24-03-2025
Peter Wolf Goes From Rock Star To Author With Magical Memoir
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 11: Singer Peter Wolf, founding member of the classic rock band J. ... More Geils Band, performs onstage during the Jim Irsay Collection Exhibit and Concert at Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall on January 11, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by)
Painter, successful radio DJ, solo artist, lead singer of the chart-topping J. Geils Band Peter Wolf has led an extraordinary life that he's now turned into a magical memoir, Waiting on the Moon: Artists, Poets, Drifters, Grifters and Goddesses.
As the extended title suggests, the book is structured around the fascinating people Wolf has encountered in his life, from Bob Dylan to ex-wife, actress Faye Dunaway. As a successful rock star/frontman of the '70s and '80s many of Wolf's encounters are expected – Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Keith Richards and The Rolling Stones, Van Morrisson. What makes the book such a joyful surprise are the unique stories Wolf shares – meeting first lady Eleanor Roosevelt as a schoolkid, his tenure living with future Hollywood icon David Lynch.
I spoke with Wolf about how the book and its unique structure came to be.
Steve Baltin: It is a process to write a book.
Peter Wolf: It is quite an undertaking.
Baltin: At what point in the process of this, and the book is wonderful, did you know that you were going to be able to see it through?
Wolf: Well, that was thanks to the ladies that I dedicated the book to, the O 'Connor sisters, Grace and her sister Nora, who really were fundamental in acting as editor in chief in the sense of, "All right, you got one story, or one chapter finished, where's the next one and where's the next one? Come on, come on, come on." And so it was that collaborative push that helped me move along because I like to work in collaboration. Not that this was an as told to or a written-by book, it was written by me, and they helped organize it and made very valid suggestions and things like that. And the impetus of not procrastinating came from them.
Baltin: You say it started with like one chapter and then another. It flows very well given the fact that the different people that you meet almost makes it read like a short story collection. It's like when you're writing songs, and then eventually you put the sequence into an album. Was there a point where you started to realize that this format would work for you, that you could tie together meeting Eleanor Roosevelt and your experiences with Dylan?
Wolf: That's a really good question. What happened was I had seen a photograph, and I'm not comparing this in any way, of William Faulkner. I forget which exact book it was, it'll come to me. And he was in his study, and on the wall, he had these cards all printed up with the different characters. I think it was As I Lay Dying. And he had all the different characters and some ideas about the plot, and they were all pasted on little index cards on his wall. I thought that would be a really good idea because they do that on TV shows and movies, scenes and stuff. So, I started writing out all the chapters I thought I might do because I had been thinking about this book for over a decade. And actually, I had made an outline maybe 20 years ago and with some of the stories I thought I would tell. But when I finally started, I then decided to write these index cards and then Grace and Nora, both helped me move them around because at first Steve, I wasn't going to do any chronological order. When I started out, the two things I thought I was not going to write about were my marriage and the J. Geils band. Because I considered this book to be just chapters containing short stories and each chapter would be contained to itself. Meaning if you read the Alfred Hitchcock chapter or the Bob Dylan chapter, you can pick up the book and read any chapter and it didn't necessarily interfere with any timeline. But then the editor insisted that there might be some timeline and my agent, Andrew Wiley, who's a very notable agent, suggested if you eliminate the J. Geils band or your marriage, people will be disappointed because they will be curious about that. Now, if you choose not to do it as a formal memoir, you still should include those in the chapter. So, I finally did. Once I got to the Faye chapters one rolled into another, because I enjoyed writing about it. Then with the Geils, a lot of music memoirs go into so much detail about the band and the inter-conflicts and what guitar they bought and this and that and the trip over to Japan and this happened and that happened. I find that not to be too interesting unless I'm really interested in the band or the artist or musician. So, my dealings with J. Geils Band run throughout the chapters, but I kept one chapter for J Geils about what I thought most people were curious about was that after 17 and a half years, and once we achieved our biggest popularity the band breaks up and people, I realized, didn't know why. So, I thought it would be of interest for me to write that out and the same was true of my relationship with Faye so that all started coming about. Once I had all the different cards that were written at different periods like Eleanor, which might have been written after Bob Dylan. So, I had to frame it in some kind of timeline. That's the order that you see in the book itself.
Baltin: That's interesting on a lot of levels because it's funny. You have the Dylan chapter. You talk briefly about hanging out backstage at the Stones Coliseum show with Keith Richards. I'm going to be honest, there were a couple places where I felt like his memoir was a little dry because it was so technical. So, it's interesting that you say that, to me, the most memorable chapter in this book and the one that gutted me was the Edie chapter. Was that difficult to write?
Wolf: Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that the sadness that encompasses and the great loss and that sense of like, what if that never happened? What would it be? Because we had a great bond. Then the other side of that there was something uplifting about realizing what an amazing relationship it was and how to this day it still stays with me. So, the song that I quote, "The Wind," which was our song, is a haunting song and when I listen to it today it has what the magic of music can do which is bring you right back to a certain incident or a moment and so it has its pros and cons. I think generally it was melancholy, but it also had the idea to re-engage and think about the relationship; the person she made me, it was an uplifting one rather than a morose one.
Baltin: When you do a memoir, you're thinking of things from a whole different perspective. You're 50, 60 years older than you were so you have a whole different perspective on it. So, were there things that emerged in the writing of the book in general that really surprised you?
Balin: I don't think so because just they stayed with me and as I said I had an outline written so long. I think what surprised me is the surprise that people got when they realized the arc of the book, how many people I encountered. To me it's something I lived through. So, meeting Eleanor Roosevelt or Tennessee Williams was something that happened. It wasn't a surprise, and so it didn't strike me as that weird.
Baltin: When you look back on it, you're a musician. It makes sense that you met Dylan, Stones, Springsteen, whoever. But that you would be at a school thing with Eleanor Roosevelt, or being a kid seeing Louis Armstrong well before you became a musician, do you appreciate that was just surreal in a wonderful way to have these experiences?
Wolf: No, thinking about my dad taking me to see Louis Armstrong meant so much to me. I revere him so much because as time goes on, his importance becomes even greater and more acknowledged. That's for sure.
Baltin: I'm taking it that you mean Louis, but I imagine that's also the case with your dad.
Wolf: Oh yeah. Similar to the Edie chapter, that was a bit of a sweet thing, realizing how indebted I was to him. Him being such a gentle person, how much he shaped me and offered me in such a kind, generous way without being dictatorial or anything. He loved Louis Armstrong. So, he assumed I would love it and there was certain art that he loved, and he would just share it with me. Some things he turned me on to took me 25, 30 30 years before I even could understand why he liked it. For instance, the painter Miro, who's an abstract painter from Spain that moved to France, he loved Miro and called her the Miro mobilist. I didn't understand it until much later then it kind of hit me over the head. He was a great opera fan. And I certainly didn't enjoy opera when I was growing up. I was a rock 'n' roller. But now I can hear certain arias and parts of operas that he used to play and know how magnificent they are. So, yeah, his influence still penetrates me.
