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"Letting go of past experiences"
Intro:
EC:Was music important in your family? Mimi Betinis:Yes, very much so. My mother often had the record player going with the likes of Vivaldi spanning to Edie Gorme and The Trio Los Panchos. My mother and my little sister played piano, which is how I learned piano, and my stepfather played guitar. I started out learning French Horn in grammar school and my little brother played the tuba for a spell. EC:Do you remember the first LP / Single you bought? If yes, for what reason did you buy it? Mimi Betinis:I heard "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" (Beatles) in January of '64 and promptly ventured out in freezing weather to buy it. It was the most exciting thing that I had ever heard. Before that I listened to quite a bit of classical music. EC:What was the first band you played in? What kind of music did you play? What good/bad memories do you have of them? Mimi Betinis:My first group was called The Time. It consisted of three grammar school friends and myself. We played the current rock hits of 1966 as best we could. We would do renditions of The Yardbirds, The Kinks and The Animals tunes. Our engagements were limited to backyard parties, coffee houses, and High School dances. It was a lot of fun for us. The worst memory I have was struggling to play my Gibson 330. The problem was I was too short and the guitar too big! EC:What made you wanna become a musician? Mimi Betinis:I think it was something that just happened naturally to me. At a young age, music and art came easily to me and I kept at. And I haven't stopped. EC:What was the first song you wrote and what was it about? Mimi Betinis:My first song was called "Somewhere". It was, of course, about a girl I had a big crush on and she was having a great time with someone...SOMEWHERE, without me! EC:Music changed my life by......? Mimi Betinis:Providing an avenue by which I could, explore, create and vent. EC:Did your parents support your wish to become a musician? Mimi Betinis:Not at first. My mother wanted me to become an art teacher (which I did after Pezband disbanded) but when the group started making headway and eventually got signed, my parents were very supportive. EC:What elements must a good pop song have for you? Mimi Betinis:I think it must be short and to the point with hooks, melody, simple lyrics, and musical craftsmanship. It has to do something for your soul. EC:What led to the forming of Pezband? Mimi Betinis:The group formed just after High School as a sort-of jam band. It was initially called Pez because I liked the way the letters looked together. P..E..Z.. was an unusual line-up of letters. I also loved the Pez candy which was imported from Austria, I believe. EC:How come you called yourself Pezband? Mimi Betinis:We could not just call ourselves Pez, so we thought to add the word band to it and make it our own. Pezband meant only us and was a bit removed from the candy. EC:What was the highlight with The Pezband? Mimi Betinis:Well, we had many wonderful things happen to us. For example, in 1977, we played the ABC/Dunhill record convention in Delaware and were named "the most promising act" of the year. Later that year we were featured on The Today Show with Jane Pauly as the latest music kids were listening to. In November of '77, we were jetted off to London to record our second LP at Moulin Rouge Studios, London. That studio was owned by Jethro Tull. It was a big deal to be there. Many top session players were on board with us in the studio. We also recorded a live EP at a club called Dingwalls. It was released on Radar Records and got into the top ten import charts. EC:"Baby It's Cold Outside" is probably your best-known song. What triggered the writing of this song? Mimi Betinis:This song was by and large put together from past experiences with girls. When the girl cuts you out of her circle, it's cold outside. And the guy, in this instance is hurt and fed up with her. EC:Apparently, Pezband was the first US band that had a cover designed by the famous company Hipgnosis. What triggered that? Mimi Betinis:While we were in London, the record label president, Marty Scott, made some sort of deal with them and got us connected. Like everything is the music business world, it was about who you knew. EC:What triggered you becoming the not only guitarist but also singer of The Pezband? Mimi Betinis:I was the initial singer and lead guitarist of the group when we started out in 1972. After going through a couple of other singers along the way years earlier, I went back to my former job with the encouragement from the guys in the group, our manager (Mike Lembo), and the Passport label. We had a couple of other singers but they didn't really work out. EC:Your last album with The Pezband was called "Women & Politics". How come you called it like this? Mimi Betinis:Mick came up with that title because the songs we had recorded dealt with those two topics- girls and politics. EC:Which is your favorite Pezband album and why? Mimi Betinis:That's very difficult to answer because so much time and effort were invested in each recording and I like them all. I think each LP has some noteworthy songs. EC:Did you feel with Pezband as a part of the Power Pop scene in Chicago & Environs or was that just a thing of the music press? Mimi Betinis:No, not at all. In our time we were part of the contemporary rock sound, that's what we identified with. We were labeled as power-pop by our marketing department at Passport records. It was a novel idea at the time that stuck. Later on, the music press picked up on it and uses it to this day. We were the first national act to be labeled as a power-pop group. Now it's used for any pop group that has that type of sound. EC:What were the reasons Pezband split? Mimi Betinis:There were several things going on at the time. The music sense was changing rapidly. We were up against the disco monster and that trend hurt groups like ours. The money from the label ran out. We had no more support so they let us go. We were not selling a huge amount of records too. That didn't help. In 1978 we were touring all over the east coast and opening shows for Fleetwood Mac, Supertramp, Rush, Blonde, and doing countless radio interviews. We also did a T.V. show in upstate New York and recordings at Bearsville Studio in New York. When we got back to Chicago in 1979, playing small clubs and that sort of thing was discouraging. I started to lose interest in continuing with the whole thing. EC:What did you do musically from 1983 to 2006 when Pezband first reunited? Mimi Betinis:I continued to write and record material off and on for several years. Then, I went back to art school, got a couple of art degrees worked as an illustrator for the Field Museum of Natural History, and taught art in the Chicago Public School system for many years. EC:What triggered this reunion? Mimi Betinis:Mick and I got together and wrote some songs at some point. We ended up recording a few at a studio in town down Chicago named Wall to Wall recording. There are several recordings from those sessions which still have to be mixed. EC:In 2010 your first solo album "All That Glitters" appeared. What led to that? Mimi Betinis:I have a good amount of material that I have accumulated over the years and I felt that some fans might like to hear some of my songwriting. EC:Looking back what do you think of it? Mimi Betinis:I think that "All That Glitters" has some good tracks on it and I think that some of the material could have been better developed. EC:Six years later followed "Music Sounds". What song is your favorite from this album? Mimi Betinis:My favorite number on that disc is "Pontiac". It is an autobiographical song about one of my many excursions to California in search of fame and fortune. I also like "Summer Love '68" which was written about my girlfriend of the time and she was quite a dish too! EC:What did you want to make different solo compared to The Pezband? Mimi Betinis:My solo recordings incorporate many acoustic instruments which I have accumulated over the years. Besides owning lots of acoustic and electric guitars, I collect all sorts of noise-making items, such as bells, percussion, and oddball instruments. The Pezband recordings are high-powered electric guitar passages that don't use many of these instruments. So, in my solo efforts, I try to use diverse instrumentation. In both recording applications, experimentation is and was key. EC:What means success for you? Mimi Betinis:Being happy. If happiness is not there, what's the use? EC: What musical plans do you have for the future (solo, Pezband)? Mimi Betinis:I am working on more solo material and I am working on a "Best of Pezband" CD with producer, John Pavletic. These will be tracks from LP 1, LP 2, LP3, and some from the live EPs. Both will be released next year.
Discography:
Mimi Betinis solo:
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