#peter laugher

The following is an excerpt from an interview I recently did with Craig Bell (Mirrors, Rocket from the Tombs, Saucers, The Down-fi). The full interview will run in the next issue of Bored Out.

Interview by Ryan Leach

Ryan: When I interviewed David Thomas about 15 years ago, he said that Peter Laughner was the most talented musician he’d met up until that point, but that his fixation with New York was off-putting. What are your memories of Peter?  

Craig: Sure. First off, I never heard David say that about Peter, but it sounds like something he’d say. I met Peter when I was in Mirrors. But I knew of him before that. When I was in high school, Peter lived in a nearby suburb (Bay Village). He had a band called Mr. Charlie. In those days, Mr. Charlie was a pretty well-known group around the westside of Cleveland. Peter would come to Mirrors shows because he liked where Jamie was coming from. Peter and his wife Charlotte (Pressler) were at almost every show that we did from the beginning. I think that’s how I ended up in Rocket (from the Tombs). When they were looking for a bass player, Peter came to my house and said, “Hey, we need a bassist.” Basically, Jamie kicked me out of Mirrors (for joining Rocket from the Tombs). Not right at that moment, but soon afterwards. It was a consorting with the enemy type of thing. So, I had to move out of the place I had with Jamie. There were other issues as well. Peter had invited me to move into The Plaza with him and Charlotte. So, when Rocket from the Tombs had that run of about 15 months, I was living with Peter and Charlotte. I got to be very close to Peter. When it came time for me to leave town (in 1976), he was starting to slip into that final period of his life where things weren’t going well. I felt really bad about leaving and not being there to help him try to get through that. But we all have to do what we have to do. It was time for me to go. A year after I’d left (Cleveland), I found out that he had passed away. About a month after that, both my first wife Lynn (Duer) and I saw him in our bedroom in the middle of the night. I woke up and saw him standing in the doorway and went back to sleep. In the morning, I got up and thought, “That was weird.” I said something to Lynn about it. Lynn knew Peter well; she went to high school with him. Anyway, she said, “Yeah, I saw Peter too.” It was the weirdest thing. It was like he came back to let everyone know he was alright.  

Ryan: It struck me how prolific Peter was when I got his boxset that Smog Veil released. He seemed to have an indefatigable spirit. There’s that memorable piece he wrote for the Plain Dealer (10/11/1974) where he lists Mirrors as one of the top three bands in Cleveland.

Craig: Right.

Ryan: He further mentions wanting to do for Cleveland what Brian Wilson did for Southern California. Just the sheer volume of Creem articles he’d written in the span of a few years was impressive, even as his health deteriorated.

Craig: Peter was a very strong catalyst in that early Cleveland scene. People were split on their feelings about Peter. They either liked him or they didn’t. But there were a couple of things that everyone had to admit. He was a tremendous guitar player, songwriter and performer. Also, Peter could bring divergent people together. He did that over and over again with bands. Like he got Cindy Black (Cinderella Backstreet, Peter and the Wolves) and Chi-Pig’s Sue Schmidt and Deb Smith (Cinderella’s Revenge, Friction) to form bands with him. He played with Alan Greene (Mr. Stress Blues Band). He got me involved, Cheetah Chrome and Johnny Blitz. All of these divergent musicians—different ages and backgrounds—but he’d bring them together. Whatever art he was trying to create with music, he’d make it cohesive and we’d help him. That meant a lot in that scene. You’re right: his demons did get the best of him. One of the saddest things about Peter was that he was so talented and gifted. Like you’d mentioned with his rock writing, but also his songwriting and guitar playing. Peter could talk with people. He was great at communicating. But the one thing he lacked was belief in himself. In his song “Ain’t It Fun” he wrote the line, “Ain’t it fun when you’ve broken up every band that you’ve ever begun.” That was the perfect summation of Peter. He would have a great thing going and right when it looked like it was going somewhere, it’d fall apart. Usually, as it was falling apart, he’d be right there in the middle of it. I could never figure out the reason behind it.

I don’t know if this was true or not. It happened after Rocket broke up and I wasn’t around. I was still in Cleveland but I wasn’t living with Peter any longer. But I had heard he’d been offered a deal from Arista Records.

Ryan: Oh, wow!

Craig: But he didn’t do it because he lacked the confidence to go meet with Clive Davis. If he had, who knows what would’ve happened? If he had as much belief in himself as he had in me, he would’ve flown so much higher. But I’m so grateful that he found something in me. To this day, his lack of confidence still baffles me. People are so strange in so many ways. Peter was very important. And by dying as young as he did (24 years old), a lot of people forget that. I’m really happy to see guys and gals who are twenty or thirty years younger than me aware of Peter’s work. They really value it. They appreciate that whole Cleveland scene from the ‘70s. I remember when I moved to Connecticut, no one knew Mirrors, Rocket from the Tombs or Pere Ubu from a hole in the wall. Finally, I just forgot about it and moved on—started anew in New Haven. Sometime in the 1990s, people started recognizing Rocket from the Tombs.

Ryan: I think Clinton Heylin’s From the Velvets to the Voidoids (1993) made people aware of the Cleveland scene.

Craig: It was that book and the Rocket from the Tombs bootleg album, Life Stinks (1990).

Ryan: Peter’s insecurities are interesting. He wrote with such an aplomb