washington State!
mwe3: So when did you record This Burning Sun and how
would you compare it with your earlier releases? So what was your
frame of mind in the lead up and during the recordings and tell us
about going to Nashville again and who’s in your band on This
Burning Sun?
Peter Galperin: This Burning Sun was recorded in
April this year at the 515 Studio in Nashville under the watchful
eye of producer Chip Hardy. It was my second time recording with Chip
in Nashville because I know he’ll put together the best Nashville
session players for me. Some of them I’ve recorded with before—like
the fantastic Smith Curry on pedal and lap steel, and rock-solid Rodney
Lewis on bass—and we had some new players on this session who
all blew me away with their talent, like Wes Little on drums and percussion,
David Dorn on keyboards, and the incredible voice of Britt Savage
on background vocals. I had my dear friend Robert Aaron record his
saxophone tracks in New York for “King Of You and Me”. I
also had terrific support from sound engineer Trevor Golden, and mixing
engineer Bobby Holland. All of these folks are such superb musicians…
I just try my best to keep up with them. Sound wise, I was picking
up stylistically from my 2014 CD Just Might Get It Right, but
aiming for something a little “swampier” this time.
mwe3: This Burning Sun starts off the new album with
“Normal To You” and it’s a great song. Does it signify
the dysfunction of relationships or something deeper? Can you compare
broken relationships with a country torn apart at the seams? The orchestral
ending gives the song a kind of timeless aura and in fact the whole
album has a kind of orchestral feel to it. What can you tell us about
the guitar solo, it’s great! Does that song signify the “theatrical”
vibe you’re currently going through with this new album and your
new
off-Broadway play about Robert Moses coming soon?
Peter
Galperin: “Normal To You” might be my favorite on this
CD, I guess that’s why I wanted it to be the first track. The
sentiment I was channeling was certainly influenced by the events
of the recent presidential election. “What’s normal to
you, isn’t normal to me” was something I said to myself
one night while watching a televised Trump rally, somewhat in reaction
to him, but more in reaction to the wild audience he was speaking
to. I was having a hard time understanding why so many Americans didn’t
see him the way I did. So to make a rather vague epiphany more intimate,
I applied it to the idea of a relationship—can we ever truly
know what another person thinks?
Smith Curry’s pedal steel guitar solo just floored me, it was
like Smith was surfing the song, just waiting for the perfect wave
to curl up under him during the solo. And the organ intro and outro
was something that David Dorn added impromptu. I loved it the first
time he played it and saw those two parts as beautiful bookends for
the song.
As for the “theatrical vibe”, I try to tell a story in every
song. Sometimes the story gets stretched out over a series of songs,
as in my musical Bulldozer: the Ballad of Robert Moses, and
other times it’s contained to just one song. But there are certain
theme’s that I’ve returned to multiple times on This
Burning Sun, sometimes just to look at the same idea from another
point of view.
mwe3: I was really hoping it wouldn’t come to this…
but "The
King Of You And Me” is a real satirical view of the now infamous
election of 2016. When did you write it? I guess you don’t want
me to start you up about this but you lay it out pretty clearly in
the song. Tell us about the video you have of it. Was it João
Dias who worked with you on the video? How did you meet up with João?
Peter Galperin: You, me and a clear majority of voters all
hoped it wouldn’t come to this! This electoral college victory
is the epitome of creative accounting. I started writing “King
of You And Me” on January 21, 2017 while watching the Trump inauguration
ceremony. I still have the rough recording in my iPhone, tentatively
titled “Inaug Blues”. That day I was stunned, alarmed and
ashamed by what I was seeing and hearing – a man who knew nothing
about the world, and who still knows nothing, telling us that he was
so much greater than every politician sitting behind him on that stage,
greater even than 250 years of democracy itself.
I’m
not a big fan of any politician, but I was waiting and praying that
the Bush’s, the Clinton’s, the Obama’s, even a-hole
Dick Cheney, would all get up in masse and walk off that stage. That’s
what President “American Carnage” deserved from them. But
they all proved once again to be the feckless, timid, self-serving
career politicians that we’ve seen over and over. We are now
living in an era of societal strife and anxiety not experienced in
America since the Vietnam War and the Cold War, and this time the
enemy is one crazy motherf&%ker in the White House. All of the
post-election marches and protests showed that it’s up to us,
the American people to correct this massive mistake. It certainly
won’t be either of our lame and inept political parties, and
it won’t be a news industry that is financially dependent on
promoting a fabricated constant “breaking news” media environment.
