Pete Best

Pete Best: Already Ready for the Row and Radio
By PHIL SWEETLAND
Music and Radio contributor, New York Times

NASHVILLE – In a town where hundreds of hopefuls arrive every week and hundreds more exit, the Maryland product Pete Best is clearly here to stay.

Pete, who’s no relation to the similarly named former Beatles drummer, is already a veteran star on the club circuit in the huge Baltimore-Washington market which is home to the powerhouse Country stations WPOC/Baltimore and WMZQ/Washington.

And since Best and manager Jeff Ross have begun making regular trips to Nashville – and in Ross’s case moving here – Music Row veterans like Blacktop’s Mike Sebastian and BMI’s Jody Williams who ordinarily are slow or well-nigh impossible to excite – got Pete right away.

Pete, who has the athletic movie-star look so much in demand by Music Row, describes his Pop-flavored, Rock-driven Country as “Snow Patrol meets Country.” Snow Patrol is the guitar-driven, Scottish band whose “Chasing Cars” in 2006 became the first single by a British Rock group in 15 years to crack the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

Closer to home, Best’s new songs like “Gonna Die Trying” and “Built To Last” have an eighth-note guitar engine similar to many of Brooks&Dunn’s classic tempo songs, like “Only In America” and “Red Dirt Road.”

A prolific writer, most of Pete’s songs are Radio-friendly tempo tunes, perfect for a format whose programmers and listeners are often frustrated nowadays by the overabundance of weepy ballads that sound like Celine Dion clones.

Manager Jeff Ross was introduced to Best through a musical colleague, went to see him play several originals at a packed Maryland club, and quickly realized that after 10 years of working with artists in various formats who had various levels of local success, he had finally found a star.

“We’re not in any hurry, we’d rather let the songs speak for themselves,” Ross says.

But folks on the Row may not be inclined to wait. After dropping off some of Pete’s demoes at Sharp Objects, the full-service music company owned by the veteran Radio promo star Steven Sharp, Jeff and Pete were initially told that they’d likely hear something back in a few days, or perhaps a week or two.

Instead, it took just a few hours for their phone to ring.

“We’d definitely love to meet with Pete,” Sharp’s Val and Julie reported, and soon afterwards Best was one of the top acts at Sharp Objects’s all-star showcase at the Commodore Lounge.

Even a chance meeting at Nashville International Airport with Hank Williams Jr. had Pete and lots of other folks talking. After Bocephus and Best spoke for a few minutes about Pete’s music and his career, Hank Jr. hugged Best and gave him this classic piece of advice about how to capture an audience: “Hey Pete, grab ‘em by the balls!”

Pete loved all types of music and dreamt of one day producing records. As a kid, Best loved the music of Simon & Garfunkel, Stevie Wonder, and Led Zeppelin. He soon developed a passion for Classic Country, because he loved the lyrics and stories which only Music Row tunesmiths could craft.

As he grew up in Annapolis, home of the United States Naval Academy, Pete and his backing band – aptly named Peterbuilt – soon became a fixture in the clubs, and opened for touring Row stars such as Jack Ingram and Pat Greene in 1,500-seat venues.

Best clearly has star power. During a recent breakfast at a Nashville Waffle House, a waiter Pete had never met said, “I know who you are, and I want your autograph!”

And that’s before Pete’s first record has hit stores, and before he’s done his first Radio tour.

Just imagine the excitement when those things happen. From the looks of things, it won’t take long.

Management – Jeff Ross
[email protected]
www.MySpace.com/petebestcountry