dressing room for anybody. On the third night there, they kind of broke in on him backstage, and found him lying on the floor with this girl, and they had about a four-foot line of cocaine, and they were snorting it on each end, getting closer to each other. That’s what we heard, anyway. And he came out and did his show, but it was not exactly monu- mental. After that, the news was that Sly was getting weirder and weirder, and he eventu- ally just petered out. You just can’t do that to your audience, they work hard to make the money and they buy a ticket to come see you, and I’ve always kept this in my mind, that, here I am, chosen to go out and entertain a crowd, and I owe it to they to do my best. On- stage, I have never used the “F-bomb.” I never used profanity or made fun of the audi- ence or put them down, or given the audience the finger and all that stuff. And I always taught my students that the stage is a place of honor. You go up there and give it everything you’ve got and do the very best you can, be- cause those people are the ones that made you, and they can also be the ones that break you. Col. Tom Parker used to tell Elvis, “Give the people what they want, and always leave them wanting more.” The other part that bothered me was when the Who started bust- ing up their instruments onstage. I mean, come on guys, who gives a crap? But some- times guys make it big and just get full of themselves. They start thinking they can just do anything, and they try to come up with something spectacular. I think that’s when the drugs take over, when they start looking for something special. I mean, drugs were everywhere, and I’m not a saint, but I never ever took that on the stage.


That’s admirable. I’ve seen many con- certs, and I could never stand seeing a performer so messed up that he could- n’t perform. Believe me, I have seen that and as a paying audience member, you not only get disappointed, you get


downright angry. No doubt.


What did you do after leaving Rare Earth? I went out in 1992 with Mike Pinera from Iron Butterfly and Blues Image; Jerry Cor- betta on keyboards from Sugarloaf, “Green Eyed Lady;” Dennis Noda on bass, who played on “Land of 1000 Dances;” and me. We were together for 17 years, until 2010. We called it the Classic Rock Allstars. We played everywhere. The problem we had was, nobody knew who was in the Classic Rock Allstars. People would always come up and say. “We love those songs. We had no idea you were the one who sang them.” We were doing well, and then Jerry started acting a little strange, and it turned out that he had dementia. Shortly before that happened to Jerry, Dennis committed suicide. We got another bass player out of Detroit, a good guy a great bass player, Larry Prentiss (Johnny Rivers). He was with us a year and a half until Jerry’s de- mentia hit. Jerry had to quit the band, so Dennis is gone and Jerry’s gone. Mike was still there. I tell you what, I worked 17 years with Mike, but I knew all along that Mike would never go to the wall for me. He never really had my back. I knew that, but we learned how to work together. So, Mike called me and he said “I think I can get somebody on keyboards and somebody on bass,” but I thought 17 years is enough, so I quit. I quit in 2011. So, since then I have a new band that I’ve had for three years, they are my good friends, there are four of us, and we do what I call Celebrate with Peter Rivera. It’s me, Joe Brasch, Danny McCollim and Dave Hutchen- son. I also do an unplugged trio with just per- cussion, guitar and keyboards. You can see that on You Tube. Just type in Peter Rivera Live at Saloon Studios. It was in North Car- olina. It’s great. They built an old western town around it. They videotaped the whole show with a great sound system and lights,


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