Having picked up drumsticks as a child, Pete Cater seems never to have put them down. Though, to be precise, there were no sticks yet: at sixteen months – a trash can lid and an innate sense of rhythm. Since then, much has changed. Staffordshire was left behind, London was conquered at 29 from scratch – with a couple of contacts and a mortgage. Today, his résumé includes Abbey Road, his own label, British Jazz Awards, and fifth place in the world ranking of jazz drummers according to Rhythm. In May, Pete releases the EP “Go Big Band or Go Home” and takes to the stage. We spoke with him about a life devoted to his craft, and about how even the most organized people wake up at five in the morning, running through problems in their heads that may never happen.

Pete, hi – glad you found the time, especially given that May is packed minute by minute for you: the EP dropped on the 1st, the concerts, all of it at once. Be honest – do you wake up in the morning thinking “perfectly planned,” or was there a moment somewhere in May 2025 when you looked at your calendar and said something to yourself that we can’t print?

As musicians go I guess I’m one of the more organised types. It’s great to be able to fulfil one’s creative urges and ambitions, but I try to remember that there is a strong element of business about what I do. People and things need organising. I try to be as far ahead of that as possible in order that everyone and everything is where the need to be. You can never legislate for last minute bumps in the road, they will always happen, but if you have a contingency in place you should be able to deal with whatever challenges get thrown your way.

Also I believe in marshalling my time, and whilst I will always give my various projects the necessary attention I won’t allow then to be all-consuming and to take over my life completely. I know the ‘work/life balance’ is one of those rather irritating contemporary cliches but there is a degree of truth about it.

That said I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t admit to occasionally being wide awake at 5 AM running through lists of things still to do and solving potential problems that will likely never occur.

Let’s set aside the new release for a moment and talk about you. You were born in Staffordshire in 1963, jazz was in the house thanks to your father – a semi-professional drummer. In your teens you were already performing on stage. Then the bold move to London at 29. It sounds like the perfect origin story for a musician. But I want to ask something different: was there ever a moment when you didn’t want to play – when the thought crossed your mind that you’d made the wrong decision?

Never. Not for a single moment. I was drumming before I could walk and that isn’t an exaggeration. In early summer 1964 my Dad had borrowed a home movie camera off one of our uncles. In footage captured back then you can see me still at the crawling stage, and then I stand up by the dustbin and start drumming on the lid with my hands, aged sixteen months. Obviously it was there right from the start, and the more involved with music I became the more apparent it was to me, if not necessarily to my family, that this would be my pathway in life. By the age of 14, by which time I had already begun doing gigs with musicians of my father’s generation, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind what the direction of travel was going to be.

My route here was circuitous to say the least. When I was 14 I got involved with the Midlands Youth Jazz Orchestra, a great young big band based in Birmingham. As a consequence of this I was able to really develop my skill set, and during my years with this band I had quite a bit of local success and got my first experience of media exposure via press, radio and television. By age 21 I felt it was time to move on and let the next talented youngster get a shot at playing with the band. By this point I had had my first taste, aged 19, of fronting my own big band as well as working regularly with some of the top big bands in the West Midlands. The thing was though, there was no discernible career path beyond the local scene, and the likelihood of getting to play with the UK’s finest, almost entirely based in the London area, felt about as possible as a trip to the moon.

As a result I spent my twenties pursuing a career on cruise ships, holiday camps, summer seasons, provincial panto and random gigs. There wasn’t a huge amount of jazz getting played through this period, but I was working regularly and by 28 I had saved enough money to seriously contemplate relocating to London, which came about in late 1992. I had virtually no work, only two or three potential contacts, and a mortgage to pay. They say that fortune favours the brave and by early summer of 1993 I had made all kinds of good connections, was working regularly and really beginning to establish myself on the London music scene.

5th place in the world ranking of jazz drummers according to Rhythm, Best Big Band at the British Jazz Awards, Best Drummer at the Radio 2 National Big Band Contest. Do you collect awards, or do they just accumulate on their own? Is there one among them that means more than the others – not because it’s more prestigious, but because it came at the right moment?

