Giving Back with Gift of Music

Santa Barbara Businessman Turned Musician Pete Muller Releases a New Album ‘More Time’ and Plays a Benefit Concert at SOhO

Pete Muller | Photo: Courtesy

Creatively fueled by the duality of his passions, local singer/songwriter Pete Muller’s sixth studio album, More Time, releases on Friday, May 17. In addition to his music career, Muller runs a successful finance firm and a nonprofit that supports small music venues. Accompanied by his band the Kindred Souls and opened by local musician Bradberri, Muller’s SOhO show on Thursday, May 30, will benefit Mission Scholars, an organization that provides guidance for low-income students seeking higher education.

Muller has always considered giving back to his community as a reward for his success, which was the inspiration behind his nonprofit Live Music Society. After his first time on the road, Muller gained an appreciation for all of the small clubs and listening rooms that welcomed him with open ears. “I just thought, ‘How are these people making money?’” he asked himself. “I’m lucky enough to have to be doing music for money. I’m doing it for love. Is there a way that I can help?”

Originally established in 2018 as a grant-writing initiative to help small venues improve business with facility upgrades, when the pandemic hit, Live Music Society switched gears and became a saving grace for venues to stay afloat in shutdown. “We helped a number of clubs survive that probably wouldn’t have made it, and that felt really great,” he said. Now with more notoriety and funds, Live Music society has returned to their original goal of helping venues make improvements like artist bathrooms and new sound systems. (See the Independent story about the nonprofit here.)

Although many themes run throughout the record, Muller’s generous attitude inspired his second single from More Time, “Run Out of Love,” a collaboration with Grammy Award–winning songwriter Lisa Loeb released on March 21. “You can run out of breath, you can run out of time / Run yourself ragged, or run behind / You can run like the wind, run ‘til you’re sore / You can run ‘til you just can’t run no more / But even when you think you might be giving too much / There ain’t no way you can run out of love,” he sings.

To avoid deterring listeners from applying their own interpretation to the lyrics, Muller doesn’t like to fully divulge on what they mean to him, but shared that he draws creativity from both sides of his life. “I’m a math nerd and puzzle guy. That’s one half of my brain. The other side is the creative musical person, but both of those are kind of united by creativity,” he said.

Finding the balance between his personal life, running his business, and creating music has been an ongoing journey for Muller, but right now he is heavily devoted to his music. “If you’re trying to do something at the highest level, it requires an almost obsessive devotion. And that can get in the way of being a good father or a good husband because [one’s] art takes full precedence over anything else. What time is left for the other things?” he asked himself. “So that is kind of the conflict that informs some of the songs.”

Having the opportunity to work with Grammy Award–winning producer Matt Ross-Spang, Muller wrote and recorded the album in Memphis. As someone who does well on a deadline, Muller worked with a talented songwriting circle, each of who would show up each Monday with a completed song to workshop. Taking Muller out of his comfort zone, Ross-Spang works without a click track, which allows the “music to breathe a lot,” according to Muller.

When it came to recording, Muller fronted a renowned ensemble composed of bassist Dave Smith, guitarist Will Sexton, organist Rick Steff, and drummer Ken Coomer, along with a host of other horn players and background vocalists. Prior to recording, the MP3 files Muller shared with the band underwent a “weird distortion” that made it so they were barely audible, forcing recording day to be the first time the group would play the songs. “That actually made for something that was really raw and worked out in a way that I really liked,” Muller said.

Muller describes his musical style as “If Bruce Springsteen and Shawn Colvin had a kid, but instead of playing guitar, the kid played piano.” Falling somewhere between blues, jazz, and rock ‘n’ roll, More Time includes both ballads and up-tempo songs, but all of them are lyrically driven. Muller’s biggest music influences are Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Joni Michell, and Billy Joel (to name a few), but he listens to everything from Dawes to Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish.

Continuing to pour energy into his music, Muller almost has enough songs for another album and is continuing to create while on tour. To learn more about Muller and listen to the album dropping on Friday, visit petemuller.com. To purchase tickets for the upcoming show at SOhO on May 30 at 7:30 p.m., visit sohosb.com/events/pete-muller-the-kindreds-soul-soho-sb-2.