Interview: Peter Himmelman

Peter Himmelman has been around the kids' music scene for a while -- not as long as he's been making music for a living -- but his first album for families, My Best Friend is a Salamander, came out in 1997. He's adapted nicely to the brave new world of the music industry, scoring the Judging Amy TV series and creating not one, but two video series for the internet (more on that below). His fifth album for kids, My Trampoline, is being released today on the new Minivan Productions kids music label. I talked to him by phone last week, calling him at 8 AM -- not just my time, but also his time. Despite getting in from a songwriting workshop at 1 AM that same morning, Himmelman was thoughtful, expansive regarding his views on kids and music for kids, and, as befits a man who tells lots of ornate stories, far more verbally agile than I typically am at that hour... Zooglobble: Thanks for taking such an early call... Peter Himmelman: Oh, no problem -- please don't tell anyone that I don't live a bohemian lifestyle... So I'll start off with a question I typically ask in every interview, and that's what musical memories you had growing up? That's a good question worth asking. When I was 5 or 6, I'd listen with my older sister, who was 12; this was maybe 1966 or so. I would hear the Beatles' "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" or maybe "Stop in the Name of Love". The ever-enchanting "House of the Rising Sun." I remember the electric organ -- snippets of songs can be very moving. Then when I was 7 or 8, I'd play with my friend Doug Kauffman -- he had some free LPs. We'd listen and pretend the stuffed animals were the band. The rabbit would be the singer, flopping around. I enjoyed it more than he did, which is maybe why I went into music and he went into finance. You tell a lot of stories in your songs, so do you also have any book memories from growing up? Oh, Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach. My mom would read to me from a collection called Kiss, Kiss, which was kind of dark. Shel Silverstein. Maurice Sendak, of course - Where the Wild Things Are. Jules Verne... My first book I can remember really getting into was Scott O' Dell's Island of Blue Dolphins. Oh, we had these stories on vinyl -- I remember 101 Dalmatians. I also liked audio stories -- I still do. I like the aural imagery. Do you segregate your writing for kids?

Interview: Murray Cook (The Wiggles)

Note: This interview, conducted on behalf of the Phoenix New Times, can also be found here. Reprinted with permission. Talking with The Wiggles' Murray Cook -- AKA the Red Wiggle, the group's lead guitarist -- is akin to talking to one of the Beatles, and finding out that they're really down-to-earth blokes. Before meeting Anthony Field and Greg Page while studying early childhood education Macquarie University, Cook played in various bands such as The Finger Guns. In 1991, Field, Page, and he formed the Wiggles. The rest is brightly-colored history. It's possible that being the highest earning entertainers in Australia -- beating out Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban and Kylie Minogue -- has gone to their head, but nothing in our conversation with while he was in New York waiting to do a meet-and-greet suggested anything of the sort. In fact, it was a little bit like talking to your neighbor down the street -- if your neighbor down the street not only earned more than Kylie Minogue but also released a single ("Monkey Man") with her. Cook and the rest of the Wiggles (sans Minogue, sadly) will appear in two shows at Phoenix's Dodge Theatre today. Read on for more info on the Red Wiggle... Zooglobble: What music did you listen to growing up? Murray Cook: Well, it was the '60s, so a lot of the Beatles, of course... There's a long-running TV show in Australia called Playschool -- forty years and still running -- I watched that. But, of course, the Beatles and the Stones were important. At about 11 or 12 I started playing the guitar -- became obsessed with it, really. Kept on playing it. My dad in particular suggested that there might not be a career in it. About ten years ago, my dad said he was probably wrong that, which was nice for him to say... What process do you and the band go through in writing music? It's all pretty collaborative with us. Anthony's brother [Paul Field] helps out with the music, though Anthony does a lot with lyrics. Paul Paddick, who's Captain Feathersword, also contributes. We all work together, all on the same page. How about Greg [Page, the original Yellow Wiggle]? Yeah, after Greg decided to leave the group, he got away from it completely, a totally clean break. You're starting this new tour -- how long does it take you to prep for taking a show on tour?

