PETER STAYS IN LINE BY TELLING TALL TALES

Jewish Telegraph, May 2003

WHEN songwriter Peter Hoffman was barmitzvah, he was so tall that his rabbi had to stand on a box to bless him.
Hoffman — whose group The Mendoza Line release their fourth album, Lost In Revelry (Cooking Vinyl) this month — explains: ‘‘I went to a Conservative Temple in suburban Washington DC and attended Hebrew school three days a week from the eight to 14.
‘‘My barmitzvah was quite hilarious to watch. My rabbi was about five foot one inch and by that time I was already six feet tall. I towered over him. He was a great rabbi and since his passing, synagogue has never seemed the same.’’
The 29-year-old adds: ‘‘My family isn’t, and has never been, kosher. My father is the only one in the family who I would consider devout. He goes to synagogue regularly and often talks about his special relationship with God. At this point, I go to temple on the High Holydays and maybe twice a year with my father.’’
Peter says he was a huge music fan as a teenager.
‘‘I just sort of picked up a guitar and started writing songs,’’ he said. ‘‘Tim Bracy — the other founding member of The Mendoza Line — and I started ‘playing’ together when we were 15 or 16.
‘‘This basically consisted of Tim strumming my mother’s classical guitar and singing Run, Run, Run by the Velvet Underground for 12 straight hours. We started playing more seriously when I moved to Athens, Georgia, after college.
‘‘Tim was going to school there and I had a small inheritance to waste away. When we started, the band was called the Incompetones. It was noisy, abrasive, and basically terrible.’’
Peter adds that his parents were initially horrified by his decision to be a musician.
‘‘But every time I send them a new album or press clips they seem very proud. My father always buys 20 copies of our records and sends them to family, friends and even work associates.’’
Unlike labelmate Dan Bern, Hoffman does not bring Judaism into any of his songs. He says: ‘‘I wouldn’t necessarily say I avoid it, I never even considered it. It’s fine to bring religion and politics into songs; it’s just not my cup of tea. ’’
Peter, Tim and fellow band member Paul Deppler all went to high school together in Washington, DC. They met Shannon Mary McArdle in Athens before they moved to New York.
‘‘Tim gave her a guitar and she started writing dozens of great songs and she joined the band in New York a couple weeks after we arrived,’’ Peter revealed.
‘‘Sean Fogarty, our drummer, was a friend of a friend. When Lost In Revelry came out in the States our previous drummer told us three weeks before the tour that he could not do it.
‘‘I met Sean that same night in a pub and he joined a week later. I met John Troutman, our lead guitar player/pedal steel player, in Georgia. He went to college with three of my closest friends from DC and when Lost In Revelry came out, we asked him to come on tour and he’s been in the band ever since.’’
Hoffman says the band had modest aims when they formed.
‘‘When our first record came out in 1997, I think we were shocked that somebody would care enough to press up 1,000 copies of our music, let alone buy it,’’ he recalls.
‘‘However, with each release our aims grow — both musically and professionally — which is natural. The sales get better every album, more people come to shows, there’s more press, etc.
‘‘Success is making a living playing music. Whether it’s through album sales, playing live, sync licenses.’’
The Mendoza Line start a tour with power pop trio Nada Surf — featuring Jewish drummer Ira Elliot — tomorrow in Oxford, calling in at Glasgow’s King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut on Tuesday and Hop and Grape, Manchester on Wednesday.
Peter says: ‘‘I’ve been friends with Matthew Caws from Nada Surf and their manager for a year or so and it just worked out. They were looking for somebody to come on tour with them and we were looking to tour with someone.
‘‘It was all in the timing. I don’t think our music is too dissimilar. We listen to the same bands and I see Matthew at the shows quite frequently. The bottom line is, both bands concentrate on songs and songwriting, having a good time with each other and our band mates.
‘‘I think it’s a great bill and I can’t wait to spend a week with Nada Surf in the UK.’’
Lost In Revelry — which features 13 tracks including single It’ll Be The Same Without You, The Queen of England and the Rolling Stones-like Damn Good Disguise — was included on many best of 2002 in American publications.