12 August 2026

Miss BISS Catches Up with Robert Walter: From Greyboy to The Breaks and Beyond

By Pamela Gerstein, Founder & Curator, BISS List

For the very first edition of Miss BISS Catches Up, Robert Walter felt like the perfect place to start.

Over the years, I’ve caught up with Robert all over the map… around the Bay Area, during Jazz Fest in New Orleans, at festivals like High Sierra, and plenty of places in between. I’ve also seen him play in more configurations than I could ever keep track of, from The Greyboy Allstars and Robert Walter’s 20th Congress to countless collaborations and, most recently, The Breaks.

Back in 2024, I sent Robert and Karl Denson a few questions in support of The Greyboy Allstars’ show at The New Parish, and shared their responses in a BISS interview and review.

This time, Robert and I sat down for a full video conversation about what he’s been up to, what’s coming next, and what still keeps him excited after more than 30 years of making music.

Watch for clips from our conversation coming soon!

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Miss BISS: Hello, BISS Listers, and welcome to the very first Miss BISS Catches Up. I could not think of a better person to kick things off with than someone I’ve known for a long time, Mr. Robert Walter. Robert, welcome.

Robert Walter: Hi. Glad to be here.

MB: Glad to have you. It’s been a couple years since our last BISS interview, and that one happened over email. We’ve had so many run-ins over the years. We’ve hung out, we’ve talked so many times, I’ve seen you play. So I thought rather than doing another written one, I would just hit record and we’d catch up.

RW: Yeah, it’s great to talk sort of in person.

JAZZ FEST

MB: The last few months alone, I’ve seen you quite a bit. Going back to Jazz Fest in New Orleans, over the course of about one week, I saw you at three different events: Bayou RenDAZEvous that Monday, Bayou Rendezvous on Friday, and then Stanton Moore’s Festival Finale.

Just at those three events, I saw you with Frequinox, The Breaks, Eric Krasno, Stanton Moore, the Stanton Moore Trio, and then Frequinox again at the finale.

RW: Yeah. I had actually forgotten about a couple.

MB: Right? And it was a great way for me to close out Jazz Fest with Stanton’s legendary closing show. I believe that was a 20-year celebration of doing that event, and it also happened to be your birthday. Thanks for those tickets, by the way.

Do you even know how many other sets you played during Jazz Fest?

RW: This year I think it was something like 11 or 12 gigs. The most ever was close to 20.

Ivan Neville and Stanton Moore do upwards of 20 a lot of times. They really book it. But as I’m getting older, I kind of take it a little easier. I try to build in a couple days off so I can enjoy the city and rest a little bit in between.

But I do like all the playing. There’s something about playing enough where you don’t get nervous anymore and you can’t really overthink the gigs. They sort of get exponentially better because you’re playing so much that you’re on autopilot. You’re not thinking. You can sort of let the music play through you.

It does something you never get out of a normal schedule of gigs. When you’re playing multiple times a day with so many different people and things get thrown at you, I love that sort of maximalist thing that happens during Jazz Fest.

MB: Do you feel like most of those are actually booked, or do you get a lot of, “Hey, come sit in”?

RW: Most of the time everything is booked now, and then I’ll make the rounds.

If I’m still out, I’ll stick around and watch my friends’ bands and maybe sit in or do little things like that. But I try not to commit to anything last minute so I can be sort of free.

I’ll book something in all the dark time slots, and then if I feel like staying out or going to watch a friend play, I’ll pop around and do a little playing that way too.

HIGH SIERRA

MB: Most recently, I saw you at High Sierra.

I first ran into you as you and Stanton were standing outside the festival VIP lounge looking a little disappointed. I guess you’d just been turned away. I said hi and you were kind of like, “Yeah, we just got turned away. Is there any way you could get us in?”

And I just had to laugh because, as I said to you, “Yeah, I run that shit. Let’s go.”

We walked in there with a little nod and a wave to the security guys.

And it seemed like you were able to get in there no problem after that because I found you at the wine tasting table the next day.

RW: Yeah. That’s a great place to watch the bands because you’re right on the side there and not in the back.

I also like to watch from the back because sometimes you can watch musicians interact, but that little side area is great. And then you go get sushi and that whole thing.

MB: Oh yeah. You’ve got to go see Tada at the sushi place for sure.

So let me ask you about High Sierra. This is sort of a two-parter. What did you think of the new site? And most importantly, did you have fun?

RW: I had a blast, and I really like the new site.

I like the amount of shade. And I do feel like it has a little more, for lack of a better word, local infrastructure. Better hotels around the place, better grocery stores and places to buy stuff if you need it.

If you’re purely camping, I don’t know if it matters. But from a band perspective, it was easier.

MB: I think that’s similar for a lot of our longtime High Sierra folks who aren’t necessarily wanting to camp in a tent anymore and now have some hotel options around the area.

I had talked to Dave after High Sierra and quoted him in the BISS List saying, “I think we saved Christmas by moving to Grass Valley.”

