Playing for Change: Music with a Purpose | Peter Bunetta

PROFITABLE TALKS...

In this episode of The Profitable Creative, host Christian Brim interviews renowned musician and producer Peter Bunetta. They discuss Peter's journey from a young drummer inspired by The Beatles to becoming a successful producer in the music industry. Peter shares insights on the importance of learning the business side of music, building relationships, overcoming financial struggles, and the significance of independence in creative work. He also emphasizes the value of passion in music and the lessons learned from failures and rejections. The conversation concludes with Peter's involvement in the 'Playing for Change' initiative, which aims to build schools for music and art around the world.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

• Peter's early inspiration came from watching The Beatles on Ed Sullivan.
• Support from family was crucial in Peter's musical journey.
• Understanding the business side of music is essential for success.
• Building authentic relationships is key in the music industry.
• Financial struggles can be overcome with resilience and creativity.
• Independence allows for greater creative freedom in music.
• Passion for music drives Peter's work and legacy.
• Learning from failures is a vital part of the journey.
• The future of music is shaped by new technologies and innovations.
• 'Playing for Change' highlights the power of music to create positive change.

Ready to turn your PASSION into PROFIT?!? Let's get CREATIVE ➡️
https://www.coregroupus.com/profit-first-for-creatives

Transcript

Christian Brim (00:02.362)
Welcome to another episode of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Joining me today, famed musician and music producer, Peter Bonetta. Peter, thank you for joining us.

Peter bunetta (00:23.32)
Good afternoon. Good morning. Good evening. Wherever you might be. We're all here.

Christian Brim (00:28.537)
Yes. So I know there are a lot, there are a lot of interviews of you out there. So people are familiar with you and your story, but is it looking back on, on when you started this journey, is there something maybe that you would want to highlight in the last 40 years or so?

Peter bunetta (00:51.854)
yeah, there was a pivotal moment when I was like all young musicians who saw Ed Sullivan. I'm 73. I've been at this since I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan that fateful night. And I decided I wanted a band as well. I wasn't in the audience. I was sitting in my

Christian Brim (01:16.392)
Were you in that audience?

Peter bunetta (01:20.564)
I lived with my grandparents and we were watching at Sullivan and I had been taking drum lessons and that's when I decided that, I have to do this with other people and I want to do that.

Christian Brim (01:36.284)
Did you make your grandparents crazy? mean, with the drum set? No, I mean that...

Peter bunetta (01:39.104)
Not at all. Not at all. They loved, they were very supportive and I missed them. I lost them a long time ago when I was 21. But my grandmother, my grandfather was, they were of Italian descent. They were both from Sicily and they came here. My grandfather was

fruit and vegetable guy and made enough money to buy a few apartments, buildings, and we lived in them. And my grandmother rented a room, rented an apartment to a drum teacher next door, and he took off, she took off money from the rent to give me drum lessons. And they set up the drums downstairs next to the furnace where my grandfather made the heat for the buildings. So they loved.

Christian Brim (02:25.564)
Nice.

Christian Brim (02:32.743)
Yes.

Peter bunetta (02:35.924)
loved what I was doing. would watch, you know, Lawrence Welk with my grandmother and play on the couch with spoons and knives or whatever I could get my hands on that would bang against the corner of the couch. And then they got me a drum set and then I, you know, they loved it. No one ever said stop. And

Christian Brim (02:59.442)
Well, if you're like most percussionists I've known through the years, you're always moving. You're always tapping. You're always...

Peter bunetta (03:07.592)
I was, I was, and sometimes I still do at this point because I still play and my wife says stop that. So it never stops. You're right. But at an early age, I wanted to do this and I became focused on getting work. So I worked all the local communion parties, birthday parties and

Christian Brim (03:10.888)
You

Peter bunetta (03:36.5)
Two of my friends, one played accordion and his name was Andre Ferullo. And the other was a guy named Henry Fragasi. And the three of us played and then we incorporated Mike Morato and we were off. Eventually, Andre left. I think he's a doctor now. That's what I heard. I haven't talked to him in a billion years. Henry's no longer with us.

