Peter Wells / D’fn World With Sounds Ranging From Melodic Vibes

Peter Wells started his music aspirations as a young boy growing up in NY STATE. At the age of 4 he started out taking accordion lessons. At age 9, Peter saw THE BEATLES playing on “The Ed Sullivan Show” one Sunday night. Watching RINGO STARR on TV playing the drums convinced young Peter that DRUMS were where he wanted to go. And his loving parents, second generation Italian Americans, bought him an E. W. Kent ™ “junior” drum kit from the Montgomery Ward Inc. catalog. By the time he was 14, he was already considered an “exceptional student” by his drum teacher who started teaching Peter more advanced jazz techniques, Latin rhythms, and other more exotic percussion.

In Jr. High, Peter started hanging out with other music minded guys. He helped form a rock band which actually was successful in landing a weekend dance gig at one school or another in the Albany NY area. In his twenties, Peter hooked up with a bass player ( we’ll name him “Scott” because he’s still alive …etc…) who had a peculiar, probably acid tripping induced …. outlook on life in general. But his musical outlook appealed very much to Peter. It was a time of “tuning in and dropping out” in the world. The country was embroiled in Viet Nam and the “hippies” were all up in arms protesting. There were domestic events happening which became historic; Kent State Massacre, Woodstock, Manson Murders, and a sweeping drug addiction epidemic in nigh all major cities.

A time of confusion and resultant CULT and radical religious ideologies, some of which were dangerous and or forbidden by the status quo or the government. In any case, Peter found himself in between everything going on, age wise, but never the less eager to dive into it and become immersed and saturated. He couldn’t get enough of it! Peter and Scott formed a “heavy band” playing CULT bands’ tunes. King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man.” Songs by WHO, TULL, ZEPPELIN, ZAPPA and BEEFHEART, even. They played a lot of material kids couldn’t dance to and so eventually, their gigs dried up and they were unemployed, as it were. However, Peter and Scott stuck together working as much as possible as a bass ‘n drum team with various bands playing just about every type of music….whatever was available. Eventually, Peter and Scott went their own ways and basically never worked or came together for any other projects ever again. Peter went “away” and tried his luck “out there” all alone on scary dark roads and among sinister looking n’er do wells and downright criminals of the lowest and most despicable order.

Bottom feeder world! A long and lost old guitar player “friend” invited Peter to HOUSTON TX one summer. There, he and this guitarist kind of became long and lost again after a while, but Peter did find ways into the Houston music scene, for what it was, anyway. Houston wasn’t a “music town” like Nashville or Las Vegas. What it did offer : Plenty of DAY JOBS with which to stay comfy and fairly safe indoors rather than being homeless living in the car.

Then he could try to find music gigs for nights and weekends and play as much as his energy levels to complete exhaustion ratio would allow. Over a couple of years in Texas and Peter finally started to get noticed as a drummer. He started doing more “casuals” where he’d “sit in” for whoever was going to be absent from their drumming duties for whatever reasons and for whatever number of nights needed and so on and so forth…. The “weekend warriors” who all had good paying day jobs were very easy to spot back in Albany NY and New England, and they were pretty much the same in the Lone Star State. Stuffed Shirt Government Office Worker Pod Farm Lounge lizards. Same animal. Same old. Never changed by the way. Still that way. It always will be. Now and forever, Amen.

After living in Tucson AZ for a few years, Peter finally found a good paying day job as a field computer technician. This enabled him to buy higher end recording equipment. However, the problem with WHERE could he use it? Was still a major issue. Space to rent is not cheap! Peter is an idiot! He buys all this STUFF and never thought about WHERE would be suitable to set it up and start using it. Music recording requires making SOUND. Some of it is loud. Most residential areas are not conducive. Oh well, so quietly TRY to record “the basic tracks” for songs to fill out when he could afford to pay for space. Finally, he found a place. Small, no A/C, pretty much “storage” more than being able to occupy and work therein. But he stayed POSITIVE and sweat it out.

Now, after a few moves and some TIME in between ….and hitherto…. All things considered, that is. Without going into a whole big chapter about the ups and mostly DOWNS while writing and recording this album, aside from the various and frequent physical moves across the country and back, …etc…, the album was finally finished as much as it could be being a one man band. Peter learned other instruments along the way in order to get ideas down fleshed out enough in order to keep his memory of what he was trying to do fresh in mind. When he found how hard it was going to be to find musicians to help him at various places and seldom finding SPACE, once again, it was slow going as you could imagine. This was NOT going to stop Peter Wells from completing his album! It was becoming an eerie obsession in his head to get this done. And so, he did it all by himself. Took some time, but he eventually got it to a point.

Main thrust of his promotion was more to get licensing for use in movies and TV and background “needle drop” music and for roll credits and that sort of thing. He was also thinking maybe as an outside chance and by sheer accident, an already established well known band might happen to hear a few of these songs and perhaps want to do them. If they needed something for that age old “writer’s block” that hits everybody who writes lyrics and composes music now and again, of course. “Maybe that’s an option. Putting the album on REVERB NATION and other outlets has given the album a decent boost. His main explanation for why he wrote and recorded the album in the first place was; “I just wanted to see if my ideas had enough public appeal ….and artistic significance in general.” It’s a bit early on these newer websites to tell but we’ll see as time goes on. Meantime, once in Tennessee, Peter plans to audition as much as possible for DRUMS in Nashville.

Maybe there’s one last harrah!! In playing some gigs before the old fart croaks. That’s what we’re gonna find out. It’ll be about a two hour drive on I 40 from where [ I think ] we will be. Good Thing Peter bought himself a good reliable used TOYOTA YARIS sedan which gets over 40 MPG highway. “I’ll have to buy some good used drums once I get there, I guess.” That should not be a problem. Used instruments and gear are everywhere. So are the dreams and the millions of musician songwriter hopefuls who have had the overwhelming TWINK of high level success and great wealth as a result. “EVERYONE wants it ! The top’s as far as you can go!” And that’s how we ‘rock ‘n roll’ ! PEACE!! So why is a man of 67 years old bothering to put original music up on platform websites and play lists like some eager hopeful unwashed youth of 19? Well, it’s like some sage old jazz musician once said, “Once you got the music down into your blood, it ain’t never comin’ out! “ And that dovetail s in with “LIVING THE DREAM!” Another meme everybody by now knows. Maybe that’s all it is and will ever be. But for those of us who still DREAM, it’s an alternative feeling to the usual bullshit and drudgery.

Though he was featured in recently released Lifoti's October/November 2019 issue 10, you can check it from below link's for your country: