In Conversation: Peter Holsapple

The former dBs frontman stops by to talk about his new solo record, working with other artists, and shares a few of his favorite crate digging finds.

Photo: Bill Reeves

Good morning!

We’re in for a treat today; Peter Holsapple stops by to chat about his new solo record, working with bands like The Paranoid Style, and the most he’ll pay for a used record.

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Peter Holsapple's resume reads like a list of your favorite bands. He's played with R.E.M., The Continental Drifters, and more recently, with On Repeat Records favorites, The Paranoid Style.

But he might be best known for being a member of the critically acclaimed power pop band The dBs, along with Chris Stamey, Gene Holder, and Will Rigby. If you've been here long, you know I am a huge fan of the band. Their 1984 record Like This is an all-timer, and grabbed a spot on my recent top 100 list.

He's also performed as a solo artist, building a considerable volume of work, starting with 1997's Out of the Way and follow-up Game Day. Now he's back with The Face of '68, an album full of the hooks and lyrics Holsapple fans have come to love over the years.

The press release cheekily mentions that you probably already know him, but if you don't, it's time to change that. Even if you don't recognize the name, you have undoubtedly heard bands he's influenced over the years. The dBs and Continental Drifters are a lot of your favorite band's favorite bands.

To be clear, while there is plenty of what you love (strong hooks, a love song or two), The Face of '68 doesn't simply cover old ground. It sounds & feels fresh, indexing less on power pop and more on muscular guitar. If you weren't already familiar, now is absolutely the time to change that.

The first words we hear on the record are Holspapple asking,

I wake up in the morning
With the sun in my eyes
And every day is a total surprise
Isn't that right?
Isn't that great?

It is. And any day we're gifted a record like this is even better.

In our wide-ranging chat, we discuss the new record, his time playing with The Paranoid Style, what was playing in his house growing up, and running into "that guy" at the record store.

Our conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and flow.

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Congrats on the new record! The press release mentions that The Face of 68 is different. Can you expand on that a little more?

Thank you! Well, I think it’s different for me, or what people may expect from me. It’s got more of a rock guitar basis, for lack of better terms, than anything I have put out before. Lots of riffs and minor chords. If you think of “Bad Reputation” from The dB’s first album Stands for deciBels as a rock guitar song (which I do) The Face of 68 rocks like that. There’s, like, one strictly power pop-ish tune, but it’s the anomaly.

Artists often cite you and the bands you've played in (The dB's, Continental Drifters, etc.) as inspiration. Who were you influenced by when you first started? What was playing in your house growing up?

I'm always a little surprised to hear that because I never thought any of those bands had a significant amount of reach; but from our tour last year, I see that our songs definitely made a lasting impression on more people than I'd imagined, very grateful to know that.

My mom and my big brother listened to radio and records in the house, so I was exposed to pop music as a little kid. My first single was a Bert Kaempfert single “Afrikaan Beat” that I’d heard on a kids’ TV program when we lived in Old Greenwich, so I was around four then. Radio in Winston-Salem was WTOB mostly, our Good Guy station with personality jocks like Dick Bennick (Dr. Paul Bearer) and the Flying Dutchman (Pete Berry), both of whom also produced 45s for local bands. We got Beatles, James Brown, Buck Owens, Napoleon XIV, Sir Douglas Quintet, and we loved it all.

How about today?

Hmm. Well, in the car I listened to the newest Maggie Rose album since The dB’s played before her at 30A Songwriters’ Festival, and we met her and her band, and she and they were just lovely people. And the record’s stunning, the arrangements are strong and the sound is huge. That’s today. (Oh, and a couple things on YouTube, like a Peggy Lee track and a Tornados follow up to “Telstar”.)

You played on The Paranoid Style's excellent The Interrogator. How did you all first connect? What led to you being in the studio with them?

It absolutely is excellent! Thanks!

A few years ago, out of the blue, I was contacted by Elizabeth Nelson and Tim Bracy, who wanted me to play piano on a track of theirs in a Durham studio. Will Rigby had played with them, and I knew their guitarist Bruce Bennett from the A-Bones in New York. So I jumped in and had a great time and made friends for life.

Last year, they called me to reprise my role at the same studio which is six minutes away from my house. So I said sure, went down to Overdub Lane and sat down at their beautiful grand piano and cut a track. Elizabeth and Tim reported that the band’s lead guitar player had the flu and was not going to be able to make the date, so they asked me if I’d jump in on guitar. It was something of a trek out of my comfort zone of sturdy rhythm guitar, but I tried to think on my feet for each song on The Interrogator that called for filigree guitar, and everyone was very satisfied with what I provided.

Returning to The Face of 68: "Larger than Life" is the first single. What inspired you to choose that one to kick things off?

