Pete Briquette

The bassist of 'The Boomtown Rats' since the beginning, Pete Briquette was kind enough to allow me to send him some questions about his career with the Rats, the band's new record, and about Live Aid, the legendary concert which changed the world forever.

The Boomtown Rats released their first album in thirty-six years in March 2020, and it was their seventh studio album overall. It was met with mixed reviews, however I found the album to be refreshing, so you can find the link to my review below:

Following the release of the album, a documentary aired on BBC2 about the band, directed and produced by Billy McGrath. It told of the band's history and previous successes, and then a little of the breakup before coming to their reformation and their work on the new album.

"The Boomtown Rats will always be activists and I think this irritates some people but I don't care because we've aways wanted to do more than just play a tune or make a pop record." - Pete Briquette (when asked about how the effects of Live Aid have carried on to today.)

I really loved the first album that The Boomtown Rats have released since 1984. Titled 'Citizens of Boomtown', I think it really sets the tone for the current political climate, and it's something which is still resonating from when The Boomtown Rats were around the first time - in the 1970s and early 1980s. Bassist Pete Briquette, who performed at Live Aid, co-wrote some of the songs on the album. But thirty-six years is a long time, so I asked why it took so long for The Rats to reform, "I played for many many years with Bob's solo band and we made many records and toured the world. It just seemed right. The noise we made back then and the things we wrote about seemed to become relevant again today."

The initial idea for the album came about through what many bands fail to realise - in order to stay relevant, they have to have new material,  "there was initial resistance in the band to producing a new record after such a long time. We had enjoyed our 5 or so odd years as a reformed Rats but realised if we wanted to continue we needed to release new material, so we initially and reluctantly dragged ourselves into the studio. That bad attitude quickly changed once we started playing the new songs together." The first song on 'Citizens of Boomtown' with his name in the credits is Monster Monkeys. When I asked Pete what Monster Monkeys was about, he said, "I don't really like to explain a song as everybody takes what they want from it. Whatever you think it is is what it is." This is how a lot of songwriters think, and perhaps this is what makes music so powerful - that it often doesn't have to have a meaning because everybody takes their own thing from it and it means something different to everybody. The seventh song on the new album - which Pete co-wrote with frontman Bob Geldof - is K.I.S.S. Pete this time told me that it was inspired by "being in a happy place and not wanting to write necessarily about serious things all the time." K.I.S.S. is my personal favourite song on the album, and the song really does make me feel happy and light. I think it's amazing that a song can change somebody so much - even on my darkest days, this one can still put a smile on my face.

"The initial response [to the album] has been amazing and more than I'd hoped for after such a long time - but it's not over yet and I hope there are still people who have yet to come across it and be very surprised."

And how was this album recorded? "A lot of songs start with Bob sitting in front of me in my studio with his guitar and trashing away at many, many ideas. I grab some of them on my computer and develop them out. So a lot of initial stuff is done like this. Then we all went to a residential studio and spent two great weeks recording the ideas from my place and also starting songs from scratch."

Can we expect another album from The Rats in the not-too-distant future? "Yes but we're still dealing with this one. I recorded about 35 songs for this last album so there is loads of material hanging' around."

The Boomtown Rats are very active on social media, and Pete takes a large role in it, "I do a lot of it. The others are quite reluctant to get involved. It's a generational thing." That then led me onto my next question. If the role which one takes in social media is a generational thing, then perhaps the way that they prefer to listen to music is as well. Pete Briquette prefers "radio stations. I shout at the radio and change the station if I don't like what they are playing. I think streaming is the future and I stream mostly."The Boomtown Rats are the musical influences of many bands who came after them, but who inspired them? "A lot of the 60s music. Beatles, Stones, Bowie, Roxy Music. And from the other side; R.L.Burnside and John Lee Hooker, New York Dolls, Velvet Underground. We were originally an R&B band but R&B back in the 60s and 70s isn't the same thing as it is now. Back then it was Chuck Berry, The Stones, Van Morison and so on."

Pete Briquette, with The Boomtown Rats, performed at Live Aid, an event organised by the frontman of the band, Bob Geldof, and Midge Ure [of Ultravox]. When asked about his favourite performance, he spoke about Live Aid because "obviously Live Aid will forever be imprinted on my mind. It started at 5.30 in the morning with a helicopter ride to the stadium and finished at 4 the next morning in some London club somewhere. The last few hours aren't too clear, lol. A day to always remember." 

And, as most musicians would say, Pete's favourite part of performing is "playing my instrument. It makes me feel authentic and keeps my imposter syndrome issues under control."