As children we learn to conquer our fears through fantasy, why can’t
that still work for us as adults? I thought by writing “King
Of You And Me” as a fairy tale it might help keep the demons
at bay. The things that scare us the most—ghosts in the night,
dragons in a cave, witches in the attic, a mad man in the White House—are
definitely more manageable when they are hand-drawn. The only weapons
that artists have against an evil tyranny are satire and ridicule,
and since this song is so topical and timely, I decided to try to
create an animated video to go along with it. I was lucky to find
incredibly talented Portuguese illustrator, João Dias, who
was very interested in the project, and willing to work with my limited
budget. Hopefully, the video will get some notice online. It would
be really sweet if we got slammed in a nasty, early morning tweet
from you-know-who. You can see more of João’s wonderfully
inventive art at www.bitsandcrafts.org
mwe3: Track three on This Burning Sun, “I Been
Told” is almost kind of a gospel type of rave up as if you’re
seeking redemption from the evils of the world. The bridge makes for
quite smart song writing. Yet it’s a bit science fiction too.
“Maybe there’s more to life, Maybe our spirits never
die” yet it rocks up a storm.
Peter
Galperin: I envisioned “I Been Told” as a gospel song
from the moment it showed up. At first I thought I’d have to
record it with a full choir, but I had Britt Savage singing with me
in Nashville, and she can sound like a full choir all by herself!
“I Been Told” is one of five songs on this CD that are part
of a bigger story that I’m working on—another rock musical
concept. This one centers on climate change and global warming. “I
Been Told” is sung by one of the main characters as he searches
for some kind of reassuring insight into what looks to be a stormy
and uncertain planetary future.
But I wanted this character to be more self-determined than just blindly
believing in someone else’s best guess for the future—that’s
pretty much all that religion can offer us—so in the song’s
bridge he comes to realize that what he really wants to do is live
more fully in the moment, and not stake his hopes on some kind of
future salvation. Years ago I figured out that preachers and fortune-tellers
are basically in the same business, and the goals of that business
are not necessarily in our best interests.
mwe3: “On Higher Ground” is another upbeat song.
Is that the kind of uplifting song you like to write or do you prefer
more ominous topical subjects? I guess you need both in a complex
world. With your smarts and practical policy you should be running
the country! I guess there’s a slight religious overtone, so
maybe Christian radio would play this.
Peter Galperin: Wow, Christian radio. Now, that would be something.
My dear departed mother would be so proud! I guess with a title like
“On Higher Ground” there is a kind of cheerful Presbyterianism
at work here. This is another song from the global warming musical
concept. The bridge is definitely a prayer of sorts – “Protect
the ones who’ve lost the most, and bless the ones who’ve
come so far”. I don’t think of myself as a religious
person, but I did get dragged to church a lot as a kid—my mom
was a church organist, my dad directed the choir. And, although I
could never accept Christian dogma with a straight face, there are
some great adventure stories to discover in the Bible. Christian radio
DJ’s can take this song figuratively or literally, either way
is fine with me.
mwe3: “Don’t Look Back” gets back to global
warming and ignorance of climate change and environmentalism. “Don’t
Look Back ‘cause you might turn to stone” gives the
song a kind of biblical tone. In the age of chemtrails I guess many
people are just being overburdened by all the ominous signs. Is Global
Warming beyond the intellect of the average joe six pack? Is that
why the concepts involving change are considered too brainy and even
threatening to the average American at this point? I mean you have
no argument from me but it’s too hot for me here.
Peter
Galperin: On an emotional level there certainly is no better time
to get some religion than right before an apocalypse! But when all
natural disasters can be easily explained by science, what’s
the point of limiting your knowledge to myth and magic. “Don’t
Look Back” definitely plays with an “end of days” type
scenario, and references the timeline of humanity as being but a dot
in the history of the universe.
