10 Questions with Peter Prince

For years, Peter Prince has been entertaining audiences with his intensity and perseverance as an artist. Whether it be with his hi-octane, ever-impressive Moon Boot Lover, or his revealingly intimate solo acoustic performances, he pushes limits, challenges the listener, and gives you everything his got night after night. Now, with his new project, he teams up with longtime friend Johnny Trama, who can deliver the blues like a fiery, young Clapton. The line-ups may change every night, but this all-star cast provides a downright dirty and gritty blues. Peter Prince and the Trauma Unit doesn’t just get funky. With a solid foundation and powerful horn section, combined with Prince’s voice, stage antics and animated band cues, they build a presence that resembles a James Brown Revival.

As the band got ready to kick off the first night of tour, I got the chance to ask Peter about his newest creation

1. You’ve got a busy February, with weekly residencies in both Boston and New York, plus dates each week in various Northeast states. With a total of 14 shows in 24 nights, are you guys ready?

Yeah, I think we are. I mean everyone’s kind of pumped. We’re recording, so we’re in that mode.

2. Are you presenting new songs?

Oh yeah, this is mostly new material that Johnny Trama and myself have been collaborating on. He’s been coming to me with a lot of new music, and I’ve been writing the lyrics.

3. With a lot of bands in the scene, the vocals aren’t a strong point, taking backseat to the improvisational compositions, but your voice is so soulful and distinct. Is it natural?

Yeah, I’ve always been singing. And I certainly have been listening to a lot of R&B and soul music over the years. And that originally struck me, and hit me in a powerful way. It’s a revelation at times, like a Blues Brothers moment. Like James Brown. Hearing James Brown for the first time.

4. Do you have a favorite artist from the Motown era?

Well of course Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye. Jackie Wilson I’m a big fan of. And then my mother listened to a lot of singer/songwriters, so I was a big Jim Croce fan. I loved his voice and his delivery, and now that I’ve been doing more acoustic shows, I realize more of that has been coming out. It’s fun to discover when that stuff begins to surface.

5. Well aside from your acoustic shows, not a lot of people know you as a singer/songwriter. Like when you go to a Moon Boot Lover show, it isn’t full of 40 minute jams. The songs are tight.

Well I’ve realized now, with the years gone by, that I’ve been kind of anonymous in a way, by being in Moon Boot Lover, and doing that, and not really putting my name out there. But now, recently, doing these acoustic runs, doing the shows with Tim Reynolds, I’ve realized that I should be going that avenue too.

6. What did you learn from playing with him?

Well, he’s just a technician and a wizard with his effects and stuff. And I’ve always been of course, like basic, with maybe a Cry Baby here, and my Talkbox. But I watched him work the delays and stuff, so I’ve been incorporating that more.

7. So are you bringing more equipment on stage now?

Years ago I used to do a lot of the Talkbox stuff, and then I put it down for a while, but just tonight, she’s making her maiden voyage again…so she’s back. You’ll see she’s a little rusty (laughs). And I have a Line 6 on another microphone, the green delay model. I see a lot of these musicians that are doing big stuff with their guitars, but not a lot of them are doing vocal stuff, and I’m trying to come into my own vocally, and doing harmonies. And that has opened me to possibilities.

8. Keeping a setlist at a Peter Prince show is a daunting task. Where do you draw your catalog from? I mean, you can’t just say, ‘oh, that’s a Dylan song’. You seem to play a great deal of obscurities.

Well I’m gonna take that as a compliment (laughs). I have great respect for what goes along with those artists. Many of them are my idols, and some of that stuff I don’t even dare go to. I hear a lot of players go to it, and it’s a great thing, but to me sometimes it definitively has been done. I’d rather take a song that I think was really great, that might not have ever gotten it’s claim. And to see people respond to it validates it even more. There’s a number I have been doing for years, a Billy Preston number, “You’re so Unique”. It’s just a simple little ditty, one of those things you get together and you jam, and it’s fun to do, but it’s also just a great song. I always felt that, and I see people respond.

9. The Peter Prince on stage…the Moon Boot Lover, where does that character and persona come from?

Well It’s all been a little process and a little evolving. Over the years, doing Moon Boot Lover, and the artwork, and the super hero. And now, eventually, the picture does start to come into focus, and that character does start to surface. Time has gone by, and I’ve realized a lot of things about myself that you only have to if you’re spending that many hours in a van, and on the road with nothing to really think about besides like…how are we gonna pay the thing, or do this, and then, how are we coming across.

10. Well how do you keep going in a van after all these years. How come you’re not like, ‘forget this, I’m just gonna go be an insurance salesman’.

Well, at times it does feel like that. Those thoughts do cross, I guess all of our minds. But now, at this point, it’s turned into like my, Lord of the Rings, my quest. And my friends, some of my closest friends…Soulive, are now touring the world, and it’s incredible to see it unfold. I don’t know, it’s just the world seems a lot smaller than it did before. Time has gone by, and friendships have been made and I guess that’s the path of committing yourself to it. And most people have to be really tolerant, and patient…or it just doesn’t happen.

All photos courtesy of Adam Foley www.adamfoley.com

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