Mike is no longer with us, but we had a very successful grammar school band. We were making $5 each, then $10 each, then $15 each. And as we went through high school, we became the band that everybody knew. And I really made a great living in high school. I was making at least $300 to $400 a week. And that was a...

Christian Brim (04:32.722)
That was a lot of money.

Peter bunetta (04:33.863)
That was a lot of money. And so I got the taste of what it was and I was always out there hustling for work. So I, yeah.

Christian Brim (04:43.752)
So when did you have to start learning the business of music?

Peter bunetta (04:52.421)
When I started to further on down the road as I wanted to get into the recording end of the business and start becoming a player in the studio and chasing a record deal, you know, the glitter of just getting a deal is all you want. You just want to get a record deal and make an album and go on tour. But...

After I had three albums with a band that I was in called Kraken on Warner Brothers, we did three albums, we toured with everyone, it was great. Nothing was happening in terms of, we didn't have hits. my father, who I didn't have a close relationship with growing up, had left when I was about a month old. And then I connected with him.

But he came to visit and he was really, he's a very smart guy. Great, not great dad, but a really smart guy. And he said to me, he felt something because I felt something that the band, we might have hit a roadblock. We had toured, we had put three records out and nothing. We hadn't increased our finances, personal or collective. And my father said, listen,

You don't want to be a 40 year old drummer or a 40 year old male model. It's just not a good look. I think you should learn your business. If you're going to be in this, you should learn it. And my brother was also in the business and my brother was a manager and he was an agent first and before that he was a road manager. Before that he was a road guy and he upped his own.

profile and his knowledge and so through Al I I started to look at the business differently and and he made me aware of publishing and he made me aware of Deal you know what a deal consists of producer royalties and band royalties and

Peter bunetta (07:22.233)
and publishing income. And so after the band broke up, I decided to move to LA and get into the studio business. And I started playing on different people's records. And I started watching what producers did. And I knew what they did because we had great producers of our band. We had Russ Tidelman produce our record, who's one of the great producers of all time.

Christian Brim (07:25.618)
Right.

Peter bunetta (07:51.099)
Eric Clapton, Stevie Wynwood, the list goes on and on. Ricky Lee Jones, he was a Warner Brothers staff producer. And then we had Michael O'Mardian, who produced our records, who produced Christopher Cross, played on Asia, was the keyboard player of Asia, Steely Dan's records, and many, many more produced on the summer, wrote, worked hard for the money. Brilliant, brilliant musician.

And so I watched them and watched everybody and I figured, you know what? I don't wanna be the one waiting for the call. I'd like to be the one making the phone call. And so my partner in the band who had moved down from San Francisco where we had been living for years, we moved to LA and we jumped into the business and then a friend of ours who I had become very close with, we had become close with.

Christian Brim (08:31.015)
Yeah.

Peter bunetta (08:50.365)
and one of my stops in Woodstock, New York, where I lived for a bunch of years. His name was Robbie Dupree. And we got a little money and we made a demo, three songs, and one of those songs is a record called Steal Away, which is still a big record after 45 years. And we jumped in and we became producers. And then we started learning about...

Christian Brim (09:08.967)
Yes.

Peter bunetta (09:17.945)
the budgets, our points, our royalties, publishing, writing songs. And once we learned that, there was no turning back because you see the importance of quantifying all the work that you put into learning music and how you can really come full circle if you understand the mechanics.

of the business and publishing is real lifeblood of the industry.

Christian Brim (09:54.034)
So let me ask you a question. You're in your 30s at that point?

Peter bunetta (09:58.121)
At that point I was not, I was 19, let's see, that was 1979. So I was 28. And yeah, I mean, it just turning the corner and.

Christian Brim (10:14.96)
Okay. Was that a difficult transition to go from a musician to a producer where you weren't performing anymore?

Peter bunetta (10:28.736)
Not at all, because again, part of all of it is to see how many plates you can keep spinning without going crazy. So I always managed to play live while I was producing. I was also involved in a band called Billy and the Beaters. had a song called, Billy recorded a song called At This Moment, which became a massive hit.

I was playing with that band as well as producing during the day and during the week and on weekends I could play with Billy and the Beaters. So I always satiated the appetite for live playing which I think is very important because you feel, you can feel audience response.

