Gary James' Interview With Peter Tork's Friend
Reinhard Straub



Reinhard Straub was a close friend of Peter Tork. He played in Peter Tork's band, The New Monks, and recorded "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone" and "Higher And Higher" with Peter in 1981. We spoke with Reinhard Straub about his friendship with the ex-Monkee, Mr. Peter Tork.

Q - You were both a friend and confidante of Peter Tork. Does that mean Peter would tell you stories about his early life and/or his time with The Monkees?

A - There was a guy called Claude Hayn. He was Joe Cocker's manager. He and I were dealing drugs, cocaine in particular. But also he knew some seriously good musicians in Manhattan. He had worked with John Lennon. He was kind of an interesting character, kind of an elusive, hard to tell where this guy was coming from. But anyway, through a musician I knew, Paul Ill, a great bass player, he was in The New Monks with Peter Tork. Anyway, I got introduced to Claude by Paul. He said, "I found Peter Tork from The Monkees." He said, and these are his exact words, "He's a singing waiter in L.A." Actually he was doing whatever he could to survive, Peter was.

Q - That seems hard to believe.

A - I don't find it hard to believe. So, he brought Peter from L.A. to Manhattan. I knew Paul. Paul was just a great guy. A great bass player. He ended up playing with Christina Aguilera and Juliette Lewis and Bill Ward, the drummer from Black Sabbath. He's probably been on fifty million records subsequent. That's a side bar here. Anyway, we put this band together for Peter. The idea was to bring him to Japan because the TV show The Monkees had just been released in Japan. In Japan they thought The Monkees were brand new, just coming out last week. So when Peter went to Japan he was treated like he was a visiting dignitary. They thought The Monkees TV show was current, right? So we put the band together. We rehearsed. And just at the last minute I thought I didn't want to go to Japan. Peter brought me to my first recording experience as it were. He brought me to a lot of meetings. He actually told me, and I remember when he first talked to me about it, "I found something better than religion." I thought he was out of his mind. It was weird. You gotta realize I was a heroin addict. I was smoking crack. And here's Peter telling me, "I found something better than religion." So, I went went to the meetings and I liked it. It was interesting. It was 1979, 1980 when he came from L.A to New York and we put the band together. He went to Japan in 1980. I had this pretty intense relationship with him due to putting the band together. We made the record. I was on the record. I actually played a pretty good, friggin' solo on a bad cut called "Higher And Higher".

Q - Did Peter know about your drug habit?

A - He did not know about the drugs, the heroin. He got really angry at me once 'cause Vinny Barranco, who was the drummer in the band, The New Monks; we were doing the record and I was offering Vinny some cocaine and he got very, very angry about it. When I knew Peter Tork first he was ten months sober, which was an amazing thing for me to think about someone being sober at all, let alone having done nothing at all in ten months. That was the thing where I deeply connected with Peter. He was very serious about his sobriety. You gotta realize he was totally sober hanging out with the likes of me and others. I don't know how anybody could've stayed sober like he did, hanging around us, making his record, putting the tour together with the manager he had. Amazing that the guy was able to stay sober. I couldn't have stayed sober if I was him. (laughs)

Q - I'm surprised that Peter Tork was a singing waiter. He made no money? He didn't save any money?

A - The Monkees gave away 110% of their 100%. They were managed so poorly that they literally gave away the store. They owned none of the music. Boyce and Hart wrote most of the music. The TV producers made money. The Monkees themselves were just paid salaries. It was a huge thing for The Monkees to want to be taken seriously, as serious musicians. Mike Nesmith's mother invented White Out, so he inherited like fifty million dollars. Nesmith was someone who didn't need to do anything. He went on to become a film producer. I didn't know him and I didn't know any of the other Monkees. When I knew Peter in 1980, he was pretty bitter about the whole thing. He just wanted to be known as someone who was a bonafide musician. He missed his calling because he was brilliant on TV. Whenever we went on TV to do shows, talk shows, he was unbelievable. He was a natural guy in front of the camera. I believe he could've done sit-coms. He could've gone on to become a sit-com star on TV. I really believe it. I think he could've been on Rowan And Martin's Laugh-In. He could've been on there and blown 'em away. He was that kind of guy. You put him in front of a camera, he lit up. He was quick on his feet. He was witty. He had a sense of humor. Like most comedians, they're depressed, dark and when you put 'em in front of a camera they're funny as a bastard. That's the kind of guy he was.

Q - Did Peter ever talk about the time Jimi Hendrix opened for The Monkees?

A - Why would he? Hendrix called The Monkees the "plastic Beatles." I got held up at gun point when I was with Mitch Mitchell (Hendrix's drummer). I knew him. Steve Fishman, who was in Buddy Grealy, (a Syracuse N.Y. band) was at Ronnie Scott's the night Hendrix overdosed in London. I played with Mitch Mitchell in the studio after we were held up at gun point. (laughs) You're in that scene, everybody kind of knows everybody. I arrived as a musician who happened to sell drugs to survive. I left Manhattan as a drug dealer who happened to play music. But I went to rehab in 1987.

