28 Facts About Pete Sears

Peter Roy Sears was born on 27 May 1948 and is an English rock musician.

Pete Sears usually plays bass, keyboards, or both in bands.

Pete Sears played on the Rod Stewart albums Gasoline Alley, Every Picture Tells A Story, Never a Dull Moment, and Smiler.

Pete Sears joined the band Jefferson Starship in 1974 and remained with the group through the transition to Starship, before departing in 1987.

Pete Sears went on to play and record with many musical artists, including The Fleur De Lys in 1966, and the psychedelic underground band Sam Gopal Dream which featured guitarist Mick Hutchinson, Sears on bass and Hammond organ, and the Indian tabla player Sam Gopal.

Pete Sears was a session musician during the late 1960s, including recording piano with the blues band Steamhammer.

Around this time Pete Sears teamed up with original Fairport Convention singer, Judy Dyble, and Van Morrison's Them organist, Jackie McAuley, to form the band Trader Horne.

From 1970 through 1974, Pete Sears returned to session work, including playing on Stewart's early British solo albums: Gasoline Alley, Every Picture Tells a Story including the hit singles "Maggie May" and "Reason To Believe", Never a Dull Moment, and Smiler.

Pete Sears played bass with the Long John Baldry Blues Band on their first tour of the United States and played bass and keyboards with John Cipollina in the band Copperhead.

Pete Sears left Copperhead just before recording their first album to work on Rod Stewart's Never a Dull Moment album in London, but mainly to join a new band Nicky Hopkins was putting together.

Pete Sears went on to co-produce, arrange the music and play on, Kathi McDonald's Insane Asylum album, using guest artists like Sly Stone, The Pointer Sisters, Nils Lofgren, Neal Schon, Aynsley Dunbar, and the Tower of Power horns.

Pete Sears co-founded a band called Sears, Schon, Errico with Neal Schon and Greg Errico, playing the Diamond Head Crater Festival in Hawaii, as well as several California shows.

Pete Sears spent two weeks recording with Ike Turner at Ike's studio, Bolic Sound in Los Angeles.

In 1974, Sears joined Jefferson Starship, replacing Peter Kaukonen and switching back and forth between bass and keyboards with fellow multi-instrumentalist David Freiberg.

Pete Sears wrote two or three songs per album with Grace Slick.

Grace and Pete Sears wrote the song "Hyperdrive" for the Dragon Fly album.

Grace had rejoined by this time, and Pete Sears remained with the band after the departure of leader Paul Kantner and the subsequent name change to "Starship", but he became increasingly at odds with the commercial direction the band was taking.

Pete Sears played only bass on the double-platinum 1985 album Knee Deep in the Hoopla and finally left the group in 1987 shortly after appearing in the music video to "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now".

Pete Sears sat in on keys with ZERO in 2013, and now plays bass with them touring the east and west coasts of America.

From 1992 to 2001, Pete Sears played keyboards with Jefferson Airplane's Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady in Hot Tuna.

Pete Sears sometimes teaches piano or bass at Jorma Kaukonen's Fur Peace Ranch guitar camp in southeastern Ohio.

Pete Sears has worked live and in the studio and performed with John Lee Hooker, who wrote and recorded a song with Sears, called "Elizabeth".

Pete Sears has shared the stage with artists like Jimi Hendrix, The Allman Brothers, Los Lobos, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Sam Bush, Elvis Costello, Paul Butterfield, Michael Bloomfield, Levon Helm, the Grateful Dead, David Crosby, and Carlos Santana among others.

Pete Sears once joined bluesman Nick Gravenites on the back of a flatbed truck, to drive down Market Street in San Francisco, playing the blues in support of nuclear disarmament, and protesting the US-backed injustices in Central America.

Pete Sears was asked to provide and organise the music for the event, so he invited his current band, ZERO, along with other musician friends including Jerry Garcia, whose band the Grateful Dead were performing later that night at the Greek Theater in Berkeley.

Pete Sears was one of a very small group of Bay-area musicians invited to audition for the Grateful Dead's keyboard position in the summer of 1990 following the death of Brent Mydland; the chair was eventually given to Vince Welnick from The Tubes.

Pete Sears performed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tribute to John Lee Hooker at Stanford University as one of Hooker's guests.

Pete Sears wrote a song with Hooker, "Elizabeth", which they performed live together in the studio on Sears' solo album The Long Haul.