Christian Brim (11:21.336)
Did you sleep during this time? Of course you were.

Peter bunetta (11:23.679)
I was, I was, I got some sleep, but I was hustling, you know? I was nonstop. because right after Robbie became a hit, we started getting people. The next record we had was Matthew Wilder, Ain't Nothing Gonna Break My Stride. And that was huge. And we became, we became aware that we had created a

Christian Brim (11:42.664)
Mmm.

Peter bunetta (11:52.731)
a production company, which is again the evolution of learning the business. So in the job, we couldn't, there was no one who was gonna call us to produce records unless we put points on the board, and we did with Steal Away, but still wasn't established enough in one song, one radio song. By the way, we had two on that record called

Christian Brim (11:54.684)
Yes.

Christian Brim (12:11.069)
Mm-hmm.

Peter bunetta (12:22.171)
One was called Hot Right Hearts was the other one.

But after that, I had known Matthew Wilder from my days in Boston at college. And when he came out to LA, we signed him to a production deal. And we became co-publishers of everything he wrote as part of the production deal. And that's where the business really started to take shape, where we saw

the publishing income from a major, major hit song like Break My Stride, which today, now I've since sold my portion of it after 29 years. But it was a very important element in my business acumen of, okay, now I can see.

owning a piece of a song, what that can generate. Especially if it's a major song, like Break My Shrine was.

Christian Brim (13:32.038)
Was there any point during that journey where financially you struggled? Like, we're like, I don't know if we're gonna make it.

Peter bunetta (13:46.139)
Well, it's funny you say that. right before Break My Stride, we had signed a production deal with Electra Records based on Robbie Dupree, success of Electra, the single, the two singles, because another side of the business that is really important to know in any business, doesn't matter, relationships are key.

Christian Brim (13:53.234)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (14:14.938)
Hmm.

Peter bunetta (14:15.909)
They're key. How you establish your relationships. The authenticity of the relationship. Not just, you know, politicking. But having authentic, because my mantra from early on was it's not who I know, it's who I avoid that would make me more successful. Because so many people come at you when you do have a hit.

Christian Brim (14:28.25)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (14:45.628)
Yes.

Peter bunetta (14:45.912)
that you have to be very careful and not just taking any deal or partnering with people that you really don't vet. You have to vet. And the vetting comes with your gut, for me. I make the mistake, it's not a mistake because I've done it my whole life. I sign deals with my heart. If I don't like the person, I can't work with them. There have been instances throughout my career, but...

going back to your initial question, we got signed to a production deal. my wife was pregnant with our first son, Julian, and we had just bought a house and they dropped us. The regime changed that elector between when we got signed. So the new regime just didn't.

Christian Brim (15:33.864)
Okay.

Peter bunetta (15:43.626)
honor the production deal and we were back.

Christian Brim (15:46.556)
Did they just figure you couldn't didn't have enough money to sue them or.

Peter bunetta (15:51.469)
Well, it wasn't even about that. The deal was in play. It wasn't signed yet. So it was in that funny period where we were just out, but the excitement was there because, wow, we've got this deal and now I'm having a baby and we've got this house. And so, yeah, things didn't feel good.

Christian Brim (15:56.513)
okay, okay.

Christian Brim (16:01.436)
Okay.

Peter bunetta (16:18.24)
You know, you're going up Everest on roller blades at that point. You have the wrong shoes on. And, and so we had this song called Break My Stride and nobody wanted it. Everybody said it was the worst song, which made things even worse. Clive Davis threw it back at us and said, this is the worst song I've ever heard. Every record company, nobody wanted except one little.

Christian Brim (16:42.46)
Really?

Peter bunetta (16:47.667)
record company, a dear friend of mine who's no longer with us named Stuart Love worked at a little label called, I'm just blank on it, was, god, Private Eye. That felt good to get that one out. Private Eye and with that one little label we hit a jackpot and it saved, it saved the

Christian Brim (17:03.238)
Okay, yeah? Yes.

