MAY WEST
About May West
Peter and the Plungers to May West
1970 - 1980---After touring a million gigs with my band ‘Colorado’ with Kip Winger, and after two years and a mere several thousand gigs with my band ‘Tightrope’, (who wore ripped-up tuxes, short gym shorts, bathrobes and full combination long undergarments), and long before I was cavorting with ‘Pigmy Love Circus’---I was a janitor...
1980---Southglenn Mall in Littleton, Colorado. My boss Joe Poffel and his assistant Greg Hanson, were the nucleus of a concept I was devising called Plungerock (derived from frequent use of the device used to dislodge solids from a commode). Joe played bass and Greg the drums. I cruised the mall doing my chores and wrote lots of songs in my head that I would show to Joe and Greg on Friday nights when we got off work. We became ‘Peter and the Plungers’, and played some gigs in Denver. I was a bit restless, and in 1982 found cause to follow a bird to San Jose California.
David Browning; who I met during a short visit the previous year, had a group called MAY WEST. When I joined the band there was another guitar player; a tall good looking drummer called Paul Wesley, a great hard rock singer called Rick Bernal and David Browning on bass. They were playing some odd covers and a couple of David Browning originals. Their look and sound wasn’t very cohesive but I could see that David Browning was a pure rockstar in the making.
David Browning: Six-pack abs; strapping physique, extremely confident, totally committed, Dungeon Master, great business savvy and a bushel of natural curly hair that would be the envy of Sly Stone on his best day. We really hit it off from the git go! I got the first job I could find which turned out be: a janitor...
1982---The Odyssey Room in Sunnyvale, Ca. I eventually worked my up to main daytime bartender when I was fired, and went to work for David Browning at the his rehearsal studios: The Rock Garden in downtown San Jose.
Between hanging drywall, carpet and egg cartons with DB and drummer Paul Wesley at the Rock Garden---we played as a three piece during a smoke break. I showed them a couple of my songs and it really clicked. Immediately the other guitar was out, and though I liked Rick as a singer---he was out also. Soon it was apparent that Paul wasn’t the powerhouse drummer that a quirky three piece power trio requires. He was sacked and the search was on for a new drummer. Enter Ron Fucking Campbell! Boastful, broad chested and full of untapped energy. When RFC auditioned I thought my head was gonna explode! He’s so great and can sing like a bird ta boot! It’s on! MAY WEST mother fathers!
This album captures the vibe and quirkiness of MAY WEST. Of all the bands I’ve played in and records I’ve made throughout my time here---This is my favorite!
---Peter Fletcher 2015
REVIEWS
“MAY WEST RETURNS WITH “MUSCLE MEMORY”
Singer-Songwriter-Producer Peter Fletcher Revives Revered Rock Trio for First New Album in Twenty-Five Years
Peter Fletcher is an intuitive, effortlessly expressive musician destined to project himself and entertain others with a guitar in his hand and a mic at his mouth. By age 11 he was already in a working rock band (alongside future hair metal heartthrob Kip Winger) and spent the next dozen years criss-crossing his native Colorado playing every venue that would have them.
When Winger went east (to join Alice Cooper’s band), Fletcher went west, plying his trade around California before washing up in Los Angeles where he formed legendary hard-knocks rockers Pigmy Love Circus (featuring Tool drummer Danny Carey). PLC staggered and brawled their way through four critically-acclaimed albums while touring coast to coast, sharing stages with everyone from Jane’s Addiction and 311 to Killing Joke and A Perfect Circle.
But last year, back in Colorado, Fletcher got the urge to revisit his early ‘80s outfit May West; a ludicrously talented San Jose, CA trio exploring that oft-forgotten stylistic wonderland between organic ‘70s hard rock and histrionic ‘80s heavy metal. Writing a dozen new songs with May West in mind, he reassembled its original line-up (completed by bassist/vocalist David Browning and singing drummer Ron Campbell) in 2015 to record Muscle Memory.
“Of all the bands I’ve played in and records I’ve made throughout my time here, this is my favorite!” Fletcher enthused.
True to the album’s title, Fletcher and co. hadn’t missed a metaphorical beat over their two decades apart and quickly laid-down an album full of the articulate musicality, succulent vocal harmonies, and everyman’s lyrical sensibilities upon which May West originally made its name.
“This album captures the vibe and quirkiness of May West,” said Fletcher, who also produced the collection.
Proudly blue-collar opener “The Plunge” (a reference to Fletcher’s days as a janitor) sets the tone for Muscle Memory, a record that deftly traverses the summery, wistful “Run For Cover”; Alice in Chains-y “Soon”; and “Pelican Parade’s” delicate, acoustic melodicism with equal aplomb. Throughout, May West displays an uncanny ability to weave often complex individual parts into linear emotional statements and stories, all embellished with Fletcher’s breathtakingly fluid and emotive six-string outpourings.
But it says much for the sheer quality and consistency of the delightfully filler-free Muscle Memory that the album saves its best for last. “Love Water Memory”, based on the Jennie Shortridge novel of the same name and built around Fletcher’s mesmerizing 12-string mastery, is a five-minute sensory-overload of nostalgia, rumination, heavenly harmonies, and stirring guitars.
[Fletcher quote about “Love Water Memory” here?”]
With Muscle Memory already earning glowing reviews, Peter Fletcher is assembling a new, Colorado-based band to perform its effortlessly accomplished compositions live.”
LISTEN NOW
GALLERY