Interview: Adam Levy (Bunny Clogs)

The Twin Cities' Adam Levy's got a lot going on -- still working with his main band The Honeydogs and a side project with a name he hesitates to use on a kids music site (it's OK, Adam, I mentioned it anyway), he's also got a kid-friendly side project called Bunny Clogs. He released More! More! More! earlier this year -- it's definitely one of the most interesting kids' CDs of the year, but it's also got some of the most entertaining tracks of the year, too. (Here's the review.) Adam recently answered a few questions about the project -- read on for how the album's like an old De La Soul disk, the unique aspects of playing for kids, and his defense and critique of contemporary pop music (in other words, arguments for and against Miley Cyrus). Zooglobble: What music did you listen to growing up? Adam Levy: Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. KISS. The Beatles. Sly and the Family Stone. Hendrix. Dylan. I'd have to say the diversity of '70's radio was the biggest impact in my early childhood -- you heard elements of everything in pop radio from that era: British pop, soul, funk, country, classical, disco, prog, hard rock, blues. I also remember an explosion of interesting children's music in that Sesame Street era -- Free To Be You and Me, Carole King's Really Rosie, Harry Nilsson's The Point. When did you first know you wanted to make music for a living? When I was 12... You've been writing some of the Bunny Clogs songs for a while now -- how did you get into writing these songs?

Interview: Molly Ledford (Lunch Money)

Everything I like about Molly Ledford and the awesome band she leads, Lunch Money, can be summed up, I think, in that photo to the left, which Molly titled "cookie eclipse of the head." The self-effacing nature, the humor, the goofiness, the well-thought out design -- all of which Lunch Money and that picture have in spades. So without any further ado, here's Molly on the first time she was banned from singing something, her peppy song about a horror movie from the '70s, and why having fun (and looking like it) is an important part of being in Lunch Money. There is also some gauntlet-throwing, so please watch your heads. Zooglobble: What music did you listen to growing up? My parents always had records playing - Paul Simon, Roberta Flack, Neil Diamond, Billy Joel, Ray Charles, Kingston Trio, The Spinners, Vince Guaraldi. Most of it I enjoyed, except that I think I got subjected to Barbra Streisand's Guilty (the Barry Gibb collaboration) a few too many times on long trips to Pennsylvania. In the car, my brother and I would perk up when Glen Campbell's "Rhinestone Cowboy" would come on the radio. Or the chorus of British children singing in Pink Floyd's "The Wall." Or I even remember being delighted by Monty Python's "I Bet You They Won't Play This Song on the Radio" with all its funny sound effects. I think kids have always listened to their parents' music and panned for something they could relate to. But one moment that truly rocked me was the night my dad blasted Meet the Beatles shortly after I had gone to bed (maybe he thought he had headphones plugged in? It was unusually loud....). I think I was about seven at the time. I came running out, enthralled. My parents would not let me play their copy on my own relatively crummy record player, but I luckily found one at my neighbor's garage sale for a quarter. It was totally scratched, and I listened to it over and over. So really I became way more familiar with my personal scratched copy. I could sing along to every skip. I also listened to Casey Kasem's Top 40 every weekend in my room on an old clock radio, and I remember falling into a happy trance when Olivia Newton-John's "Magic" came on the first time. When did you first start getting interested in writing music (generally, not for kids)? My mom got me a guitar when I was nine and I took some lessons, but I have to credit my ever-scheming friend around the corner with getting me started on songwriting. One day she said she was writing a song (she was always up to something), so I tried my hand at it too. I came up with something especially for us to perform at the school talent show (we were in 6th grade). For some reason my chorus contained the lines, "I run away and throw away these chains. It doesn't solve my problems, but it helps to ease the pain." But to my surprise, when I gave my mom a sneak peek at my talent show song, she forbade me to play it. So we ended up covering "Take It to the Limit" instead. In high school I really started writing songs (still with angst, this time only semi-imaginary) and have been in bands ever since.