Peter bunetta (17:16.585)
It gave us the next vine to go and hold on to. it was solid. It wasn't greased. It wasn't the slippery slope. And with that record, then another record came. Then another record came. And then we just started getting work. led to Lauren Wood. We did a song on the Pretty Woman soundtrack. We did two. But Fallen was huge.

Then we had The Temptations. We did a movie and then The Temptations asked us from the movie track to do a whole album. That got us into Motown where Smokey Robinson heard it and we did the whole Smokey Robinson record where Smokey won a Grammy and it just started rolling from there. Kenny G, Michael Bolton, soul provider. It just kept, then people were calling us by that time.

Christian Brim (18:15.72)
So is it just the success or what else do you attribute that?

Peter bunetta (18:15.751)
So, go ahead.

Peter bunetta (18:21.629)
Well, I attribute it to back to, yeah, first of all, first of all, you have to, they take you off the court if you're not scoring points. You gotta score. So in any business, if your sales are not happening, you're have to close the store. You have to, so how do you get people in the store and what products are you selling? The quality, why sell Nogahide?

Christian Brim (18:31.56)
Okay.

Peter bunetta (18:51.066)
as real leather. You've got to have real goods. And if you know it, just know what you're selling. I knew what we wanted. We wanted great songs. At the time, it's all you did have. You had great singers and great songs. There was no pro tools. It was all analog. was musicians together. It was very, very formidable.

place, it's been the history until the digital revolution. There was no fixing the vocals with a machine, you had to sing. So we just tried to find great songs and we were always working with people who could sing. We had such a wide palette from Judy Collins, I worked with John Prine, I worked with the great Steve Goodman.

Christian Brim (19:31.452)
Right, right.

Peter bunetta (19:50.579)
You know, the list goes on of great singers and artists, real artists. So once it got rolling, we would just, you know, you had to be smart with, my wife was very smart. My wife, you know, I just, she took care of the finances. I mean, the investing. And she's very property conscious and land.

So, you know, we would buy, we moved like six times to keep upgrading our position as our children got older. And real estate was really good for us. So I know people that have made a lot more than I have and have nothing to show for it because remember along the way there's a lot of land mines out there and one of them is, and it doesn't matter what the industry is.

Christian Brim (20:19.706)
Yes.

Peter bunetta (20:48.156)
But in our industry, you equate it with ours because it's rock and roll, but drugs along the way. I have so many friends that have spent their rewards in places that there were no returns. And so I was pretty lucky that way. I wasn't addicted to anything except making music.

Christian Brim (21:16.359)
Yeah.

Peter bunetta (21:17.713)
And so, you know, at this age now, enjoy it and now my children are in it and we've built a family business out of it and I've tried to give them the foundation and understanding and they've surpassed what I could have ever dreamed of in terms of working with the new technology and the new business. Yeah.

Christian Brim (21:44.7)
Well, let's talk about that for a minute. So, you know, the whole idea of family businesses is kind of antiquated. You know, there's not a lot of businesses that pass on from generation to generation anymore. Did you did you push your children to be in the business?

Peter bunetta (22:05.936)
You know, it's so funny. Our environment, their environment, our environment was all about music. My wife was like real accommodating when I had so many people. was all my wire, crazy, harebrained ideas of acts that lived with us. I would just, you know, chase our dreams together. Like if I had bands from England stay with us, I had...

I had reggae bands. So my kids lived in an environment with a lot of, you know, I call it the combination dreamers, riverboat gamblers. I was the riverboat gambler and we were all the dreamers. so my kids saw this energy. They saw their dad being an 11 year old, you know, with, and their mom, my wife gave us a lot of room.

Christian Brim (22:56.902)
Yeah.

Peter bunetta (23:02.824)
and supported the idea and the kids would come to the studio with me. They saw great musicians playing. They became musicians and studied music. And I never pushed them into it. was just what they grew up in and they loved it. They were drawn to it. But they saw, I think they saw the reality of it in a lot of ways because

Christian Brim (23:20.72)
Right. Right.

Peter bunetta (23:31.085)
There were instances where they saw me getting fired from a production for reasons that I thought were politically wrong or where it was just... I never played the full game of the music business. I never worked for a record company. I was always independent. I was asked.

Christian Brim (23:37.414)
Right? Right.

