Peter Case photo by Pat Johnson
Peter Case on Spontaneity and Recording His First Solo Live Album My Life To Live at McCabe’s
Singer/songwriter and guitarist Peter Case has been touring extensively in the US and in Europe in recent days, and at the end of April, he released his first ever live album as a solo artist, My Life To Live, which was recorded over two nights of performances at McCabe’s in 2025. Case has always been concerned that the work of bands he’s been in, like The Plimsouls, and The Nerves, should be preserved through a definitive live album, and now his live solo work can complete that set. Peter Case’s reason for prizing a live album is simple, that the live show preserves more effectively the essence of the artist or the band, and without that, we aren’t really seeing the full picture of their work.
That is certainly true with My Life To Live, where the recording captures not only Case’s song performances on tracks from throughout his career, but also all his discussions with the audience between the songs. These brief excursions are actually part of the main route for Case’s shows, and part of the reasons that he finds solo work so rewarding, the presence of spontaneity. This live album also features Case taking on some of his earlier rock ‘n roll work as translated for the piano, bringing together his more recent work with the piano and his seminal songwriting. I spoke with Peter Case while he was home briefly between touring dates about the origin and outcome of the quest for a live album and how he feels the songs relate to the world today.
Americana Highways: You have been all over the country. How has it been?
Peter Case: I’m home for about a week, and then I go out again. I’ve been touring a lot. I was over in Europe for quite a while. I did like two tours over there separated by a few weeks, then I did a tour out east. The gigs were good.
AH: Was there a particular significance to choosing performances at McCabe’s for your first live album? On the album, you talk a little bit about it, the shows you’ve been to over the years there, and the really awesome people you met.
PC: It was recorded one year ago, in March or April. That’s right. It’s kind of a clubhouse where I really woke up to music, so it was one of my favorite places. I played my first solo gig I ever did after my rock ‘n roll bands at McCabe’s. It’s been a combination of clubhouse, workplace, and venue for me. As I say on the album, I saw all those people, and a lot more. It’s a beautiful place that they keep going. I’m really glad they made it through the pandemic, it’s a treasure.
AH: Did you know ahead of time, at those shows, that you were going to try to record them for a live album, or do you often record your shows?
PC: Yes, I knew. The way that the record came about is that Len Fico, the main guy at Sunset Blvd Records was talking with me one day, and said, “I want you to do a live album. Can you do a live album? I want all the songs, and I also want all the talk between the songs. We’ll do like a two record set.” I said, “Wow, really?” Because it wasn’t really what I was planning on doing, but he talked me into it. We went in and did two nights, and boiled that onto on record.
AH: That’s wonderful. How was it captured sonically?
PC: There’s a guy who works at McCabe’s called Woody Nuss, and he’s recorded all sorts of bands. He’s worked with everybody, and he’s been at McCabe’s for years. He has it all rigged up in there so if you want to, you can record anything. He placed the mics and did the whole thing. We went up to my friend, Ryan Capri’s place in Novato, [California] where we recorded Doctor Moan, and we figured out what tracks and mics to use. Woody records people there a lot, I think.
Every time I work at McCabe’s, there’s a fairly chaotic element. I don’t really work with a setlist very often. I had kind of an idea of what I was doing because I had other people working with me from Starcrawler, and Cash & Skye, who I’ve known since they were kids. It was their idea, really Henri Cash, for me to do “A Million Miles Away” and “Oldest Story in the World” with a piano. That had never actually occurred to me, I don’t know why. It was an interesting idea. So we took “A Million Miles Away,” which was sort of my signature song from The Plimsouls, and we put pedal steel and piano on it. And we played bass. So those are unique versions. People seem to be liking it, but it was a big change.
AH: That’s really cool because it links to your own more recent piano work, like on Doctor Moan. It kind of brings it into the present for you. Maybe that’s what the others were thinking.
PC: Yes, it links it in with what I’ve been doing on Doctor Moan in a great way, so I thought that was really cool. There’s no way that I was going to stand up there and do “A Million Miles Away” with a guitar, since I did that so much already with The Plimsouls. But nothing was very premeditated, and everything happened easily for the gig. A lot of it was really just about going in there, and doing a gig, and we recorded it.
I was a little nervous about having all the things that I said was recorded, so I made sure things were pretty spontaneous, and I didn’t have much prepared. I worked off the audience and things they were saying. They wanted to hear stories, and there are stories I’ve told, but as I explain on the record, it’s more commentary. It’s the live gig, and it’s what I do, and I’m glad they captured it.
AH: I’m glad you didn’t overthink it because you could get into your head about, thinking, “Oh god, this is going to be on vinyl! What do I say?”
PC: Oh, yes, I would’ve felt so self-conscious. I have to be spontaneous or I go nuts. I’m not good at when things are very rehearsed. I guess that’s why my stuff sounds the way it does. I need to be out on some edge. It keeps me awake, you know? When I used to play in rock bands, and it sometimes it would really freak me out, because with those loud bands, it’s really hard to turn on a dime. They are like big, giant, moving metal sculptures or something, even bands like The Plimsouls.
