Pete Sears

Pete Sears is an English-born rock keyboardist and bass player, born May 27, 1948 in Bromley, Kent, and resident in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than forty-five years. He turned professional in the mid-1960s with Sons of Fred, touring Britain, recording at Abbey Road and appearing on television programmes including Ready Steady Go and Thank Your Lucky Stars. He went on to play with the Fleur de Lys, the psychedelic group Sam Gopal Dream, Steamhammer, Trader Horne, Silver Meter, the original Stoneground and Copperhead, the last with guitarist John Cipollina. Between 1970 and 1974 he contributed keyboards and bass to four Rod Stewart albums, Gasoline Alley, Every Picture Tells a Story, Never a Dull Moment and Smiler, playing on tracks including Maggie May and Reason to Believe. He joined Jefferson Starship in 1974 for the album Dragon Fly and stayed through the group's transformation into Starship, leaving in 1987; he alternated bass and keyboards and co-wrote with Grace Slick and with his wife Jeannette, with credits including Hyperdrive, Sandalphon on the platinum Red Octopus (1975), Stranger and Winds of Change. From 1992 to 2001 he played keyboards with Hot Tuna, and he has also worked with the Jorma Kaukonen Trio, the David Nelson Band, Steve Kimock and Zero, and Jerry Garcia, as well as recording with blues musicians including John Lee Hooker. He is a full-time member of Moonalice, the Bay Area psychedelic and funk ensemble whose lineup has included vocalist Lester Chambers and which released an album in spring 2022. His solo records include Watchfire (1988) and The Long Haul (2001), and he has scored documentary films, among them The Fight in the Fields, about Cesar Chavez. He and Jeannette have long been involved in human rights and relief work in Central America, recognised by the California Institute of Integral Studies in 1988.

Subscribe to this calendar

Upcoming shows