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From Mark, with LOVE...
The Loveman Blows His Way Into Our Hearts...
An Interview with Mark Pender
by Michelle Paponetti

Kansas City native Mark Pender seems born of happy incidents. For twenty-two years, he has been the soulful jazz-influenced (often out-of-his-mind) member of the Asbury Jukes horn section, a band he wouldn't let down, even if he seemed to be on his own last legs. In 1981, he was brought on-board to be a trumpet player in the very horn-driven Asbury Jukes, just shortly after moving to the east coast. A few years later he wound up spending four months on the road with the E Street Band. Then in September 1993, he got a job as a full-time fixture on the very successful late night television show, Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Recently, he is in the process of finishing up his first solo CD, compiled of all Pender originals that he has written over the past ten years. It seems the "Loveman" has a lot to smile about these days.

I had the chance to chat with Mark in a restaurant on the Jersey shore. In this interview, he looks back on his first days as a Juke, what it has been like being on the road, the music that has always inspired him, as well as what we can expect to hear from him on his debut CD.

Tell me about the nickname "Loveman."
Well everybody knows what that's about, right? (laughs) I think Little Steven came up with that one. I was sitting in the hotel room when we were in his band and I was singing along with Marvin Gaye with headphones on and he kept knocking on the door and I wouldn't come to the door. So he started calling me the "Loveman." Of course my ex-wife didn't like it that much. She thought something else was going on.

What's the craziest thing you've ever seen at a show? Any show.
Well, I'll stick with the Jukes. I think the craziest thing that we ever saw was, of course there was a period in the mid-eighties where a lot of women were bearing their breasts for the band. I thought that was just great. The first show I ever did with Johnny...here I'm this guy who played mostly jazz and was with Charles Earland's band and doing that type of thing and the first show I do with Johnny, we're in the middle of a show and a bra gets thrown up on stage. It had been ripped off of somebody and thrown up there and I thought, "This is the band for me, baby." But I think also one of the other great moments was George Ruiz throwing up in a trash can while he was playing the bass. That was pretty good. I think he was a little bit loaded.

During a show?
Yea, during a show. God, there's just so much great stuff.

How did you get involved with the Jukes?
I think it was Mike Spengler's fault. We had done some work together in North Jersey and then something came up where Ricky Gazda was having some problems with the band and they asked me to play a couple of shows. We had done Diana Ross just before that with the horn section. And then a couple of weeks later I did my first show with the Jukes on Staten Island. That was probably August of '81. That's a long time already, right? I've spent half
my life as a Juke. (laughs)

You're from the Kansas City area, right? So do you think some of your jazz influences helped you with your involvement with the Jukes?
Yea, it's funny because Johnny was such a pain in the ass when I joined the band. He was always acting like he didn't like anybody and grumblin' around and everything. Now I realize what all that's about. And I was on the tour bus and I'm just dummyin' up, hardly talking. I was really kinda shy.

You?
Yea, exactly.....and so finally somebody says, "Yea, Pender hung out with (Jay) McShann and Joe Turner in Kansas City," and at that point Johnny was different. We were like instant hanging buddies. And we did it for quite a while. There was a period where we lived pretty close to each other and we saw each other quite a bit.

Really...
Yea, not in a romantic way. Not really a romantic way.....I've seen every part of that man...(laughs)

You have quite a resume. I know you have done studio work with people such as Ricky Martin and David Bowie. Did it take a long time for you to make a name for yourself in order to make these kind of connections?
Well the truth of the matter is I still haven't made a name for myself. Because it's not like I'm doing big records every month or even every year. But if you last long enough, the resume starts to look a lot better, you know? A lot of stuff is through friends. "I know the Loveman, let's bring him on over."

I love the album "A Shame + A Sin" by Robert Cray. I know you and Eddie (Manion) were both on that whole album, and even in the band for a while right?
Yea, I was in the band for a couple of years and Eddie a couple of years more.

I remember you telling me a story of how you were supposed to go on tour with Robert Cray and got a call to do Conan?
Yea, I had the choice to make the band with Conan or stay with Robert. And it was a hard choice at that time. But I really wanted to try to stay home and stick around and actually live in New York rather than touring all the time. And it turned out great.

But it was a gamble, right? Wasn't it only supposed to last a few weeks?
The first commitment was about 13 weeks. And I was never sure of the arrangements. They were certainly never going to let me know what they were. But I signed up for whatever it was going to be. It was a risk, but I thought it was a pretty good risk. It's a TV show, you know? But I could see where it was going to work.

Has being in the Max Weinberg 7 helped you get more studio work or are you too busy these days?
Not really. It's a pretty long day, some stuff it's helped me get and other stuff it's kept me from.

I'm always reading reviews of Jukes shows, and the ones that you and Richie are able to play always seem to get rave reviews. There's some kind of energy that you guys seem to add to a Jukes performance, and you guys seem to be having as much fun up there as the crowd! Do you miss being able to play with the Jukes all the time?
Yea, I do, God. Just the antics. Everything surrounding the gig, from hanging out and partying and joking and goofing and playing great music and trying to remember all the songs when we get up there, to trying to see what Labamba will put up with before he starts shaking his head at me, ya know, like, "You dummy, you asshole." And trying not to step on myself too much...

