ARTICLES
It's still rock 'n' roll to me
(4/15/2004)
The Beach Reporter
By Whitney Youngs
For most musicians, the idea of giving up early evening gigs in a piano bar
to join a Broadway musical is what dreams are made of, but for former
Hermosa Beach resident Wade Preston, the far-fetched notion became his
reality.
Originally from Long Island, N.Y., Preston left for California in his early
20s to pursue a career as a pianist, singer, songwriter and composer after
hitting a musical dead end on the East Coast.
Following an open-mic night at Hennessey's Tavern in downtown Hermosa Beach
in 1987, Preston took up a residency at the then-mellow live-act lounge up
until about three years ago. He played every Saturday and Sunday to a
boisterous and enthusiastic fan base that looked forward to his performances
every week.
In 2001, Preston received a phone call from Tommy Byrnes, the guitarist for
the Piano Man himself, Billy Joel, who asked Preston to audition for a new
Broadway musical in the works called "Movin' Out."
Preston mulled it over, auditioned, and eventually earned a spot as the
band's keyboardist and as the understudy for the principal musical role in "Movin'
Out" known as the Piano Man. He packed a truckload full of his belongings
and left the South Bay in May 2002, headed for Chicago. From June to
September, the cast members, comprising the Piano Man, who plays and sings
the numbers to the musical, some of the world's best dancers and a 10-piece
band worked out the kinks to the musical at the Shubert Theater. The
production highlights original pieces written by Billy Joel such as "She's
Got a Way," "Captain Jack," "New York State of Mind," "The Stranger,"
"Uptown Girl" and, of course, "Movin' Out."
The musical, which has since earned two Tony Awards for best choreography (Twyla
Tharp) and best orchestrations (Stuart Malina and Joel), depicts the lives
of six friends, spanning a 20-year period using the lyrics of Joel's songs
and the art of dance. It opened in New York City in 2002.
Preston plays eight shows six days a week, two of which he plays the role of
the Piano Man, sitting in for the principal, Michael Cavanaugh. Of the
remaining shows, he plays the keyboard in the live band.
The Beach Reporter spoke with Preston, who now resides in Manhattan, about
his memories of Hermosa Beach, his life on Broadway and learning both roles
in less than two weeks which he said was, "One of the hardest things I've
ever done in my life."
The Beach Reporter: Why did you migrate to Southern California?
Preston: I went on the road when I was 19 with Chubby Checker and when I
came back from the road around the age of 21 or so, I found it difficult to
find work to sustain myself here in New York. So, I went out to Southern
California where there was a ton of work for a guy like me. Within a couple
of years there, I was a full-time musician. It's funny because Hermosa Beach
was really where my career kind of started. I had been keyboard player for
other bands and had done other stuff but it was actually at Hennessey's
Tavern where I went to an open-mic night and they immediately booked me for
gigs there. I started to play piano, sing and performed whatever it was I
felt like playing. I really kind of honed my craft as far as entertaining is
concerned.
When did you move out here?
I think in 1987 and in those days it was a very different Pier Avenue. It
wasn't a promenade the way it is now and Hennessey's was a tiny dive bar. It
wasn't the cathedral kind of thing that it is now. It was a great place to
play that had a little rickety piano in it and a little tiny stage. Little
by little, I made enough money to buy an electric piano and then I started
adding drum machines with sequences that really made it a full one-man band.
I would play there every Saturday and Sunday from 2 to 8 p.m. It was a
six-hour gig in those days and I generally didn't take breaks. Of course, I
was in my 20s so it was easier to do. It was a really amazing time for me.
Once I developed a strong enough following I hired a band and then we
started playing at the Lighthouse Caf/ because Paul Hennessey also owned
that bar, too. It really was a great time of growth for me. I love Hermosa.
What is it about Hermosa you love so much?
I came from Long Island where it was virtually impossible to find any work
at all. Then suddenly I was rocking out in this beach kind of setting with
this extraordinarily pleasant kind of weather and scantily clad women with a
real strong following, and what I considered at the time to be really good
money. The quality of my life improved 20-fold. It became my world. I
wouldn't trade those memories for anything.
How did you discover Hermosa since it is a fairly small beach town?
Yeah, it's more famous now. In those days it was really considered to be
underdeveloped. It was a really small, sleepy kind of a beach community
where people knew they could come and party at night but it wasn't that big
of a deal as it is now since it's become a lot more well-known and has been
featured in movies. It's been really built up so it's a lot more of a
tourist kind of place. The way I heard about it was when I first moved out
to Southern California I was staying in Marina del Rey with my manager who
was an old friend of the family and he found the open-mic night at
Hennessey's every Monday. We went down there and everyone was allowed to
play two songs. I played two and the manager asked me if I wanted to play
some more. I think I played like 10 songs and by the time I was done, she
and my manager had worked out a schedule where she gave me 10 gigs for that
month.
How long did you live in Hermosa Beach?
For about eight years, from 1987 to 1995. In 1995, I bought a house in
Redondo Beach, which I sold only recently.
Did 'Movin' Out' prompt your return to the East Coast?
