{"id":3232,"date":"2011-08-09T02:53:47","date_gmt":"2011-08-09T09:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=3232"},"modified":"2011-08-09T02:53:47","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T09:53:47","slug":"peter-himmelman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/08\/peter-himmelman\/","title":{"rendered":"PETER HIMMELMAN"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

PETER HIMMELMAN<\/h1>\n

An accomplished indie artist insists the <\/strong>mainstream matters<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t work that often with inspiration,\u201d Peter Himmelman declares. \u201cI just work with necessities.\u201d For instance, he decided several years ago to try his hand at scoring television shows because, as he says, \u201cMusic doesn\u2019t pay anymore.\u201d He found considerable success, winning an Emmy nomination for his contributions to the drama Judging Amy<\/em>. Then came a TV writers\u2019 strike, and suddenly Himmelman found himself with time on his hands. He decided to use it by taking a leap of faith: writing a new album in two weeks, then traveling halfway across the country to record the songs at a friend\u2019s studio in Minneapolis with musicians he\u2019d never met.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I\u2019d challenge myself,\u201d he says, chatting from his home in Santa Monica, Calif. \u201cI put a little pressure on. By buying that ticket, I locked myself into doing it, and by locking in, it created a structure within which I could work.\u201d The tactic worked beautifully, resulting in his latest album, The Mystery and the Hum<\/em>. Himmelman says the gambit was, at least in part, an attempt to rouse himself from a lack of motivation for making new music.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose that sounds very romantic,\u201d he says. \u201cThere was that aspect of it, because I could have recorded it in my own studio at my leisure. When you only have a vague impetus to do something\u2014something creative, for example, something that you\u2019re not paid for\u2014it\u2019s very probable that the impetus will fade away by the time you get out of the shower and dry your hair. It becomes a passing fancy. It\u2019s just putting something out there into the world, something creative as opposed to something your record contract stipulates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Record label pressure is something Himmelman no longer has to worry about. He went through a couple of major-label contracts in the late 1980s and early \u201990s, then released albums on several indie labels before starting his own Himmasongs imprint. (His last two albums have been released through start-up Minivan Productions.) Contrary to popular indie sentiment, he says that record label demands can actually benefit creativity by applying rigid working parameters. \u201cI\u2019m conscious enough about my own limitations that if I don\u2019t have the specific need or some structure that\u2019s going to force me to finish something, it may not get finished at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, unlike many independent artists who insist that being ditched by a giant record company was the best thing that ever happened to them, Himmelman gladly admits that he wouldn\u2019t necessarily turn down a major-label offer. After all, he sought TV work\u2014including recent scores for shows like Bones <\/em>and Scoundrels<\/em>\u2014to take up the slack when making records wasn\u2019t paying the bills anymore. He has also made a series of popular children\u2019s albums and hosts the variety webcast Peter Himmelman\u2019s Furious World<\/em> at peterhimmelman.com.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only reason I\u2019m doing it like this is because I have to,\u201d he insists. \u201cIf somebody offered me a big label deal, I\u2019d take it in a second! I\u2019d stop doing all this stuff, having all these fishing lines in the water, and concentrate only on music. But nobody goes, \u2018Oh yeah, Peter Himmelman\u2019s a great artist, we should turn the world on to him. It doesn\u2019t matter how much music he sells. We love him.\u2019 Well, it actually matters plenty<\/em>, because everyone at the labels has got a job and everyone wants to\u00a0keep their job.\u201d<\/p>\n

A frank confession, but he stands by it. \u201cThat\u2019s my mystique,\u201d he chuckles. \u201cI hide in plain sight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Lee Zimmerman<\/strong><\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PETER HIMMELMAN An accomplished indie artist insists the mainstream matters \u201cI don\u2019t work that often with inspiration,\u201d Peter Himmelman declares. \u201cI just work with necessities.\u201d For instance, he decided several years ago to try his hand at scoring television shows because, as he says, \u201cMusic doesn\u2019t pay anymore.\u201d He found considerable success, winning an Emmy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[1175,2334],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3232"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3232"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3234,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3232\/revisions\/3234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}