Do you think you will ever get the time to tour with the Jukes on some of their European tours?
It'd be great if it worked out. I'd love to go back with them. Boy, we had a heck of a time in Europe. Some of those wild moments. A lot of things happen in Europe, like when Bobby joined the band. We were rooming together and he got locked out of the hotel after the first night. His first night on tour with the Jukes. It was great, he gets locked out of the hotel. He couldn't get back in the front door.

I heard you guys have played quite a few practical jokes on each other.
Yea, Bobby always used to try to put his member in my mouth, for some reason, while I was sleeping. And I finally had to tell him, "If you put that in there, you're not getting it back! Whatever is on this side of the teeth, doesn't return." (laughs)

So you're in the process of putting together a new CD. How's that going?
Yep, I've been working on it for quite a few years. Some of the tracks, I actually recorded in the early nineties and finally I am gonna use them. Then, I started recording again last March and I should be done in the next couple of weeks. I'm looking to put it out next month in March. But it's a lot of work. It was also going to be an enhanced CD and as of today, I'm going to put out two discs. It's gonna be a DVD and a CD. The DVD will be a
live performance at the Cutting Room (in NYC) and then some other stuff cutting in and out of it. So, we'll see how that goes. So it should be mid- to late-March when I have them in hand and I'm not on a label, so I'm just putting it out myself. I really wanted to do this project. I wrote everything on it, I sing on everything, I play on everything, arranged, co-produced.

So are you going to sell it on your website?
I'm gonna sell it on the website, at live gigs. And if Johnny will let me do something on his site, that would certainly be nice. Anything I can do to try to get the product out there.

I've heard you play with LaBamba's big band and with your own band as well, but for those who haven't had the pleasure of seeing you live, what can they expect to hear on this cd?
A lot of it is kinda funk jam songs, where we sing a couple of verses and then everybody plays and carries on and then somewhere along the line, I'll raise up a hand and we'll go back to the body of the song. I would say it's a jam band, but then you'd get the impression that I have hair and stuff and I'm really young.

Have you ever thought about putting together a cd of classic jazz tunes or something like that?
Maybe someday. I wanted to do this first because of the original writing and everything. And I've been writing stuff for years. So at this rate, once this CD comes out, you won't be able to have an original CD out of me for another 20 years. That's pretty much how long I've been writing for it. (laughs) I may end up doing more covers on the next one, or who knows, maybe I'll have a creative breakthrough.

How old were you when you first picked up a trumpet?
I was ten. It was part of that whole public school program. They came around and asked, "What would you like to play?" and they said, "You can play the coronet, which is like a trumpet, or a clarinet or a saxophone." So I said, "I'll play the trumpet or the coronet." I really wanted to play the horn and at that time, I'm really aging myself, but Herb Alpert had a few hits and I thought if I'm gonna play a band instrument, it should be the trumpet. At that time, you were hearing Herb Alpert all the time.

I got to see you play on the "Tunnel of Love" tour back in 1988. Unfortunately it was a very short tour, but a great one. That album wasn't a horn driven album, so I was wondering who's idea it was to go with the horn approach.
I would imagine it was Bruce's idea. I know Steven had something to do with it.

But I thought Steven wasn't on that album.
No, but he had some kind of input.

Was that the first time you worked with Bruce?
No, not really. He was on the Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul record and I think that's the first time that I worked with him.

I think his shows seem to come across a lot better with a horn section, so hopefully there will be more work in the future. I've seen them with the horns and without, and in my opinion, there's nothing like seeing the E Street Band with a horn section.
Well, thank you. I have a lot of fun playing with him. Also, those Christmas shows with Johnny and everybody together. Boy, that's magic.

On the Jukes last album, "Messin' With The Blues," I remember Eddie talking about how the horn section pretty much wrote the horn parts in the studio. Is this the case with "Going To Jukesville" as well?
No, Chris Anderson did most of it. I think Ed Manion did some of them. And then Johnny did some of it also. Johnny sang some lines and we played them back to him. It's a pretty usual Jukes record, as far as my experience with recording with them. Like when we did "At Least We Got Shoes," I did almost all the arrangements but it wasn't without Johnny giving me lines and also giving me the ability to do a bit of what I wanted to. One thing, I have to say that Johnny is really creative in that sense and he gave us all a lot of room and it made it really worthwhile working on it creatively. It was just awesome. I think he did that with Chris and Chris' arrangements were just wonderful.

"Going To Jukesville" is drenched with some great horns. It reminds me a little bit of the old Jukes. Was that the goal?
I don't know. I think the goal was just to do an R&B record, which might have been the goal of the earlier Jukes records...I'm never really sure what our goal is. (laughs) That's what makes it good.

Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?
Sittin' with Johnny with a fishing pole somewhere and a strong drink with a couple of cubes of ice in it, maybe.

Talking about the good ol' days?
No. Maybe not talking at all.

Mark Pender Photos | Mark Pender Discography

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