Some artists are a little too quick to downplay the significance of these types of accolades. Be it recognition from your peers in the industry or the general public, it’s always a boost to know that one’s efforts are being appreciated. It’s too easy to say that ‘famous doesn’t pay the bills’ but that’s not strictly true. Winning the British Jazz Award with the big band back in 2000 had direct consequences inasmuch as Malcolm Laycock, who at the time presented the big band programme on Radio 2, recommended me to Vocalion records who were looking for a big band to add to their roster of artists. They didn’t want a band that was going to revisit the tried and tested Glenn Miller/Rat Pack type of repertoire and they gave me total artistic freedom to record whatever I wanted. That two days, my first visit to Abbey Road studio 2, resulted in an album called ‘Upswing’ which stands the test of time really well I believe.

You have your own label. And of course that gives a certain freedom, but in practice – it’s also accounting, logistics, decisions that no one else will make for you. What’s the hardest part of running the label – and are there moments when you think “why did I take this on?”

When I started the label back in 2002 it was because I wanted to record Simon Spillett’s great big band project revisiting music by and associated with UK jazz legend Tubby Hayes. We had been playing the jazz club and festival circuit to rapturous receptions for almost a year, but there was no kind of label interest of any kind, so in order to give that project some lasting sustainability I took it upon myself to set up the label, and with the help of some generous crowd funding, finance the project. From the outset I made the decision not to over commit: I don’t want this to take up too much of my time or money, so where we are at, five releases and another four in various stages of completion, it remains manageable. I’m not putting myself under unnecessary pressure as regards release deadlines, so I do things at my own pace and when it suits me.

Now, the new release. “West Side Story” as a title – that’s a bold choice. Leonard Bernstein is a classic, the name carries enormous cultural baggage. When you tell people your new EP is called West Side Story, is the first reaction understanding – or is there still that split second of confusion before they realise they’re dealing with a drummer from West Sussex?

You’re right. Initially it was going to be just West Side Story, but I subsequently decided to add the other track, ‘Don’t Rain on My Parade’, so we have really strong, resonant material with Broadway and Hollywood connotations. 

The other consideration is of course, radio airplay. I call our music ‘music from the dark side’. What I mean by that is that we exist in a place where the limelight doesn’t reach. You won’t hear music like this played on mainstream radio and you certainly won’t see it performed on TV. At eleven minutes ‘West Side Story’ isn’t likely to get any airplay beyond the fringes of specialist internet radio, but a three minute track stands a better, though still remote, chance of getting picked up for airplay. It was a simple, pragmatic decision and that’s why I changed the EP title to ‘Go Big Band or Go Home’.

 In a way from a business point of view this is a bit of an experiment. I wanted to see what kind of impact I could have by doing a digital only release. You have to bear in mind that in our corner of the industry the demographic still tends to favour physical product, which is largely purchased in person at live events. They’re not totally on board with downloads and streaming at this point and it remains to be seen whether or not that change will be forthcoming.

Also the EP is a taster for not one, but two full albums that are works in progress. I took the band into Abbey Road last June and recorded a selection of material. When I came to evaluate what we had captured it felt like two halves of two different projects, so we are back to Abbey Road again in June two spend two days laying down the remaining music I think we need.The two EP tracks will eventually form part of physical releases.

Recording in a school assembly hall during the summer holidays – I’ll be honest, the choice caught me slightly off guard. How did that even happen? Were you looking for unusual acoustics, or did someone just say “there’s an empty building and nobody’s there for two weeks”? 

Using the school is all down to my acoustic engineer and technical genius friend Chris Traves. He told me about a school that had, in his opinion, better acoustic sound than any top London studio for a fraction of the cost, and I think he’s right. Compare the two tracks on the EP, one recorded in the school hall, the other at Abbey Road and you can immediately sense there’s nothing to choose between them in terms of the audio quality.

Again this comes back to the label being financially viable. When you have a sixteen piece band, all the smaller, low budget studios are simply not an option. Square footage and good acoustics are not negotiable, so if I can get a room for £600 a day rather than £3000 then it’s a no-brainer.

If I had the luxury of a major label budget I think I would still go down this route. I can make a world class big band album (and have previously done so) for under £20,000 which of course means that the return on investment is achievable even without huge expense on marketing and publicity.

While preparing for this interview I listened to the EP. It impressed me. If you break the EP down into its components – rhythm, dynamics, mood – what was the starting point? Where did this work actually begin?