But on a more gut level, I was just thinking of something Iggy Pop-ish
when I wrote it! Now that you’ve got me thinking about the meaning
of these songs, I can see a distinct Biblical thread going through
some of these tunes. If that’s the case, it happened on a semi-subconscious
level. I remember as a kid being unsettled by the Biblical story of
Lot’s wife looking back at Sodom and Gomorrah. That was as vivid
a childhood memory for me as watching “Jaws” for the first
time.
mwe3: “Hey, What Can You Do” proves my point in a
way when you sing “The warning signs were just too hard for me”
but hey what can you do? lol Even when you make it easy and fun, people
still can’t seem to wrap their heads around the subtle yet clear
signs that things are going the wrong way. Will it take something
truly even more catastrophic to change everything? That seems to be
the way out.
Peter Galperin: One of the great things about writing songs
is that I can sing from points of view that I don’t have to believe
in personally. So in “Hey, What Can You Do” I get to be
a climate change denier. It’s lots of fun. Yes, this is also
from the global warming musical concept, but it’s such an up-tempo,
toe-tapping song that I’ve found when I’ve performed this
song live in clubs in New York, the audience in general sings along
with it. Even fierce environmentalists! In the musical, this song
is sung by a disgraced ex-Senator, who didn’t support environmental
regulations. He sings the song from a lifeboat that is sinking.
mwe3: Everything seems to come into perspective on “Lost
Our Way”. Was this song written before this latest ice shelf
breaking off? Are we eventually going to create a different country
geographically? Trump calls it a hoax and he appoints the former head
of the biggest oil company. Now it’s the 12th anniversary of
Hurricane Wilma, the cat 4 hurricane that killed my father in October
2005. No electricity for a week, no airports in Fort Lauderdale for
4 days and with no internet for a month down here in sunny Florida,
where it’s been over a 100 heat index every day the month of
July and August and also every day in September.
Peter
Galperin: Very perceptive Robert, “Lost Our Way” is
the opening number for the global warming musical. If we say “global
warming musical” enough times it may never sound totally normal,
but it might start to sound less odd. This song sets up the story’s
premise and is sung by our reluctant hero, the captain of a decrepit
ferryboat. Our current latest ice shelf disaster is incorporated into
the story, but I had to revise some of the dialog because the Larsen
C ice shelf broke off about 3 years before it was expected to. Much
bigger ice melts are predicted to follow, and current scientific studies
show that sea levels could rise by as much as 30 feet by 2100, and
I think that’s optimistic. I’m so sorry to hear of your
very personal connection to Hurricane Wilma. Your father seems to
be psychically connected to a lot of the songs I’ve written.
Maybe that’s part of our connection. As sea levels rise, and
oceans warm, the storms we experience will continue to get stronger
and stronger. “Lost Our Way” is a warning and a lamentation,
a digital message in a bottle sent out to future generations. It’s
a very melancholy song, but I think the chorus shows a bit of hope
in it—it’s a borrowed “Ode to Joy” chordal structure.
mwe3: As I mentioned, “One More Smile” is one of
the great breakup / love songs. Yet even with heartbreak and ruin
you just ask for “One More Smile” so it kind of balances
the divorce or separation you sing of. “Try to think of the good
old times, when we shared a home”… So where to now Saint
Peter?
Peter
Galperin: I read something the other day from a very zen-influenced
friend that presented the idea of thanking everyone you’ve every
come across in your life, whether they’ve loved you or hurt you,
helped you or hindered you, because they have all been part of who
you have become. So a relationship can end, it can even end badly,
but you can still find joy in seeing that person’s smile. I guess
it’s the ultimate optimistic outlook. Uh-oh, now we are back
to that cheerful Presbyterianism we brought up earlier in the interview.
mwe3: Are there other credits on the CD and who did the engineering,
mixing, mastering, etc… cover art design? What does the cover
art say to you? Looks like it was some guy who was burned to death
in the desert.
Peter Galperin: The CD cover for This Burning Sun is
a photo I literally stumbled upon. As you know, sometimes in the summer
New York gets so hot that the pavement actually starts to melt. The
asphalt can stick to your shoes. And it’s been getting hotter
every year. Waiting for the light to change at the crosswalk in front
of my building one lovely humid 95 degree summer day last year, I
found these melted Raybans at my feet. An urban fossil ready to be
unearthed by future generations.
