Biography

Pete Grubbs is a singer/songwriter from rural Western Pennsylvania. He began performing as a singer while still in elementary school and landed his first professional gig as an undergraduate student in college. He has fronted several local bands in the past, but now prefers to focus upon his career as a solo musician.

Pete has played coffee shops and bars in cities throughout Western Pennsylvania including Erie, Pittsburgh, Williamsport and points in between. He has also performed in such exotic locales as Akron, Ohio and Beaufort, South Carolina. In 1989, he became involved with the Science Fiction community and has been steadily active in it ever since, appearing as a music guest or Guest of Honor at conventions in Winnipeg, Canada (Conadian '94 & Keycon '95), Rye Town, NY (Lunacon '93, '94), Detroit, (Confusion '90 - '99), Chicago, (DuckCon '98, '01) and Columbus, OH (OVFF '96).

Pete first began writing and recording music in 1986 at Sound Cellar Studios (now defunct) and released his first album, Face the Flame , late in that year. In 1991, he followed that effort with Twistin' In The Wind . Both releases were carried by a small, independent label in Oakland California, Wail Songs (now defunct). In 2000, he installed an 8-track digital recording studio in his home and, in early 2001, he released his first CD, This Space for Rent . This effort was completely recorded and mastered in his home studio. He also burned all of the copies offered for sale in his studio, created all of the artwork and printed the booklets and inserts for the CD in his home.

As a composer, Pete draws from a number of disparate sources. He has been a parrothead for over 20 years and credits Jimmy Buffet for teaching him much of what he knows as a songwriter. He has also been deeply influenced by Southern rockers like the Allman Brothers and Lynerd Skynerd, blues artists B. B. King and Robert Johnson and classical guitarists Andre Segovia and Christopher Parkening. All of these voices can be found lurking in his recorded arrangements. As a guitarist, Pete is comfortable in a number of different genres. He has a very strong finger picking style which he uses most often on his Ibanez 7-string acoustic or one of his Martins, but can also be found blasting out power cords or blues riffs on a well-worn Strat. In recent years, he has begun developing a considerable repetoire on slide guitar, favoring open tunings in E and D. He has also studied some classical styles and has been known to include one or two pieces from this genre in his SF concert appearances. All of these different influences make their appearances in his original music blending to create songs which are as hard to pigeon-hole as they are easy to enjoy. As a lyricist, Pete draws from his deep background in English literature, his knowledge of traditional blues lyrics and from the stories in his family's past, handed down to him from his father. The songs which develop from these dizzyingly different sources can be highly refined and complex or disarmingly simple and earthy.

Not unlike the man himself.

--McMurdy, the Grinning Dwarf, June 4, 2001 

Copyright © 2001 Pete Grubbs. All rights reserved.