RW: That festival always meant a lot to me. That, along with New Orleans and, for many years, Jam Cruise, were always markers in the year where I would get to see all my friends.

You get to interact with the other bands in ways that, when you’re all on the road, you might cross paths for a night, but at those things everybody converges on the same place. You get to catch up with the other bands.

High Sierra was also sort of West Coast hippie. There’s something about that environment that really gives me a good feeling.

So it was great to be back.

ALWAYS ANOTHER PROJECT

MB: Just trying to schedule this conversation reminded me that you never slow down.

You mentioned recording a new Greyboy Allstars record. You just got back from Japan. You’re working on movie and TV projects with Michael Andrews. You’re already writing music for the next Breaks record.

All of that?

RW: Yeah. I like to keep working on stuff, and I like to keep a variety of projects going because I get kind of restless.

I like playing different music all the time. I don’t think I would be happy just being a guy in a regular band. One band, and you learn the set and tour the set.

I like it to always change and possibly be working on stuff, challenging myself and being around different musicians.

It kind of keeps me from going crazy.

THE GREYBOY ALLSTARS RETURN TO SAN FRANCISCO

MB: I love that, and I want to talk more about all of it, but I’m going to jump to one of the main reasons we decided to have this conversation.

The Greyboy Allstars are playing the Castro, and personally I’m very excited about that.

I don’t know how much you know about the newly renovated Castro Theatre, but it has just reopened after a major renovation. I finally made it there once, but it was for a movie, so I’m excited to see you guys play there.

RW: I’ve never been there before, but I know it’s sort of a legendary spot.

Someone sent me a video of someone playing the organ that lives in there. There’s like a part of the building that’s an organ, which we probably won’t use.

But I’m excited about playing someplace with such history. It’s a new one for me.

MB: That’s August 28, and it’s part of a three-night run. You’re doing Harlow’s on the 27th, the Castro on the 28th and Moe’s Alley on the 29th.

What are you most excited about with this tour? What can we expect from Greyboy this time around?

RW: San Francisco is always the highlight.

Our first gig ever was at the Elbo Room in San Francisco, so that’s always been like a home away from home for The Greyboy Allstars.

We haven’t been to Sacramento in years, so it’ll be cool to come back there.

But the band is kind of on a real good one lately. We just finished recording an album. It’s mixing and mastering, so it’s in the can and ready to go, probably for a release early next year.

The morale is high.

We’re talking about whether to bust out new tunes yet, but I think we’re going to keep them until we’re a little closer to the release.

We’ve been going through the back catalog and learning a bunch of deeper stuff that we haven’t been playing, so we’ll bust out some stuff from that.

I feel like we’ve grown into our older-man phase in a good way, where we all really appreciate each other and the legacy of the band.

For years we toured a lot. We’ve gone through periods where we burned out or had been around each other so much that you take it for granted.

Now everyone really has a mutual respect, and when we do it, everyone is so stoked just to be together.

It’s a very joyous occasion. A good vibe for sure.

SAN FRANCISCO AND THE EARLY GREYBOY YEARS

MB: When we did the interview last time, I asked you about the Bay Area and your connection to it, and you mentioned that the very first Greyboy Allstars show was at the Elbo Room.

I was trying to find it. Was it 1993?

RW: Yeah.

MB: And you also recorded at Hyde Street?

RW: Yes. Our second album, A Town Called Earth, was recorded at Hyde Street.

We were there for about a week, and that was a big deal for us because Herbie Hancock had recorded Head Hunters and Thrust there when it was Wally Heider Recording.

Later, I did a record with Eddie Roberts, Zak Najor and Chris Stillwell called The Rare Sounds in that room.

I love that studio. The neighborhood has a lot of character. It has a lot of vibe.

It’s just a classic place for funk music.

San Francisco has always been like that for us. We did well up there before we did well in San Diego. We had our audience up there first.

I think people understood the music, probably because of the DJ scene and people collecting old records. There was Groove Merchant Records on Haight Street and that whole scene for collecting old funk records.

MB: I think you told me that before too, that we here in the Bay Area actually understood what you guys were trying to do.

RW: Yeah. It was early in the scene, at least in the States. There was already something going on in England and the UK, but in the States, San Francisco was probably first.

There’s also a built-in appreciation for improvisational music because of the Grateful Dead and the psychedelic music that happened there.

There’s an ability for people to listen to sustained, long-form improvisations.

Our music isn’t psychedelic rock music, but it’s related in that way. We’ll play two sets. Things will go long. You don’t know what will happen. The songs are different every night. Set lists are different every night.

So it’s related in that way.

THE NEW GREYBOY ALLSTARS RECORD

MB: Can you tell us anything about the new record? What direction are you going? How does it compare to what we’ve heard previously from Greyboy?

RW: It’s very different, but not in any obvious way.

It’s not like we took influences from completely different things than we have before. I feel like we just solidified them in a better way.

Things are a little less soloistic and less derivative in an obvious way.

