July 2024 NEWSLETTER

Hi everyone,

Hope you’re having a good summer. I’m back home after a busy summer of touring before heading to Chicago for Lollapalooza. In addition to playing with the Killers at major U.S. festivals (Boston Calling, Governors Ball NYC) and their 20th anniversary Rebel Diamonds shows in the UK and Ireland, I recently played my own solo shows for the first time in several major cities, including Dublin, Manchester, Glasgow, London and New York City.

Click below to watch a live performance of one of my new songs, “I Could Take You Somewhere,” at Third Man Records in London earlier this month.

Learning On The Job

The original premise for playing these solo shows was to test out ten new songs, inspired mainly by ‘70s rock and heartland rock, in front of audiences and learn how to best sing them before I finish them off for release. As a consequence of playing unreleased material no one’s ever heard before, I was compelled to find new ways of making my live show more engaging. Instead of just busking on guitar, I played more piano this time around, adding bass lines and counterpart figures for more varied support of the vocal. I also added drum machines and looping pedals to hold the foundations of songs so I could be free to play more guitar solos.

Terror and Triumph in New York

As I list these improvements, I am reminded how none of them mattered at my first-ever New York City solo show on July 17th, where none of my equipment pieces worked through the house PA.

Fortunately, New York is a magical place, where unplanned events that only seem to happen in movies happen on a daily basis, making my debut show in The City one I’ll never forget.  

Stuart Matthewman

First, Stuart Matthewman, a musical hero of mine and friend, agreed to join me onstage for two songs. An unassuming Englishman living in Brooklyn, Stuart is also the sax player, guitarist, and songwriter for Sade and responsible for some of the best R&B music ever made.

My song “Let Me In” is directly inspired by his work with Sade, so performing it for him during rehearsal, as he stood three feet away watching and listening, was both terrifying and fun. When Stuart arrived at the Rockwood with his sax, I realized I hadn’t scared him off completely and that he was, in fact, going to play after all.

Pete Thomas

The second supernatural intervention came in the form of drummer Pete Thomas.

Pete is one of my favorite drummers ever from his career with Elvis Costello and his drum work with Suzanne Vega. Pete plays drums on my new record, too, and though we had communicated frequently by phone and Dropbox, I’d never seen him play or met him in person.

The only way I’d been able to see Pete play live this year is if, on the way home to Vegas, I stopped in New York the Tuesday after the Killers European tour ended and caught Pete’s show with Elvis Costello at Radio City Music Hall. My friend Jeff Beyda and I saw the show, and both the band and Pete were as great as I imagined they would be.

Pete and his wife came out to my show the following night, where we finally got a chance to catch up in person.

All seemed right in the world that night—that is, until it was time to play and sh*t hit the fan.

The Terror Part

When it was my turn to play at 9pm, before a packed house, I set up my equipment and unsuccessfully troubleshot for 20 minutes my looping pedals, keyboard and voice monitoring system.

I saw Pete walking in front of the stage and made eye contact with him as he headed toward the exit. My gear wasn’t working, the crowd was getting restless, and a musician who I admire very much was leaving. Not great.

Fortunately, I was completely wrong and misread the situation entirely. Pete wasn’t walking to the exit—instead he was walking to the house drum kit, located just short of the exit, to check if it was playable enough for him to sit in on my gig (!). Stuart must’ve filled him in on what happened to my gear and Pete was going to step in and help out.

Seeing this, I plugged straight into the house amp and started strumming and singing. Pete jumped in, too, but the kit didn’t come with any drumsticks, so he started playing the drums with his hands bongo-style. Then Stuart got on stage and started playing sax.

In the span of 24 hours, I went from planning to just workshop some new songs to playing with an R&B legend to being totally screwed to playing with Stuart AND Pete, one of the best English drummers of the best 40 years, in some kind of bizarre, one-night-only, all-star band.

If only said English drummer could somehow get his hands on some damn drumsticks!

Enter deux ex machina #3: Jeff Beyda.

Jeff Beyda (The Triumph Part)

Among many other things, Jeff is a longtime friend and Chew The Cud bandmate who’s had and continues to have a huge impact on my life. He’s also a native New Yorker who knows the city like the back of his hand. Ever the clear thinker, especially in moments of chaos, Jeff immediately saw the problem onstage and walked down a few blocks to Arlene’s Grocery, another music venue on the Lower East Side, and sourced a pair of drumsticks on the condition that we returned the sticks signed. Way to think on your feet, Jeff! 

I recently saw a cell phone video of the exact moment Jeff handed off the drumsticks to Pete as the chorus of “Let Me In” kicked in. The audience cheered and Stuart went into a sax solo to end the song—a truly ragged, spontaneous and fun moment, much like New York City itself.

Thanks to the tremendous talents and even bigger hearts of Stuart, Pete and Jeff, the night at Rockwood was a huge success, the place packed and the response enthusiastic. Rockwood has since asked me back to perform on Friday, September 13th at 8:00PM, when I’m back in NY for Killers shows later that weekend.

NEW TORONTO SOLO SHOW

Speaking of future gigs, I’ll also be playing a solo show in Toronto at the Horseshoe Tavern on Monday, September 9th at 8:30pm. Click below for ticket information.

See you ‘round the clubs!

Ted