A virtual legend – Pete Molinari
Hazel Davis meets a quiet revolutionary
Pete Molinari is a man with a passion. Quite apart from his obvious passion for talking, rendering hapless interviewers little opportunity for interruption, he has a passion for real music, for authenticity and honesty.
Luckily, those who speak to him seldom want to intercept, so engaging and enthusiastic is he.
The earnest Kent-born, Egyptian-Italian singer-songwriter marches to his own vintage country-blues tune with his brand of soulful, plaintive old-school Hank Williams-style songs. For this, it would be easy to consign him to the novelty dustbin. But he’s no Duffy. Like Amy Winehouse – for want of a better comparison – he’s managed to produce a sound from another time in a way that feels entirely relevant.
Molinari puts this down to – simply – “being authentic”. He adds, “everything I do is deeply rooted in authenticity. Billy Childish doesn’t care that his paintings are influenced by Van Gogh, Bob Dylan was besotted with Woody Guthrie, the Beatles were obsessed with Chuck Berry. You can tell when something is a novelty because it has no substance and that’s the difference. I feed off the records I listened to – and loved – as a child.”
“Probably about 75%” of these records featured the legendary Nashville backing singers The Jordanaires, with whom Molinari has just recorded a new EP, Today, Tomorrow And Forever. It’s a four-track disc of gorgeously rendered covers, with Tennessee Waltz sitting alongside Jim Reeves’ Guilty in a melodic melancholia fest.
Like much of his life, he says, this partnership happened quite spontaneously. “We went out to Nashville in June to record the EP. I was with Chris Scruggs (grandson of the legendary Earl) and I said that the one thing missing would be a proper gospel group. I knew we wouldn’t have the budget and I thought perhaps we could go into a church and round up some singers. Chris just said, ‘I know the Jordanaires’…” At this point, says Molinari, “we all fell on the floor laughing but they turned up the next day. Only in Nashville…”
Whilst he doesn’t like to wallow in fandom, Molinari says the experience of recording with Nashville royalty was pretty bonkers. “You still can’t help but be in some awe,” he says, “it was quite easy to almost forget what they were there to do, once we got talking about Patsy Cline and Roy Orbison…But they were as amazing as anyone in the ‘outside world’ would imagine.”
Molinari, who relocated to New York a few years ago, is now making the move –via London – to Nashville permanently. “I never look at something definitively,” he says, “but it’s where I want to be for the immediate future at least. I am signing to a label there and I love the musicians and studios.” He says that New York is home though: “I feel like a New Yorker more than anything. But then I might like to live in New Orleans…”
Rather than feel like a small fish in a big pond, Molinari feels he stands out like an unexpected sore thumb. “The Nashville music of now is so far removed from what I grew up listening to,” he laughs, “It’s more like Bon Jovi now. In fact, it’s the same in New York. Despite its amazing heritage, you see all these James Blunt types playing in cafes. If I were a session musician on the other hand,” he laughs, “I would be really daunted. They are – though I don’t like the word – all virtuosos here. As far as having people play on your record, they are what I want.”
Molinari’s recording history has been an interesting one. His first record – Walking Off The Map (Damaged Goods) – was recorded in Billy Childish’s kitchen on a Revox tape in 2006 and the second one – A Virtual Landslide – was released on Damaged Goods in 2008 and recorded at Toe Rag Studios renowned for using analogue equipment.
To a girl born and raised in Kent, despite his obvious Americana purity, Molinari sounds somehow uniquely Kentish in the way that Richard Hawley still sounds like he’s from Sheffield. Molinari laughs at this assertion. “Chatham is always going to be a strong influence on me but I think Richard Hawley has a real love for Sheffield. I realised that going from New York to Memphis is a bit like going from London to Chatham. It’s not a pretty place. It’s dark and it’s hard but in those places there are things to be found, certainly. I have a spiritual feeling towards it and it’s a place I go to but there’s as much hate. The need for escape comes across in my music, I think.”
He refuses to be drawn on what his next project will be: “The road always takes a diverse turn here and there,” he says enigmatically, “I have worked on songs, I am constantly writing new songs. But I might do more covers. It’s as exciting to reinterpret old songs as it is to write new songs. There is beauty to be found in the interpretation…”
Today, Tomorrow And Forever is released on August 24 on Damaged Goods
