00:00 Hey everybody, it's Peter Sincotti and you're watching Life Minute TV.
00:12 Renowned singer, songwriter and pianist Peter Sincotti is certainly something special.
00:17 The child prodigy started playing piano at age three and had his first professional gig
00:23 at 13.
00:29 By 20, he was playing the most prestigious venues around the globe.
00:33 On the heels of the 20th anniversary of his first record, he's just released his sixth
00:38 album, Killer on the Keys, 12 brilliant tracks that pay homage to his icons that not only
00:43 span generations and genres, but combine them in a unique way that's all his own.
00:49 And there are some beautiful originals too that tell a story of growing up in New York,
00:54 his life on the road and losing his father at 13 at his first professional show in New
00:59 York City.
01:06 This is a Life Minute with Peter Sincotti.
01:09 Thanks so much for joining us on Life Minute.
01:10 Thank you for having me, good to be here.
01:12 Aw, so glad to have you.
01:14 This is my sixth full length album and I think it basically ties together the diversity of
01:20 my past albums.
01:21 For anybody who's followed me through the years, I've made like five very different
01:25 sounding records and they're all known for different things, especially my first record.
01:29 And then I started traveling the world and started writing my own music on my third record,
01:34 which was kind of a musical shift.
01:36 That's when I met guys like David Foster and the sound changed, the audience changed, and
01:41 then now this record to me connects it all in a way that's based on the piano and my
01:48 piano playing idols ranging from Jerry Lee Lewis to Billy Joel to John Lennon to people
01:55 like Lady Gaga, Coldplay, Oscar Peterson, like people you would not think of in the
02:00 same sentence.
02:01 This record in some ways is born out of what I craved when I saw my idols playing.
02:08 So if I were to go to like a Billy Joel concert, I would love, I love Billy Joel or Elton John.
02:13 But sometimes on certain songs, when it came to like the musical section, I wanted to hear
02:18 like a different kind of piano solo.
02:21 When I would go see the jazz guys, I wanted to hear some storytelling from like a Billy
02:25 Joel or a Paul Simon or a James Taylor.
02:27 And I thought, you know what, there's got to be a way to have both.
02:30 So that's why like I do a Coldplay song with kind of a Bill Evans influenced introduction.
02:37 Or Bruce Hornsby, I combined Bruce Hornsby's style, the way he played with John Lennon's
02:51 Imagine.
03:01 Have you met any of those people, your idols?
03:03 I met a few.
03:04 I met Billy Joel.
03:05 I do one of his songs.
03:06 I met Ray Charles.
03:07 I met Elton John.
03:08 I actually opened for Ray Charles right before he passed away.
03:12 We shared this.
03:13 I couldn't believe it.
03:14 It was in Montreal and he was really nice.
03:17 I remember meeting him backstage.
03:18 I couldn't believe my name was on the same bill, but I've been fortunate enough to meet
03:23 a few of my idols.
03:27 What is the creative process like for you?
03:29 A lot of these tracks were born during the pandemic.
03:31 So that's a very obviously particular kind of time.
03:34 We're locked in the apartment.
03:35 I'm in New York City the whole time looking out at the city that never sleeps and watching
03:39 it sleeping.
03:40 But there was something about being in New York during this time and that did affect
03:44 the creative process.
03:45 I woke up one day and there was a song there, probably the most personal song I wrote.
03:51 It must have been in a dream or something where I got up and went to the piano and I
03:56 had the title of the track called "Ghost of My Father," which is about my father and his
04:01 passing, which I never really spoke about, let alone performed.
04:18 There was something very cathartic about that process, particularly with a song like that.
04:23 And the melody was there.
04:25 And that period of time, being in a quarantine forced you to press pause on a lot of things.
04:30 And then what opens up when you can't do anything else kind of is affected.
04:35 And the creative process is affected for sure.
04:38 That has its fingerprint on these tracks as well.
04:41 Did you always know you wanted to play piano?
04:43 I mean, you were young when you started.
04:45 I was very young.
04:46 I was three years old.
04:47 My grandmother bought me this toy piano for my third birthday.
04:51 And she taught me.
04:52 It was like one of those 10 key wooden things in the 80s.
04:54 And she taught me to play "Happy Birthday" on it.
04:56 And apparently I played it like right back after her, something like that.
05:00 I don't remember it, but I just remember being drawn to it.
05:03 And then we got a real piano in the house.
05:04 And I started taking lessons.
05:06 And I was immediately drawn to it.
05:08 But I never had a moment where I was like, this is what I'm going to do.
05:10 To me, it was just assumed.
05:12 By the time I came of age in my teens to figure out what's your going to be in the profession,
05:16 I didn't even think about it.
05:17 I was already playing gigs.
05:19 I grew up in New York.
05:20 That was a big part of my education and the opportunity to sit in at clubs.
05:25 I had teachers that would play in clubs.
05:27 And I'd be 10, 11, 12.
05:28 And they'd say, come up, come up.
05:30 And then I had my first real professional gig of my own when I was 13.
