{"id":17098,"date":"2020-01-21T05:30:15","date_gmt":"2020-01-21T10:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=17098"},"modified":"2019-11-19T07:23:39","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T12:23:39","slug":"moby-grapes-peter-lewis-a-rock-n-roll-survivor-on-the-road-to-zion-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/01\/21\/moby-grapes-peter-lewis-a-rock-n-roll-survivor-on-the-road-to-zion-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Moby Grape’s Peter Lewis: A Rock ‘n’ roll Survivor on ‘The Road to Zion’ (Part Two)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

Peter Lewis’ problems at the time weren’t nearly as severe as those facing Spence, who famously came at band mates Miller and Stevenson with a fire axe. Mosley suffered a breakdown of sorts as well in 1969, abruptly quitting the band and enlisting in the Marines (he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and discharged within months of joining).<\/p>\n

Lewis \u2013 who has been asked about his band mates’ problems countless times, and who has had decades to consider the subject \u2013 has his own take on their challenges. \u201cWhen you look at what happened to Skip or Bobby, part of what that is is, I think, is just the metaphysics of fame,\u201d he suggests. \u201cThey get out there and they show people a certain character, however they\u2019re dealing with their career, however seriously they take their music. And that can sort of get you in a feedback loop with the future. And then, [they can suffer] not knowing how to deal with that, trying to make it real.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Lewis painted the cover art of his new album.<\/p><\/div>\n

He says that Mosley \u201cwas always kind of emotionally disturbed, but I think Skip really thought he was the Messiah. But then, at some point, he started getting really into downers when we were in New York making the second record, and it just all caved in. He changed from Mr. Love into Mr. Hate in about a weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

That kind of confusion calls out for a response, even if it’s not the right one. \u201cHow you deal with that \u2013 whether it\u2019s with it with drugs or whatever \u2013 is very much a no-win situation,\u201d Lewis says. \u201cBecause it\u2019s just depending on some kind of chemical, controlling your body to make you feel this way or that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking like a wise old survivor of the late ’60s music scene, Lewis adds his own prescription to the idea of drug use. \u201c Maybe use it more like a surfer,\u201d he suggests. \u201cUse it as a wave. Keep it at your back.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part, during that turbulent period Lewis reached out to another record producer, hoping he could help rally the group and salvage the sessions. He contacted Terry Melcher, an old friend from his high school days in L.A. Lewis \u2013 the son of film star Loretta Young \u2013 attended school with the sons and daughters of other celebrities’ offspring. The son of Doris Day, Melcher was a few years older than Lewis. \u201cHe had a car, so he got all the chicks,\u201d Lewis recalls with a chuckle. He says that for a time, Candice Bergen was Melcher’s high school girlfriend. \u201cI was her boyfriend, too,\u201d he says. \u201cFor a minute.\u201d<\/p>\n

Melcher \u2013 famed for his work with the Beach Boys, Paul Revere and the Raiders and the Byrds \u2013 was interested in producing Moby Grape, but changed his mind when news broke of Spence’s axe incident. \u201cWell, look, the whole band would have to want to do it,\u201d Melcher told Lewis. \u201cAnd if you don\u2019t have him anymore, that’s pretty much it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis still holds thoughts of what might have been. \u201cThe trouble with the first album was that at Columbia, you couldn\u2019t turn the faders up past 0 dB because the union had a rule [against] distortion,\u201d he says. Terry Melcher had free rein at his studio \u201cso you could go in there and turn it up as loud as you wanted,\u201d Lewis says with admiration. \u201cHe knew how to get it right before it made the needle bounce out of the grooves of a record.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Melcher’s skills went beyond capturing loud sounds. \u201cTerry was a sound<\/i> guy. He knew how to get certain sounds, and also he could hear something that was out of tune. If one string player in an orchestra was off, he knew who it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Lewis is more than willing to answer questions about Moby Grape, but he chooses his words carefully when the subject of the band’s early manager Matthew Katz comes up. \u201cHe\u2019ll sue you for defamation of character if you try to tell the real story,\u201d Lewis says. He will allow that Katz \u2013 whose actions have confounded the band at nearly every turn, from putting together a fake Moby Grape for live dates to scotching various reissues \u2013 has a mindset that differs from the peace-and-love values of the Haight Ashbury scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s not like the rest of the ’60s,\u201d Lewis says. \u201cIt has nothing to do with cooperating.\u201d Lewis makes it clear that he’d rather not even think about Katz. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to get consumed with bitterness or dedicate your life to getting even with this guy,\u201d he says. But he can’t hold back expressing regret. \u201cI was in this band that was my one shot, and he screwed that up. And there\u2019s no way to ever forget about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter Lewis is forthright about the hazards of the music business. \u201cIt\u2019s a shark tank, and you’ve really got to know how to survive to get famous without having signed the rights to your soul away,\u201d he says. But more than 52 years after ten of Moby Grape’s songs were released (as a- or b-sides of 45 r.p.m. singles), he’s showing himself to be a survivor. He mentions the final track on his new record, \u201cThe Gypsy.\u201d \u201cIt talks about this place of no returning, where you have this sense that you\u2019re free, finally, from whatever it is that plagues the soul,\u201d Lewis says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd all of that is in The Road to Zion<\/i>,\u201d he says. \u201cZion is that circle, the end of all paths, where all roads lead into this place where you can feel like, ‘Well, at least I\u2019ve got this.’\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… Peter Lewis’ problems at the time weren’t nearly as severe as those facing Spence, who famously came at band mates Miller and Stevenson with a fire […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17102,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,62],"tags":[1497,3904],"class_list":["post-17098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-rawk","tag-moby-grape","tag-peter-lewis","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17098"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17103,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17098\/revisions\/17103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}