Interview: Debbie Cavalier (Debbie and Friends)

Debbie Cavalier leads a double life -- not only is she behind Debbie and Friends, which offers a bunch of songs (and animation) squarely aimed at preschoolers (and maybe their older siblings), she's also the Dean of Continuing Education at Berklee College of Music's online division. So she's got a pretty broad perspective on life as a musician, educator, and entrepreneur. (She's also a really nice person.) Read on for her inspiration for Debbie and Friends, some music education tips, and the worst part about playing keyboards. Zooglobble: What music did you listen to growing up? Debbie Cavalier: My mom always played a lot of Tom Jones and Neil Diamond in the house when I was a kid. She also played my grandfather records a lot: The Marty Gold Orchestra. My grandfather has been a huge influence on my musical life. I just wrote a blog post about this. Upon getting my own record player in elementary school in the mid 70s, my favorites rotations up were Elton John, Carole King, Billy Joel, the Bee Gees, Carly Simon, and Bruce Springsteen. Elton John definitely got more airplay in my room than anyone else. What was the path that led you to your current job at Berklee and what does that job entail?

Interview: Robert Schneider (Robbert Bobbert)

Every time I hear or see Robert Schneider, head man for the indie-pop group Apples in Stereo, I'm totally convinced that his side project Robbert Bobbert and the Bubble Machine isn't some cynical grab for attention -- he's 110%, maybe even 120%, jazzed by the stuff he does for kids. His fun debut album as Robbert Bobbert for Little Monster Records -- Robbert Bobbert and the Bubble Machine -- may have just come out this year, but as you'll read in the interview below, he's been working on a lot of this stuff for a long time. Zooglobble: What music do you remember listening to growing up? Robert Schneider: I was born in Cape Town, South Africa, so my early years were in a beach city. South Africa is where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans merge; they have awesome beaches and surf. After our family moved back to America, I eventually discovered the Beach Boys. I think their music reminded me of the feeling of living by the ocean. My parents listened to a lot of Cat Stevens. I love his music – Tea for the Tillerman and the song “Moonshadow.” I saw Harold and Maude when I was around 12, and it is one of my favorite movies with its great Cat Stevens soundtrack. However, the Beach Boys are still my favorite band. My son Max (age 8) likes them too - he heard Brian Wilson perform Pet Sounds when he was in the womb; and later saw him perform the songs from Smile - but I think he likes the Beatles a little bit more. He came into the Beatles on his own, hearing the music around the house and from other family members who are big Beatles fans. What impact did other pop culture (e.g., TV, movies) have on your musical tastes? TV was banned in South Africa until 1976. There simply wasn’t any TV there because the government thought it would corrupt the populace. In my last year there when I was 6, I can remember seeing TV for first time…there was a little picture of a springbok going across the savannah in black & white and thinking, “Wow – a movie in my house!” Prior to that, what people did was play movies at home on projectors. You could rent movies at the local store. When our family moved to America, I watched a ton of TV that first year. Between the ages of 6 and 7 (1977-78), I watched a massive amount of reruns and basically got caught up on American culture. I also listened to a lot of 70’s pop and disco, mostly from TV. This permeated my mind. So, the TV world of the 1970s probably influenced me somewhat. When I was in middle school, MTV first came out. We lived in the college town of Ruston, LA. The local cable TV service would not carry MTV, but Louisiana Tech had a satellite disc. My dad was a professor there, and I went to a school on campus (it was awesome! We had a planetarium, regular music class, art classes). Every day after school, once MTV started, my friends and I walked over to the student center on campus and watched MTV on the giant screen. I had to go out of my way to get it, so it was really special. I have great memories of the early years of MTV. There was a great show in the 80s called The Cutting Edge. I also watched 120 Minutes -- the absolute hippest music was on there, like REM and Robyn Hitchcock. I discovered this noncommercial, alternative music existed, and it blew my young mind. Most of my early musical influences came from buying records, reading magazines and listening to Louisiana Tech's great radio station KLPI. What came first -- the songs (or the album) or Robbert Bobbert?