Jim Peterik is the legendary songwriter behind some of the biggest hits from .38 Special, Ides of March, Survivor, and many others. He is back with a new record from his World Stage project called River of Music: The Power of Duets, Vol. 1 which sees him working alongside both major names and up and coming artists. Jim recently took some time to talk about the record and give an impromptu performance of one of his biggest hits.
Please press the PLAY icon below for the MisplacedStraws Jim Peterik interview –
On who joins him on the record – I’ll mention my son Colin first because he’s my son and amazing, and we have a couple tracks on this album and we blend so well. I wonder why. Yeah, it’s a good gene pool. But anyway, he’s extremely talented, so I’m really proud to have him on this record. A lot of people. I work with people I love to work with, who happen to be extremely talented. Dave Mikulskis, a great singer from Chicago here, and we’ve been working together for years and the way our voices blend and he does this amazing duet with Bree Gordon, another local singer, “Waiting For You, and it’s one of my favorite tracks. “Cadence of Things”, Jason Scheff, formerly of Chicago. He corrected me, I said, 20 years with Chicago. He said, “Jim, I was with 30 years with Chicago”. Okay, got it. Of course, his dad was Jerry Scheff Elvis’s bass player. Incredible. I loved Jason’s a voice and the way we blend together. “Cadence of Things” is a video, it will be a video available that Greg Bizzaro, he’s our guy, he’s been shooting our videos for years. I think it’s a great video.
On if he writes specifically for his duet partner – For instance, “Between Two Fires” with my dear friend Kevin Cronin. I wrote that specifically for us. I think I told you this story before, but I’ll be boring and repeat it, but the Ides of March did a show at the Blue Village in Westmont, Illinois. I noticed this kid basically taking mental notes on our show. That kid was Kevin Cronin. He was 15 years old when I met him, and two weeks later he called our booking agent, and we played his junior prom. There he was in his tuxedo, and it was just great. We’ve been fast friends ever since. So, it’s such a pleasure and an honor to be still working with him after all these years.
On why he enjoys working with undiscovered artists – I guess it’s my entrepreneur, I can’t say entrepreneurial spirit, but I wanna create new stars. I was once Kaity (Heart)’s age, about a hundred years ago, and I love mentoring and that’s one of my greatest passions is to bring forward young talent and makes my day.
On how he found Kaity Heart – She had a pretty good mentor. His name is Ron Nevison. Ron goes, “I discovered this girl. You really gotta hear her.” He sent me some samples. I go, “Hell yeah”, and the rest is history, and she’s so strong.
On if there needs to be any guidance between him and Ron Nevison after all these years – Not really, we’re pretty telepathic really. Larry’s always, Larry (Millas) came out to the West Coast. Of course you met Larry, and I’ve been working with him since third grade. He had a tape recorder and knew how to use it, but he came out to the West Coast, and he and Ron were so good together. Of course, Larry ran the machines and all that, but he was always there for a third ear to Ron. But Ron is amazing on his own. And we did three albums with him, with Survivor, and I knew that this was the guy and he’s not a musician, but he’s so musical. I’d be messing around on the piano, like before one of the Survivor albums. I’m just goofing around, he says, “What’s that?” I said, “Oh, it’s something new for Survivor”. He says, “Put that chord there and that chord there”. I said, “Ron, it won’t work”. I tried it. It worked. He walks away saying, “No charge”. That’s what I love about Ron.
On working with his son in the studio – The father and son never gets in the way. We’re the same people in the studio as we are off stage. We just have such a good chemistry, and we never argue really, because we’re on the same wavelength. The blend is great. He’ll have a suggestion for me; I’ll have a suggestion for him. Larry will have a suggestion, but it’s smooth.
On being open to taking suggestions from collaborators – I learned that many years ago when I tried to be too didactic with my people around me, and I remember it was Frankie (Sullivan). He said, “Jim, let them be themselves”. And I didn’t always like Frankie’s advice, but he was right. You gotta let them breathe and let them be themselves. Then if there’s something that you need to say, but let them speak first.
On the upcoming Vol. 2 – I am sworn to secrecy. But it’s really in the can already. Although we’re still tweaking it and I still have designs to maybe add another song and all that, but it’s gonna be some of the same people and a lot of new people as well. So, we’ll let that be the next podcast.
On a new Pride of Lions record – So glad you asked, because that’s what we’re working on right now. (Toby Hitchcock) is in Indiana, he lives in Evansville, Indiana. He has an engineer and studio there, and we’ve been trading files for about the last three months. Getting this album done, we have to turn it into Frontiers at the end of February. I think it’s gonna be the best Pride of Lion’s album yet. Toby, he’s singing his butt off as always. In fact, right before this podcast, Larry and I were mixing up a song, getting the balance between Toby and me just perfect. Our blend is great and very excited about the next Pride Of Lions album, we already have a title for that album. Unbridled.
We even have the album cover for Unbridled. We have this great art director Mark Alano, who’s been doing covers for me for years, and I had this idea of two stallions just sparring, playing, whatever. He created this cover, which is so inspirational and so says what I’m trying to say. Fighting maybe playing, but unbridled, and that’s what the music sounds like. The song “Unbridled” starts with Mike Aquino doing just an amazing Eddie Van Halen freeform “Eruption” intro. I said, “Do “Eruption”, but change it”, and man, he nailed it. It’s just incredible opening song. Then there’s gonna be a video. Greg Bizzaro was gonna do a video with Toby and me, very excited.
On the importance of the cover art on his records – Oh man. When I was a kid last year, man, the album cover was as important as the music. Especially when they’re this big, and you would read the lyrics and it was in concert with the music, with the graphics. Things have gotten smaller sadly, but it’s still very important to have that image behind it.
On if he would join a summer package tour – Heck yeah. We were talking about that recently. It would probably be summer of next year. Doing a big (tour) and record it live. I’ve been, I used to do those all the time. Every year. They call it Jim Peterik and World Stage. So hard to mount those. And expensive. I always lost money on every one, which is what we do. But yeah we have designs on that and we have such a great array of people. I didn’t mention, I know you would’ve if I didn’t. Kathy Richardson. We have a great song, it’s called “Double Rainbow”, which we wrote and sang together a video also by Greg Bizzaro. I love this song.
I’ll tell the story in a, you’ve heard it a thousand times or at least 500 times. But she came into this very room. She was 21 years old and auditioned for Larry and me and blew us away. We’ve been working together ever since. I produced her first album, Moon, not Banana, which is still a classic to me. After all these years, we’re still fast friends. We just did a big benefit show for her charity. We performed and we blend like this and we’re just simpatico…She’s one of the few singers that can elicit a goosebump in me. She did a musical called Love Janice. She channeled Janice Joplin. I saw that show and I was blown away.
On the late Jimi Jamison – That’s a huge topic and one of my favorite topics really. When he became our singer, we had these auditions and of course most of the singers were not good. But then Kevin Chalfant came along, and we almost gave the gig to him. The next day, Jimi Jamison came in, and I look at Frankie, he goes, “We got our guy”. I remember the first song we sent him, we taught him was “The Search Is Over”. He didn’t quite hit that high note on the “Now miles stretch”, I said, “Oh, Frankie, we better lower the key”. His famous quote was, “Oh man, give a man half a chance”. That was Jimi’s Memphis humor. And it worked. He got it. He nailed it. Yeah. We didn’t have to change the key, but yeah, I miss him every day. Not only a great singer, but a great human being.
Jim performs an acoustic version of “Hold on Loosely” to end the interview.
