Page 30 - BiTS_08_AUGUST_2023

BiTS: [Laughing] So tell me, how did you get the nickname Pistol?

PPW: It's not that exciting a story, to be honest. I used to be in a band called .44 Pistol, and one
day I was sat at the bar of my local pub with three other men called Pete, and someone decided
we all needed a moniker beforehand to distinguish us, and mine was Pistol Pete. So a couple of
years after that, when I started doing some solo gigs, I decided Pistol Pete was probably a better
name than just Pete for the purposes of being memorable.

BiTS: What sort of music do you listen to now, Pete, when you want to relax?

PPW: When I want to relax. Tends to be vinyl when I want to relax. Mostly prewar blues. Some
kind of folk stuff. I quite like 60s American folk, people like Dave Van Ronk and Tom Rush, and
some classic rock, that kind of thing? I'm always interested in new songwriters who are working

sort of within the traditions of kind of blues and country and folk.

BiTS: Do you have a favourite artist that you listen to?

PPW: It depends what you mean. Like my long-term
two huge influences are R L Burnside and Kelly Joe
Phelps. They were the kind of the two people who
were kind of pivotal in me because I was originally a
harmonica player. Pivotal to me swapping from
harmonica to guitar and then big influences over the
years. But in terms of my favourite artists to listen to,
it kind of changes every week. In the last year or two,
I’ve been listening to lots of Snooks Eaglin, who is a
New Orleans kind of guitarist.

BiTS: One of my favourites. They called him the
human jukebox, you know, because he’d only got to
hear a tune once and he could play it.

PPW: Yes, it's that way he can swap from kind of very
traditional blues in sort of the Lightnin’ Hopkins vein

over to like gipsy jazz and back again, you know, with just him and an acoustic guitar. I
particularly like his acoustic stuff. His later stuff, where he was backed by small bands is great,
but it doesn't blow me away in quite the way the stuff that he does with just him and an acoustic
guitar does, but yes.

BiTS: There's an absolutely fabulous version of ‘High Society’, I'm sure you've heard it, which I
challenge anybody to play.

PPW: Yes, I really like that one and I think ‘Looking For A Woman’ as well is one of my favourite
ones of his where he's doing that New Orleans rumba bass line while he’s playing lead at the
same time.

BiTS: Yes, that's right. What is it, Pete, that attracts you to the old blues rather than be a
contemporary electric guitar player or something?

PPW: I don't know, I mean, I’m not opposed to electric guitars, and I was a huge Stevie Ray
Vaughan fan in my teenage years. After that, my sort of late teens, early 20s, I was big on people
like The Black Keys and The White Stripes. I think as I've got mellowed as I've got older, I've got
more and more into sort of the acoustic stuff. I had a Tom Rush album, and I really loved the
sound of it and the feel of it. He was playing like just a down-tuned acoustic on it. Yes, I mean,
when you say the old stuff, I'm a bit of a, although I love prewar blues, I'm a bit of a wimp and if