05:34 How did that happen?
05:35 Did your parents get you into it?
05:37 I was lucky to have parents that exposed me to all kinds of music, rock concerts at Madison
05:44 Square Garden, Broadway shows, jazz clubs, blues.
05:48 So they were very encouraging.
05:49 And that shaped me as a person, let alone in my music.
05:53 When my first record came out, I was at Columbia University.
05:57 And it was my second.
05:58 And I got signed.
06:00 And I was kind of playing a lot then in the city.
06:03 And then I had to make a decision.
06:05 And I left Columbia and just started touring around the world.
06:09 So it's been, depending on the record cycle, it's been on and off, on and off.
06:12 But it's a really fascinating life.
06:15 And you don't know where you got it from?
06:17 I don't know if it was on my mother's side.
06:18 I guess my mother's side was more artistic in general.
06:21 But then again, on my father's side, too, there's a couple there.
06:24 So no one did it as a profession.
06:25 But it's somewhere in the blood, I guess.
06:28 And then the famous Carlisle, you're going to be playing there, right?
06:31 Yeah, Cafe Carlisle, we started about a year ago, a little over a year ago.
06:35 We've done so many shows there.
06:37 So we keep coming back.
06:38 It's kind of like my New York base.
06:40 And there's no place like it.
06:42 We have five nights coming up, October 3 to the 7.
06:46 For those who haven't been, it's really a one of a kind venue.
06:49 Plus, the martinis are strong.
06:50 So everybody's loose.
06:52 What's your favorite thing about New York?
06:54 Yeah, there's no place like it.
06:55 What could you say?
06:56 There's a quote a friend of mine says a lot.
06:58 I think it was a John Updike quote saying, if you don't live in New York,
07:01 you're just kidding.
07:02 I was blind to a lot of it because I grew up in it.
07:06 And then I thought the whole world was kind of like that.
07:08 And then when you start seeing the world,
07:10 you realize how unique it is, how diverse it is.
07:13 And musically, I have a lot to be grateful for that I attribute to this
07:17 city.
07:18 And you have quite a following, too.
07:20 It's fascinating, especially nowadays on social media,
07:23 connecting with people and seeing where they are.
07:26 I did this thing for a while called That Friday Feeling with Peter,
07:30 another thing that kind of got me through the pandemic.
07:33 And it was a live stream.
07:35 And I would connect.
07:36 And I'd just go like every Friday at 6 PM, I'd make a drink.
07:39 And I would just talk to my followers.
07:42 Cheers.
07:43 Cheers.
07:44 What a drink.
07:46 Ridiculous.
07:47 And that was really the first time I saw where everybody was.
07:50 Because up until that moment, I never really stopped and engaged like that.
07:54 And since then, I've had a better relationship with my fans and followers
07:57 all around the world.
07:59 And now even at live shows, it's like, who watched that?
08:02 Who tuned in?
08:03 And one guy's like, oh, I was the guy in the hot tub with the drink
08:06 from London.
08:07 Or this was like, wow, look at where they are.
08:09 Or like in France.
08:10 And you see where they are, which is really
08:12 the good thing about social media.
08:15 What do you do when you're not working?
08:16 I like to cook a lot.
08:18 And that's one of my favorite things, just have some wine or make a martini.
08:23 And there's something very therapeutic, not only about the martini,
08:27 but about the process of cooking that I like a lot.
08:30 And I think it's funny.
08:31 I wrote this thing I want to try to develop at one point,
08:34 the correlation between building a dish and building a song.
08:37 And there's so many overlaps.
08:38 And let's talk about Italian food.
08:40 The bass and drums are like the core, right?
08:43 If you screw that up, the bass and drums, the core and the rhythm
08:46 isn't there.
08:47 That's very much like garlic and olive oil.
08:50 If you burn that garlic, no matter what you do,
08:53 it's going to come through the whole dish.
08:55 So those are the core.
08:56 But there's a lot of layers to it.
08:58 And at the end, sprinkle a little salt or olive oil
09:00 is like the mixing and the mastering, just the sheen.
09:03 So there's a whole world of overlaps that I could talk about forever.
09:06 What does music do for people?
09:08 Well, I think it does different things to different people.
09:12 Some people just listen to it in the background.
09:14 I'm not really one of those.
09:16 It's very hard for me to concentrate.
09:17 If something's playing, if it's good, I can't--
09:19 like, it's hard for me to talk because I'm listening.
09:23 But it's therapeutic.
09:24 I mean, it can be so many things to different people.
09:26 It's a mood changer.
09:27 It changes your perspective.
09:29 And since this is Life Minute, what's your biggest life tip?
09:32 What's that quote about?
09:34 "Play the hand you're dealt as if it were your own."
09:37 Because everybody has different challenges.
09:40 Everybody gets different cards.
09:42 But those are your cards.
09:43 And you've got to play it like it's your own
09:45 and be you, become yourself.
09:47 To hear more of this interview, visit our podcast,
09:50 Life Minute TV on iTunes and all streaming podcast platforms.
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