Peter bunetta (24:00.685)
but I thought independence suited my personality better. so, you know, there was disappointment and they saw me go through the ups and downs. They saw me not get out of bed for three weeks because, you know, the world had collapsed, my world collapsed. But, you know, it's just part of the landscape that we lived on, you know, it was...

We didn't have real eight, nine to five jobs in our house. But.

Christian Brim (24:34.012)
Right. So they went in with their eyes wide open. knew.

Peter bunetta (24:38.224)
wide, wide open and their uncle was a manager and a very successful business guy in the music business. And they saw a joy, you know, it was like we were in the joy business. We weren't in a bad business. We had fun. They lived in a great neighborhood. I didn't miss much. I was at every little league game, basketball game.

Christian Brim (24:53.484)
I love that.

Peter bunetta (25:08.46)
I participated, so I never chose to die on the music business hill.

Christian Brim (25:18.086)
You were an excellent father.

Peter bunetta (25:20.487)
I tried to be, I tried to do what I felt was necessary for my own sanity while I was chasing a business that was a slippery slope, climbing the slippery slope. And you really have to know, you gotta have the footwear, you gotta have the gulliver to take rejection, to believe.

What you have is really worth chasing. And you also have to know when to let it go and realize, okay, there's so many people on the team to make a hit record that someone else can fumble at the 10 in the red zone. You're in the red zone. It's right there. The record's signed. We got the deal. It's at radio and it dies at number 50.

Christian Brim (26:11.794)
Yeah.

Peter bunetta (26:22.59)
That's not my fault. Some of it, I mean, you you can't pinpoint what went wrong, but if it got to 50, why couldn't it get to 20?

Christian Brim (26:36.84)
So we were talking before we came on about balancing the creative passion and the money aspect. And you said that you had decided to remain independent. I assume that had to do with your creative independence.

Peter bunetta (26:59.632)
No question. No question. I mean, I've done, I've seen too many people die on the vine when they took a job with a check every Friday.

Christian Brim (27:03.026)
So.

Christian Brim (27:11.48)
So talk about that personally, like balancing your passion with the profits or the money. How do you go through that process of deciding what to work on, what not to work on?

Peter bunetta (27:21.554)
Well...

Peter bunetta (27:27.26)
Well, it's just, you know, again, you, you, it's like playing blackjack or playing poker. You know, you, you know, okay, I'm going to hold these and I'm going to throw these down and hope to get better cards. it's a gamble. You know, you don't play poker as a team. It's individual and it's your gut and it's luck. And when it's a subjective product, all those things are in the equation.

Christian Brim (27:40.754)
Right?

Christian Brim (27:46.578)
Right?

Christian Brim (27:50.674)
Right?

Christian Brim (27:57.168)
Yes.

Peter bunetta (27:57.229)
It's just your gut and how much do you want to put your head in the guillotine and hope that the lever stays and it doesn't come down and chop your head off that week or that day or that month. you just, it's instincts. And that's, made it, you know, I've chosen or I've tried to tell acts.

that I've worked with, won't name a thing, but I had an amazing deal. I made an amazing record on my own with this country group. And I went to Sharpe in Nashville. Everybody loved it. Two people that I respect very much.

Christian Brim (28:48.476)
Right?

Peter bunetta (28:55.43)
loved it, loved it, and other labels did. The group wanted to go with, I wanted to go with someone else because I knew we'd be better off there. They went with the other company for $40,000 more than my people were offering. And bad choice, because in the end, I got fired.

Christian Brim (29:07.645)
Right?

Christian Brim (29:17.212)
Yeah.

Peter bunetta (29:24.356)
They brought in someone else, and then they removed someone from the group, and the group never was heard of again.

Christian Brim (29:32.144)
Yeah.

Peter bunetta (29:32.834)
I'm feeling in my gut, I know we could have gone with my guys and gotten much more distance on that tank of the gas that was involved with the other label. I couldn't do anything because I didn't have that power. It wasn't a production deal. It was just me signing a personal thing with the group. And they had the last day, they were...

They're also underage, so parents had to say. And that's something that in any industry you have to really acquiesce when someone's not of the age to sign a contract. Your parents, and you know what? They don't know the business. I, yeah.