Q - You're going to be at this Peter Tork convention. What are you going to be doing there? Talking about Peter?

A - I'm gonna be on a panel. I have no idea. There's a bunch of people that played with Peter. And then there's a couple of bands that are going to be doing Monkees' tunes. I have no idea what, why or who I'm gonna play with or how that's gonna go.

Q - What kind of a band was The New Monks? Was that a Rock band?

A - Yeah. It was a Rock band. It was really to showcase Peter. He insisted on playing some Classical music on the piano and then he would bring out his banjo. The band did some of The Monkees' stuff. I didn't know much about The Monkees what-so-ever. I helped put the band (The New Monks) together at the last minute. Dropped out of the band. I felt like to have a violin (Reinhard Straub played violin) in a band that was doing this kind of stuff was kind silly anyway. They didn't really need me musically. The guys I played with were all pros that played in five different bands simultaneously. They were all trying to make it, studio musicians. We all kind of knew each other.

Q - Did Peter ever write his own music?

A - No. He was broke when I knew him. He was focused on getting this band together and going to Japan. I heard tell that he made, that they made a million dollars or something like that, which in those days was a lot of money. This whole process took, I don't know, six months, a year maybe. I forget. When I was hanging out with him and the band, I was doing a lot of other stuff. I had my own band. Some of the guys who were in The New Monks were in my band. I tried to put a band together and make it and it never did. (laughs)

Q - How long did The New Monks last?

A - It did not last long. It did the Japanese tour and it did some other dates in America when they came back. Not a lot of dates. Claude Hayn was the business guy behind the whole thing. He had a lot of connections. What he was doing to promote it was the only thing that was happening. He was Peter's manager, promoting Peter, putting the tour together in Japan, putting the shows together that they did in America after. I had nothing to do with it after that. My relationship with Peter was really putting The New Monks together, doing this record and I played on that one song prominently called "Higher And Higher". I actually forgot playing on the thing and then when I heard it for the first time a couple of weeks ago, not too bad! It reminded me of kind of like the thing I used to be when I played electric violin. For that cut I thought it was interesting. I'd forgot that I'd done it and I thought I'd done okay on that record. It's amazing that I forgot doing it, but then again it's not hard to believe that I did that record because I was a big part of Peter's comeback.

Q - What record label released Peter's record? Did it get released?

A - Yeah, it got released. Claude Hayn did it himself. He put up the money, had the thing pressed. It wasn't a major label. He just created a production company or had a production company that put out the single. Peter was the kind of guy who after the show, would get a table and have all the musicians at the table signing autographs and selling records. That's what it ended up being. I wasn't in Japan, but I heard Japan was a madhouse. It was like he was treated like a Rock star during that tour.

Q - What did Peter Tork die of?

A - Cancer. He had a rare cancer. He had survived it for seven years before that. He had beat it successfully seven years earlier and it came back. I saw him after he had survived it the first time. I went down with my kids and we went maple-sugaring at his house, his childhood home near the University Of Connecticut where his father had been a professor.

Q - I recall reading that Peter was teaching a course at some college.

A - I wouldn't be surprised if you told me he had done a lot of different things. He was a character. He had a sharp wit. He was quick on his feet, this sort of thing. I just don't really know what he thought of The Monkees. I really don't know. His job, full time from the moment he woke up to the moment he went to sleep, was promoting himself and his career. His job was being Peter Tork. He played heavy on the fact that he was a Monkee and no matter where he went in the world he could capitalize on the fact that he was a Monkee. It was very interesting that many people in the world legitimized that for him. In other words, they thought it was pretty cool that he was a Monkee. They thought it was great that he was a Monkee and they were impressed by the fact that he was a Monkee. Peter was just bitter about the experience when I knew him because they never made any money. They were taken advantage of financially. They were contracted for 110% of their 100%. (laughs) A lot of legal battles. I wasn't privy to any of this. I can just tell you he spoke bitterly at that time about the experience. This was 1980. After that I think they got together and he made a boat load of money a few times. The Monkees did some tours. He did okay after that. That's when they made their money, on the tours. Certainly not on the publishing.

Q - The Monkees material holds up after fifty-plus years.

A - Yeah, it's catchy. Look, who wrote the songs? Boyce and Hart wrote way more than The Monkees. What a team. I knew nothing about the Monkee era when they were The Monkees in the '60s around Beatle time. I know very little about all of that. I met Peter when I'm sure he was trying to put his life back together. He was ten months sober when I met him. His sobriety was very important to him. I think it was kind of a beautifying force in his life. He put his life through that filter.

Official Website: www.ReinhardWStraub.com

© Gary James. All rights reserved.

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