The starting point was something altogether different. Not having recorded my big band since 2006 I had focused on our live concerts. From 2007 right up to the pandemic I had specialised in concerts where we recreated the big band music of Buddy Rich, one of my all-time drum heroes. People would ask me when I was going to issue a CD as an accompaniment to that concert format and the answer was ‘never’. The original recordings are widely known and freely available, and to do cover versions of them would be futile.

However, for many years now I have been looking at recording big band music associated with Buddy Rich that he played live, but never recorded for commercial release. I have about half an album’s worth of this material in the can and will be returning to this as part of our tenure at Abbey Road in June.

Now of course, Buddy Rich’s grand finale of his live shows was almost always a selection from West Side Story. Back in 2017 to mark his centenary, the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra commissioned a reboot of WSS. It’s like the old Buddy Rich version expanded and pumped full of steroids. The SNJO arrangement by Florian Ross is what we recorded. At the instigation of Stephen Duffy, one of the SNJO board members, their former musical director Tommy Smith donated the West Side Story arrangement to me, and this is the first time it has been recorded.

Outstanding musicians took part in the recording of West Side Story. The music industry has no shortage of stories about geniuses arguing over every note. Did you, as the one in charge behind the drum kit, ever have to use your sticks as a persuasion tool in any disputes – or did everything go suspiciously smoothly?

Absolutely not. I have two criteria when it comes to hiring musicians. Firstly that they are absolutely at the top of their game and can give the music what it needs, and secondly that they are decent people who know how to behave. What I have is more than just fifteen musicians from the contacts on my phone. The band is cast as carefully as any Broadway show or Hollywood movie. Most of the current band have been with me for close to twenty years. Dave, our bass player has been with me since 1995.

It’s important that you treat such high calibre artists with an appropriate level of respect, and I always listen if they have valuable input that will enhance what we do. That said, I choose the repertoire, both for the live shows and in the studio. This isn’t Spinal Tap but with lots of brass and saxophones. There’s no petty bickering or stupidity. It’s fifteen years since I had to let someone go because they were not behaving appropriately. I like to think I’m a good judge of character, and most importantly that the musicians enjoy what it is I ask them to do.

Alongside the EP release you played concerts at Pizza Express Jazz Club in Soho and the Concorde Club in Eastleigh. A drum solo on stage is a moment the audience either loves or endures. How do you work with that format? How do you hold the room’s attention when there’s no melody, no lyrics – just rhythm and you?

The current show is all about drums, drummers, and the history of jazz and big band music. That doesn’t mean there are endless drum solos, far from it in fact. During the show there are moments when I play four or eight bars of drum solo, but that’s all. It’s only on West Side Story that I’ll play a longer drum solo, and in doing so I am constantly referencing the rhythms and melodies of West Side Story, but in the language of the drums, which brings me to a really important point.

What people fail to realise about drum solos, and I include most drummers here, is that a drum solo should have context. In other words, it should sound like it belongs in the piece of music in which it occurs. It should reflect the style, rhythmic feel, structure and colour of the composition. Don’t just wait for the band to stop and then shoehorn in a bunch of licks that you practised yesterday. I have seen and heard big name global drum icons fall foul of this. I would have thought a few of them might know better.

You often challenge age stereotypes and are known as an advocate for fitness and a healthy lifestyle – at 60+ you remain in excellent shape. But what interests me more is the other side of that: is there something that has genuinely got better with age – not abstract “wisdom,” but quite specific things in music or on stage?

At the end of the day I have to remember that I am in show business. I try to look as good as I can and to present myself properly. I see too many jazz musicians who show up to their gigs looking as though they just finished washing the car or mowing the lawn. It’s important to look your best: you owe that to the audience.

It helps that I really enjoy the gym. I would hate to be overweight and out of breath, unable to give the show my best efforts.

What has got better with age is the ability to be completely ‘in the moment’ when playing the drums. There are those who would have you believe that this is some special gift only afforded to music’s most talented over achievers, but that is without foundation. Thirty years ago I embarked on a journey to do away with reliance upon muscle memory. Muscle memory is there to fall back on when necessary, but there is a higher level of playing where you can think of an idea and play it immediately. I taught myself to do this. It’s easy and anyone can do it if they just understand how to go about it.

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