Christian Brim (30:21.338)
Yeah, parent. What do they call those parent? man momagers?

Peter bunetta (30:26.032)
Yeah, well this was a data ger. This was a data ger. But ultimately, you you have to quickly, just like in a game, have to quickly, that defeat is gone, let's go to the next one. And I'm not gonna, it did feel, it hurt, because I put a lot of work into it. But it prepares you for...

Christian Brim (30:47.208)
Sure.

Peter bunetta (30:52.597)
what the next event is because this is what you've chosen. There was no way I was gonna get it. What kind of job was I looking for? I wasn't looking for any other job. I just knew that this is who I am. And I think that's the real thing in any business. You gotta really have those conversations. The hardest conversation you'll ever have is with yourself. And you have to know that this is where I wanna be and I will outwork.

Christian Brim (31:15.858)
Yes.

Peter bunetta (31:22.036)
myself to make sure I get the best shot at this opportunity. And that's, don't teach that at Harvard. I don't know where they teach that. That's a personal, the street, exactly, the hustle, the understanding of when rent is due, when food, you open the refrigerator and there's something to eat. And also you're either going to take mass transit or you're going to have your own car.

Christian Brim (31:33.372)
The streets, that's where they, yeah.

Peter bunetta (31:52.212)
And to me, that was never in it. I wasn't about, I was never about, I didn't really care about car, model. I was never, it was more from the internal versus the external. And I would recommend anyone to really do the work from the inside out, not the outside in. It doesn't matter. Nowadays, the playing field is good. You don't need a big office anymore. You don't need.

Christian Brim (32:07.346)
Yes.

Peter bunetta (32:21.183)
like lavish receptionist and all, those days are over. Because you can do it from home quickly. People are making records. We have studios, we have all our studios on our properties. And we don't have elaborate offices. People sit with laptops across from each other. They congregate, they talk.

and there's no separation with little walls. So it's a different world now, it's completely different world. And all I can say is the product is your destination. What is it that you're trying to make? We try to make great music and deliver it with artists that are just...

you know, the best because it's crowded now. mean, there's 60,000 records a week being released. I mean, sometimes I can't even keep track, but I don't look at those things. We don't look at those numbers. not, they don't mean anything to us. We just know what we have to do. And so that's all we have control of. And I think, yeah. I was just going to say, like anything.

Christian Brim (33:26.93)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christian Brim (33:43.794)
So let, I'm sorry, go ahead.

Peter bunetta (33:49.265)
If you're in a race, the minute you look to the side, you're gonna lose that tenth of a second. The great Seinfeld episode, not episode, but it was the Olympics, the difference between gold and silver. It's like here, here. I'm always amazed when I go to these farmers markets. Everybody's selling the same thing next to each other. Why do I buy oranges from that guy and not that guy?

Christian Brim (33:56.061)
Mm-hmm.

You

Christian Brim (34:04.039)
Yeah, yeah.

Christian Brim (34:19.506)
Yes.

Peter bunetta (34:19.603)
They're right next door to each other. There's something has to happen. The way they have the signs, the way the bags are, the way they, uses Venmo, the other just takes cash. You know, it's just so many variables of everybody does it differently. So I can't, I just have to look at the way we do it and hope that people feel it and hear it because those combinations are deadly.

you know, in our industry, you know.

Christian Brim (34:52.21)
So I'm going to ask you a question you probably don't want to answer. Bands that you have not played for or had anything to do with the production. What are some of your favorites?

Peter bunetta (34:55.966)
Got it.

Peter bunetta (35:07.217)
Bands that I haven't played with or had nothing to do with the production. I'll think the greatest You know what I'm friends with you know, I'm I'm very close friends with guys and Elton John's band Davey Davey Johnstone who's one of the great great guitar players of Many generations who's been with Elton for 50 years I would have loved to play with Elton John or

Christian Brim (35:10.098)
Yes.

Peter bunetta (35:34.96)
been a part of those records. Those are just classics. You know, there's so many.

Christian Brim (35:42.716)
That's why I didn't ask you to name one. So top of your head.