As
the planet warms, melting glaciers are revealing items and bodies
lost for decades, sometimes centuries. While at the same time roads,
neighborhoods, and entire towns are being permanently evacuated as
sea levels rise. Someday in the future the buried remains of our era
will be rediscovered, and the scientists and scholars of that future
world will try to understand “how we lost our way.”
mwe3: So the This Burning Sun album is coming out
on CD in September 2017 and then the Robert Moses inspired off-Broadway
production called Bulldozer. He signed off on my father and
his business partner owning the food trucks during the construction
of the 1964 NYC World’s Fair, while feeding the workers at the
Fair with their fleet of food trucks. NYC was so romantic back in
the pre-JFK years. What drew you to Moses? I guess there’s a
biblical element in there too! Moses led me and my family out of the
Red Sea! What can you tell us about the method and motivation for
Bulldozer and is there a soundtrack and who is in it? How are
you planning to publicize it?
Peter Galperin: This Burning Sun will be out in September
on iTunes, Spotify, and Bandcamp, and my rock musical Bulldozer:
The Ballad of Robert Moses opens in November. Your connection
through your father to Robert Moses is quite amazing. To me Robert
Moses is an historical figure, as is the Biblical Moses, but as a
kid
you saw the guy pull-up in your driveway! For years all I knew about
Robert Moses was that there was a beach and park on Long Island named
after him. Sometime in the 1990’s I came across “The Power
Broker” by Robert Caro and it seemed to explain New York’s
inherent dysfunction—why the subways were so decrepit, why there
were so many overcrowded highways slicing through the city, and why
automobiles seemed to take precedent over people in a city that is
much more suited for pedestrians. And all of it was attributable to
one nasty man.
I thought that someday someone…Oliver Stone?, Martin Scorsese?…
would turn “The Power Broker” into a powerful movie. So
I waited for that to happen, and while I waited I wrote a song about
Moses, and then another, and then another. Eventually I had about
a dozen songs about him, so I started to tie them all together with
a script. It was an obsession, and took me about five years to get
the story ready for this production. Now we are planning to do a 7-week
off-Broadway run in Manhattan this fall, and hopefully the show will
be successful enough to get another longer run, and a big enough budget
to record a cast album.
It has two acts—running 100 minutes —with 18 songs, sung
by 5 actors, and backed by a 4-piece band. I’ve got a great team
of people working on the show – our director Karen Carpenter
(kcdirector.com)
is known for premiering new off-Broadway musicals, and our show manager
Aaron Grant (theatrical.ag)
is an expert at getting the most out of a tight budget. We are bringing
in a very talented lighting and stage designer, and our cast is superb—official
announcements are coming in October. The Theatre at St. Clements is
a beautiful 160-seat space on West 46th Street right in the heart
of the theater district. Friends of mine find it odd that I’ve
written a musical because they know that I’ve never been a big
fan of traditional musicals—what I’ve tried to create with
Bulldozer is something in the style of a Rocky Horror Picture
Show or a Tommy type of show. It’s very entertaining,
a little bit educational, and it’s all rock and roll. With a
little luck, the audience will walk away with a new perspective on
New York City, and a bunch of very catchy tunes in their head. I think
people who like musicals will really like the show, and people who
don’t like musicals will absolutely love it.
mwe3: What else is coming next? This Burning Sun and
the Broadway production of Bulldozer … Can you offer any
words of hopes or aspirations, mottos, prayers, credos? I know, ‘Keep
your eyes out for sink holes! Lol’ I remember the John Lennon
song called “How?” being so reality based and scary…
sort of like a wake up call. This Burning Sun is a 21st century
wake up call. Funny how some things never change!
Peter
Galperin: My hope is that “Bulldozer” is successful
enough to give me the opportunity to do another show based on the
global warming-themed songs on This Burning Sun. I think the
biggest issue the world faces is climate change and whether we react
now or later, at some point we will have to change our patterns of
consumption. The physical geography of the world one hundred years
from now will be a very different place than today. But one of the
strongest human traits is adaptability and hopefully we will go in
the right direction.
We can’t become complacent and accept abnormal political conditions,
abnormal environmental conditions, abnormal psychological conditions,
as the new normal. There’s a lot of hard work to do, and hopefully
new, young leaders will rise to the task like Joe Kennedy III! I quote
myself when I say “We might find heaven, but there’ll
be hell to pay,” and I quote the legendary John Lennon when
he says “Strange days indeed.” The future is up to
us!
For more information about Peter Galperin, visit
www.petergalperin.com
or www.bulldozer.nyc