Yes. I'd always wondered if I'd be able to manage living in the city
somehow. There was something about it that was oddly attractive, but I never
really could envision a way that I would be able to afford to live in
Manhattan and do music as a career. Tommy, whom I've known since my Chubby
Checker days, put the band together. As soon as this thing started to
happen, he called me and told me I should really get involved in it. In
fact, his exact words were, "I want you to think about this before you turn
me down." When he called me and asked me if I wanted to sing Billy Joel
songs on Broadway I couldn't think of a reason to say "no." It just seemed
like too big of an opportunity. How often does essentially a piano bar guy
end up on Broadway?
When did you audition for the production?
My first audition was in January of 2002. The weird thing about Tommy
calling me was that I felt like I had hit the ceiling as far as exhausting
all possibilities with my career in California. I had been pursuing original
music and was really trying to get signed for a long time. I think because I
was so eclectic no one was ever really interested in me. It never worked out
and I had a moment where I thought, "OK universe, I feel like I've got a lot
to offer. I mean, I could go the rest of my life in California and be
comfortable, and if that's where I need to be then fine. But do you think
you can find a better purpose for me where I can share my gifts and make
myself more useful to the world? If so, now would be a good time." The very
next day Tommy called me. Could be coincidence I suppose, but I'd like to
think it was a little deeper than that. Last month, I just gave up my place
in Redondo Beach. I hung onto it as a safety net because Broadway is a
finicky creature and if things didn't work out I would have gone back to my
cush California life and finished my opera I was working on before all of
this happened.
For those who haven't seen the production, how would you characterize it?
It's a story about six friends from 1965 to 1985 and what they go through.
It's a story that's told through dance and the lyrics of Billy's songs.
Basically, the Piano Man is the storyteller and the dance explains the story
in more detail. It's really unique because Broadway has always been
traditionally made up of the best of three worlds: people who can dance,
sing and act. Once in a while you get somebody who's great at all three of
those areas but most of the time Broadway is made up of people who can do
all three OK. Our show has some of the finest dancers in the world from
Twyla's (Tharp, "Movin' Out's" choreographer and director) troupe; American
Ballet Theater; the New York City Ballet; and people from Albania, Russia,
Montreal and Quebec. They don't sing and in performing the show they're
acting but there is very little dialogue on their part. You have elements of
a rock concert with extraordinary dance going on.
Did Billy Joel assist in putting the production together?
Basically Twyla's son suggested to her that she do a ballet using Billy Joel
songs. Twyla got to thinking about it, bought every single one of his
records and listened to them back to back. She then selected the songs she
thought would make good dance numbers. She took all of those songs, began to
form a story in her head and hired Stuart Malina to help her put her ideas
into a musical format. They basically put together a teaser as to what this
production was to be about, and invited Billy to come and check it out. They
decided if he liked it, they would pursue it since they figured if they
didn't have his blessing then there was no point, but for the most part he
basically stayed out of it. Billy and Stuart received a Tony Award for best
orchestration, and Billy said to me before the awards, "I feel really weird
because I didn't do anything." I said, "Billy, you've been working your ass
off your whole life. Now, these songs are starting to take on a life of
their own and now you're starting to receive awards for doing nothing. Go
with it."
Were you a fan of his work before all of this?
Oh, certainly. Billy was one of the guys I really looked up to as a kid
playing the piano. I always regarded him as one of the finest storytellers
when I came to writing songs. The only thing, though, was that growing up,
people used to tell me that I sounded like Billy Joel and it bothered me
because Long Island already had a Billy Joel. I wanted to be known for
myself, and when people said that, I started to fashion my voice more after
Elton John. The stuff that I really loved was the progressive rock of the
1970s - Emerson, Lake and Palmer, YES, Jeff Beck and John Hammer - which
incorporated elements of classical and technically difficult music into
their work.
Are you formally trained?
Yes, I actually wanted to be a classical pianist. I began banging on the
piano when I was 4 and started taking lessons when I was 5. I wasn't the
best-behaved kid and in order to get into college I would have had to have
much better grades than I did. If my grades were better, I might have been
able to get a scholarship and I really wanted to go to Juilliard to study
classical piano. I ran away from home when I was 16 and so the idea of going
to school to study classical just seemed impossible. I was just barely
surviving in those days, but I continued to take classical lessons up until
my 20s when I left for California.
Why did you leave home and did you start gigging right away?
I had trouble seeing eye to eye with my parents and I kind of felt like I
couldn't do anything right. They completely did not believe that I could
pursue a career in music. So, for sanity's sake and survival I left because
I felt like if I stayed they would have beat me down to the point where I
would have believed them. I never believed that I wasn't going to be able to
pursue a career in music. I just refused to believe it.
Who are some of your favorite classical musicians and composers?
I love the Russians -- Bogdan Mizerski, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Sergei
Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky - they were just so impressionistic. You could
picture what the piece was about just by the music. It wasn't music just for
music's sake. It was music that was telling a story. I'm a big Chopin fan.
Bela Bartok and George Gershwin were huge influences for me. I'm also a big
fan of Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett.
Oh, me too.
Do you know Keith Jarrett?
Yes, he's one of my favorite pianists.
Something like the Koln Concert, do you know that?
Yes, it's one of my favorite albums.
To walk out on stage without knowing what you're going to play and to come
up with something completely improvisational like the Koln Concert is just
amazing.
Thanks, Whitney!
There is a
very old article in the LA Times about my old now defunct Southern
California based swing band
Vivo Presto Swing.
It's still on my web site. It's ancient history,
but if you're interested,
click here.