Peter bunetta (35:47.156)
Yeah, there's the classic, know, there's great music. I've drawn from so much of it. And I can only say that, you know, that I'm a product of listening. I listen to everything. And even today, you know, my children, my boys are, you know, we're involved with so many great records. My son,

Christian Brim (36:02.695)
Hmm.

Peter bunetta (36:16.793)
Julian has written and produced, right now, out there is Teddy Swims, Sabrina Carpenter, Thomas Rhett. He developed, and he wrote, our writers too. We have a team of 15 writer-producers in the publishing company, and they have been responsible for One Direction, like 40.

Christian Brim (36:44.264)
Hmm.

Peter bunetta (36:44.527)
four of their songs, some of the best songs. Niles records, solo records, Harry's first solo record. Little Big Town, there's so much music. And I stand by all their music because I can listen to

Christian Brim (37:02.312)
So what do you gravitate to as a genre? Where do you?

Peter bunetta (37:08.215)
I'm all over the place. I love great songwriters like John Prine. I listen to the people I've just mentioned. I love great pop music. love Bruno Mars. I think he's amazing. I love Lady Gaga's stuff. I love Adele's stuff. We've got some great young talent that's coming out next year. There's a young kid named Obed Padilla.

He's Mexican-American. He's amazing. I'm so excited about that. I'm very contemporary. And plus, I listen to all the classics, whether it's Miles Davis, if it's the Stones, if it's the Beatles, if it's again Elton, if it's Cat Stevens.

Christian Brim (37:57.02)
Mmm.

Peter bunetta (38:08.035)
of its doo-wop. I love music. I love the narrative, the lyric, and I love great melody. So I listen to all the Motown records that I can, that I never get tired of great music. I just produced, co-produced a young writer we have.

named Mags Duval, and hopefully that'll come out next year. I'm involved in a musical that will go do a producer's workshop in November in New York. It's based on music from the 80s. And basically we wrote it in the 80s. We wrote it in 1985, 86, 87, I can't remember the year, but it's still...

Christian Brim (38:55.375)
Love it.

Peter bunetta (39:04.911)
drawing attention and energy. So I just lived it. I've been privileged to live this life of songs. Robbie Dupree still makes, well, we made a few records up until a few years ago that people can find. I still play with Robbie when he wanted to play music. I have a group called Playing for Change. I'm involved, yeah, yeah.

Christian Brim (39:28.678)
Well, that's what I wanted to ask you about. I didn't want to miss that plug, so tell us about that.

Peter bunetta (39:35.973)
Playing for Change was started 22 years ago by a guy who was an engineer of mine. We met on a project and he had played me this stuff he was working on. He would go film street musicians in New York and in LA. And anyway, it turned into becoming, we've built 22 schools around the world for music and art. I traveled for 10 years around the world to put a band together.

There's videos all over the internet playing for change. We take great songs. Playing for Change does not waste a great song. First one we did was Stand By Me and it went viral and it became a massive viral hit. And we had a documentary about Playing for Change that was well received at the Tribeca Film Festival and others.

And I just got back from, did this year, I did Byron Bay in Australia, the festival there in Tokyo. I've been around the world many times with the band and it's something like, you know, said, you still play? Yeah, I love playing and I get to see music from everywhere. And it's pretty powerful ingredient when you see people from different countries singing Hotel California.

Christian Brim (40:55.11)
Yeah.

Peter bunetta (41:04.761)
And they lived in a village somewhere in Congo. The power of it, and that fuels me. I'm making a Congolese record as we speak. I'm trying to do a little EP of some of that music. But our family business, the boys, Damon, my son Damon is, I think,

Christian Brim (41:13.649)
Right.

Peter bunetta (41:34.021)
brilliant business mind and he's a musician as well. His vision of what the future has become in music, he's right on the pulse of it. They make adjustments for all the delivery of how it's sold and it still comes down to artist and song. So I feel that the guys have now

fortified themselves with all the foundational tools that might increase your chances of success. So we have a great staff. Everybody's really smart, young people. They love music. They've got character. They've got integrity. They're kind. They're smart. And they understand the importance of

and knowing what you're selling. And so I've learned a lot from these young guys and girls. And I'm sure I'll continue to. And hopefully they learn something from me because they keep me around.