“Larger Than Life” was the song, when the demo was done and I was listening down to it, that made me think I should have a look at the songs that I had written since Game Day was released in 2017. And when I did, I saw that I had more than a handful of good tunes, and that a great number of them had a harder edge to their sound. “Larger Than Life” I wrote to commemorate the death and transfiguration of my friend and bandmate Carlo Nuccio who died in 2022. When Carlo died, he left a hole in the universe that was incredibly large for everyone who ever knew him or played with him. A groove like his absolutely went into that universe and shattered into dust that gets in everything from here on out. So I had to write a song to process my loss and the world’s dusty gain.

Many people reading this will relate to "That Kind of Guy." We all know–or have rubbed shoulders with—"that guy" while crate digging. Was it inspired by an actual event (or events), or is it more of a composite?

I worked in record stores for most of my retail double-life. I knew music, what better job? My bosses were always sympathetic to my music career. My customers ran the gamut. Some were royal pains, some became friends that are in my life to this day. Several stores I can think of in New York were more prone to people like TKoG, the ones full of collectors’ items, so I was around them from time to time. I'm not a very particular collector myself, I just don't want to pay more than $10 for any used record.

Double-clicking on that, you name-check a ton of artists on the track. What might be under your arm if we ran into you at the record store?

Like I say, I love the dollar bins, so I’m happy to find stuff that’s in okay shape there. I don’t usually shop with anything in mind; Record Store Day is an event my family used to participate in when the kids were little, but even then, we wouldn’t be at the doors of the shop at the crack of dawn for anything in particular. We’d all just walk out with bags of cheap CDs and beat up records! (I say that I don’t shop for anything in particular, but there have been times that I’ve tried to will something like an obscure Dennis Linde album to appear, and then it turns up in a bin, and I think that’s notable.)

Best recent $5 find was a pristine copy of Media Blitz by Quacky Duck & his Barnyard Friends on Warner Brothers. Danny and Dae Bennett, Tony's sons, were in the band, as was David Mansfield, assorted string player to the stars, Rolling Thunder Tour as well--he has been playing with Ringo's country shows lately! I saw Quacky Duck when I was a freshman in Chapel Hill, and David was brilliant even then.

"One For The Book" is a personal favorite of mine on the record. I'm curious how it came to be. Is there a backstory?

It’s a true story that happened a few years ago. A promoter had worked with a band on a big show that was part benefit, then he basically went haywire and left the show with all the cash receipts and credit card money and disappeared. Hence the great idea that became a disaster. That’s the only song on the record that I play acoustic guitar on, by the way.

What does 2025 look like for you? A solo tour? More dates with the dBs? Working with the Paranoid Style? All of the above?

The dB’s played their final dates of the tour promoting Stands for deciBels and Repercussion last weekend at 30A Songwriters Festival in Florida. It was a very good run for the band; we played some really good shows, and I would say that people who came to see us left absolutely satisfied. Songs they wanted to hear got heard, and we had Wes Lachot along on keyboards who made a point to reproduce the keyboard/horn sounds live. But we’re done for the foreseeable future.

I know there are a couple of dates in Dallas with the Paranoid Style in the spring, but the details are best researched at the band’s website or social media outlets. I wish that band would play more.

Speaking of bands I wish played more, I hope there’s at least one Continental Drifters show this year!

Regarding any grand promotional plan for The Face of 68, my plan is to try to do a few rock guitar shows with rhythm sections and volume when the album comes out, but to mostly head out on the back of a burro with my acoustic guitar slung over my back and play solo stuff, ‘rhythm guitar and vocals’ as it were. For the past week or so, I’ve been trying to play songs from The Face of 68 on acoustic guitar. Most of them seem to work fine in that context, some don’t. It’s okay, I have other songs to play too. I mean, this ismy third solo album. I just have to figure out an effective set that covers the songs people want to hear as well as the songs I want people to hear. Talk about treading a line!And reading a room!

Thank you for your time! I'll wrap this up with the question I ask everyone: What are your five Desert island Discs?

They differ at any given time (plus I'm taking all my records to that desert island). So today’s are:

▪ The Flame (Blondie Chaplin/Ricky Fataar on Brother Records - 1970)

▪ Maggie Rose - No One Gets Out Alive

▪ Esso Trinidad Steel Band

▪ Hi Rhythm - On the Loose

▪ The Move - Split Ends

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Click the picture for selected early tracks off the record.

The Face of ‘68 will be available everywhere this Friday, April 18th

The Face of ‘68 is out this Friday (4/18). You can connect with Peter and find out more info here.

Thank you to Peter Holsapple for his time, and thank you for being here.

Kevin—