So I started to do this thing in the 1980s, and it led me out of The Plimsouls, where I started to feel like a robot. You couldn’t move to the left or the right, or change anything, or it would throw everyone off. You can’t hear easily on stage, so you’re kind of stuck in these arrangements. I began to feel sort of like a robot, so I started to do this thing where I was making mistakes just to feel like I was doing something spontaneous [Laughs]. Maybe that’s neurotic, but then as soon as I went solo, I could play the bridge twice on a song, or make up a new ending, or say something different. You could do anything you wanted to do, and there was a freedom to it, and a connection with the audience, that I couldn’t get before. I did love that kind of music, and the band we had, and The Nerves, too.
Actually, The Nerves just got a record deal with Third Man Records! After 50 years, there’s finally going to be a record label putting out a Nerves record.
AH: That’s amazing news! I look forward to seeing that come out.
PC: It’s weird! There’s a two-record set coming up for The Nerves. It’s pretty awesome. But I really did feel liberated when I got out of that stuff and went solo.
AH: I don’t think it’s necessarily neurotic to want to be spontaneous. Maybe it would be more neurotic to do things the same way every time. I think that makes psychological sense. The other way, it would feel like playing a role.
PC: There was a lot of anxiety attached to it, and being in front of huge crowds. Sometimes it would be really cathartic, explosive, and fun, and people always seemed to enjoy it. But I just wanted to move out of it.
I like words, you know? I think that’s clear on the record. I like to talk, and I like to talk and have people listen to me, and me listen to them. It’s more of a one-way street when you’re in a really loud band. Now, someone can disrupt the show, and anything can happen, but you’re communicating with the words of the song, and with words between the songs. McCabe’s is the kind of gig I do everywhere. The other day, I played for three or four hundred people in Boston, but usually it’s like McCabe’s, which is about a hundred and fifty people. I’ll do a couple of nights at a place like that rather than a bigger place. The show changes when you get into a big place. My favorite place to play is where you can hear, and feel the people, even if can’t always see them because of the lights.
AH: Some of what you’re saying is reminding me of your early history doing busking and street performing. Like you’ve wanted to get a bit closer to that again. That’s more free-wheeling.
PC: Right. That was completely free-wheeling. Nobody would ever tell me what to do. I’d be out there for hours and hours on the streets of San Francisco. I’d do enough sets to make enough money for dinner, then I’d go out at night. Every night I’d be playing from seven to two or eight to two on the streets of North Beach.
The first thing about it was that it broke your nervousness about playing music where you weren’t supposed to play it. People would be saying, “What’s he doing on a street corner?” But you’d have a real quick window to get people’s attention. The Nerves kind of came out of that time, too, the street singing thing. It’s one of the reason that I’m comfortable being a soloist, I spent so much time out on the street. You learn how to project your voice, and to just bear with everything, because a lot of weird stuff would happen when you played out on the street.
Some guy would come up and punch you, people would try to rob you, but basically it was just playing, and meeting people. Somebody would come up and jam with you. It was the 70s, so there’d be interesting people around. The whole country was kind of wandering the streets back then. There were so many people rolling around. It was almost the opposite of what’s happening these days.
AH: When I listen to these songs, I’m reminded that you’re concerned about the social state of the country, and whether people are being treated like human beings.
PC: What I try to pick up on is that people are so confident that they actually know what is happening. You have to address it, really. But I’m also dealing with a whole show that has to work for people, so the show deals with a whole gamut of emotions, from anger to prayer, I guess you’d call it. I just write songs about what I see going on around me. I don’t really write anything silly.
I live in San Francisco, and it’s all going on right out my front door. There was a shooting right outside my front door where someone came with an automatic rifle and started shooting rounds. Nobody was killed. I just reflect that when I’m writing. I write songs, but people can read into it.
AH: I can pick up on the fact that you’re responding to the world right now, even though the songs come from across your career.
PC: Yes, I can still sing them. There are a couple of songs on there from 1986 [from Peter Case] that seem relevant. Some are pretty darn new. Then there are some that are a few years old, but feel new, like “Somebody Told The Truth.” That song really feels like it came to life anew on this record. Some of the footage from the video for that song is taken from different movies about me, but some is just footage from America right now.
AH: That footage really points out what’s happening right now, and brings out the ideas in the song about the bullying and the threats people are facing, keeping people afraid all the time.
PC: I know, it’s terrible man. It’s really dark. It’s one day at a time, we’re just working our way through it. Someday it’s got to end, but what’s going to happen until then?
AH: When you played that song during the concert, you got the audience to clap and get involved. They really felt it.
PC: Yeah, they sang along on it, too, didn’t they? I do that one all the time, because everybody feels that song. There’s a power in people telling the truth, but also truth has become so corrupted. It almost seems quaint, the idea that somebody told the truth. But it still stands, so there you go.
Thanks very much for speaking with us, Peter Case!
You can find more information here on his website: https://petercase.com/
Enjoy our previous coverage here: Show Review: Peter Case, This is Your Life