Christian Brim (42:46.458)
Well, all they have to do is listen because you have plenty of wisdom.

Peter bunetta (42:50.531)
Well, they give me love every day and I know when to stay away and let them run the ball. Just keep running the ball. you know, we don't turn it over much. We might not have success with everything we put out, but we do know how to score. And that's important because if you've never scored, frustration sets in.

and people that start a business and can't get it off the ground after a while, there's time constraints. I you only got so much money to fuel the business until you got to make some money before it can, you got to, you get your loan, you borrowed from people, however you do it. I told my sons when we started, let's keep.

Christian Brim (43:21.266)
Yes.

Christian Brim (43:38.792)
Yeah.

Peter bunetta (43:49.809)
$20,000 in the bank account all the time. Let's just never get below that. So we could take people out for breakfast, lunch or dinner. We can buy some upgrades of equipment and we'll just keep hustling. And that's what we did in the early days. My son, we got him a publishing deal at Warner's. So that gave him income.

That was active income. And that's really important because that set his sights and gave him an understanding of what it feels like to be paid for music. And right from there, he ran it, man. There was no one that would ever, I always say this to people when they ask you about, know, what's your company? And I say, you know, there's a bunch of talented kids. No one will outwork them.

Christian Brim (44:32.936)
Yeah.

Peter bunetta (44:47.748)
They might work as hard, but nobody's going to outwork our team. They really go do the job. They go network. They go understand the importance of taking someone out for a dinner and just the social aspect of networking. And again, not to politicize it, but to start relationships that really are important, whether it's with the major labels or...

Christian Brim (45:04.71)
Right.

Peter bunetta (45:17.647)
the now in the digital world, the people that run the Apple playlists and the Spotify's and the Amazon's and all the different portals that sell music. And just knowing the promoters of festivals, managers of artists, your whole, what my dad said to me way, way back, know your business.

music businesses is growing and growing and growing because a young kid sits in his bedroom and then puts it on puts it out there and before you know it a record company sees that like 50 million kids are Streaming that song and then they sign that's the new business. You know, it's it's just the way it's turned out I Have learned about it. I don't have to actively do it because

Christian Brim (46:02.299)
Right.

Peter bunetta (46:17.203)
All the company does that, the guys do that. And my sons know how to direct and empower everybody to grow and to, you know, go do it. You we can't hold your hand. I didn't hold my kids' hands along the way. They had to go out and feel it for themselves, and they did. And like I had to, like we all have to.

But I think failure is a piece of this recipe for success. If you don't fail, if you never get knocked out in the ring or get punched in the face, you don't know what it feels like. And you've got to be able to take that and come back and throw as well. And I think the rejection, maybe call it not failure, but rejection is a better word.

Christian Brim (47:01.97)
Yeah.

Peter bunetta (47:15.647)
If you don't have the thick skin when people tell you no over and over again and your guts telling you, a minute, I know this is good. You're not going to survive it. And that goes for anything. That's any business. I mean, obviously, if you open up a restaurant, like no one gets food poisoning in the music, you get ear poisoned by bad music. But, you know, in other businesses, there's some serious guidelines.

Christian Brim (47:30.354)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (47:38.758)
Right.

Peter bunetta (47:45.583)
In our business, we're just making it up. We're just making it up, really. And I tell everybody that in the company. Don't take yourself that seriously. Take your work seriously. And in that, you'll find the craft. It'll appear to you what the craft is, and then you just have to really get better at the craft. Like a carpenter, or a metal worker, or a mechanic.

just get better at the craft and you'll have repeat business. Without that, there is no business. There is no business.

Christian Brim (48:22.992)
I love that. Peter, I thank you so much for your time and your wisdom for sharing that. Listeners, if you like what you heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast. If you don't like Peter, then I'm really sorry. Right. Until later. Ta-ta for now.

Peter bunetta (48:32.107)
You're welcome, Christian. It's great.

Peter bunetta (48:43.951)
I'll go see my therapist.

Peter bunetta (48:51.823)
Thank you, brother.