Instead of saying, “We’re going to make a James Brown kind of song,” or, “We’re going to make a ’60s Brazilian music kind of song,” instead of wearing the influences in such obvious ways, I feel like everything is there at once in a way that makes it original to our experience.

It’s not quite as genre-tribute-ish. It’s more original.

It felt more like we were just speaking our own language.

More modern in some ways, just by nature of it being truer to who we are.

I’m really excited about it.

MB: It sounds forward-looking in kind of a crazy way.

RW: Yeah. It’s a little adventurous, a little dissonant, a little wild.

MB: I love some good dissonance.

When we talked before, you said you guys started out more as a tribute to funky music you loved from the ’60s and ’70s. You summed up where you had gotten to by saying your sound was “less imitation and more inspiration.” I really liked that quote.

RW: That’s the idea, to eventually become your own self.

Everyone learns by taking influence from things.

Look at something like the Rolling Stones. They were trying to be Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters when they started. Eventually they started writing songs and became something that now you would imitate.

That’s the idea with this music too.

We were really into James Brown and Curtis Mayfield and Lou Donaldson and Rusty Bryant and Lonnie Smith, all these references.

Eventually you internalize all these things, and then they come out of you along with everything else you grew up with.

I grew up loving heavy metal and punk rock and classical music. All these things get in the blender, and they come out in ways that you didn’t even intend.

This new record really feels like that.

There are lots of synthesizers on it, which I’m stoked about. Not in an EDM way. More in a ’70s German music way or something.

That’s all stuff I grew up with and love too.

MB: I’m with you on that. I always say BISS is funk, jam, soul, groove and a little bit of everything else. Punk rock, metal, hip-hop… whatever I feel like.

Mostly because I said so.

THE BREAKS

MB: Let’s go back to some of the things we talked about earlier, like The Breaks.

I’m a huge fan of you, Stanton and Eddie individually with whatever projects you guys are in. So when I heard about this, I was like… YES.

And then you casually mentioned, “Oh yeah, we’re already writing some music for the next Breaks record.”

Tell me more.

RW: We’re all really excited about that.

It was sort of an obvious thing. I’ve played with Stanton for years. I’ve played with Eddie for years.

Eddie and Stanton had played a little bit, but we had only done it as a trio a couple times ever before we started this band.

Me and Stanton have played a lot together. Me and Eddie have done records together.

One time we were at a festival together and we were just talking. We were like, “Why don’t we do something?”

The New Mastersounds had been wrapping up and not touring as much, so Eddie had time on his hands, and Stanton wanted to do something again with me.

So we started talking about it.

But we said we didn’t want to do another kind of supergroup, what we call a “promoter band,” where somebody puts together a band so they can put the names on the bill.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. I’ve had a blast doing those kinds of things. I’ve done a lot of that in my career.

It’s a fun way to play with other people.

But I wanted to do something that took itself a little more seriously, that had a repertoire and could grow and develop the chemistry, instead of being a thrown-together thing where you mess up the endings every time.

We wanted to have a good band.

So we started writing songs and sending stuff to each other.

Stanton sometimes sends me beats he’s working on, and I’ll write around those.

We spend time together. He does these sailing trips, and we’ll hang out together and jam and develop material and talk musically.

Those guys are really fun to spend time with. I’ve been good friends with them for years. We’ve all known each other for about 30 years.

It’s easy.

It feels like being in a band with the Greyboy guys, except fresher because we haven’t spent as much time in the van. But I know them like that, and we have some kind of telepathy just from years of doing it.

MB: I love that.

RW: And then the idea was: make a record, make a second record.

All of us are big Led Zeppelin fans. We watched Becoming Led Zeppelin, where they made the first record and then right on the back of it made the second one.

We were like, “Let’s copy that.”

Hit them with a one-two. Then the next one we can get more experimental.

But hit them with two kind of the same right away and build a repertoire so we have a lot of tunes to play and can mix it up.

And they’re tunes, not cover tunes.

MB: I can’t wait to see more from The Breaks.

I was already at High Sierra when you guys played at Siesta Valley Bowl, but that looked like an amazing show, especially being on the bill with The Headhunters at a brand-new venue.

I was sad to miss it.

RW: That’s a beautiful spot.

MB: I was going to ask what you thought of it. It’s really pretty, isn’t it?

RW: Yeah, it was really great.

And The Headhunters… I’ve been good friends with Mike Clark for years, and I used to play in his band.

We’ve crossed paths forever, and I actually did a little tour with him and Bill Summers when Paul Jackson was alive, and Donald Harrison was playing saxophone with The Headhunters at the time.

So I did a tour with The Headhunters years ago.

MB: Really?

RW: Yeah. I was highly underqualified.

It was terrifying.

But those guys are my heroes.

MB: That’s amazing.

One of these days when I get into my storage unit and track down the hundreds of spindles of recordings, my late husband had been working with Rob Wasserman.

They used to record in the living room of this house he lived in. My husband was the sound engineer, and Mike Clark and Rob Wasserman did all these recordings that are buried somewhere in my storage unit.

RW: I did a tour with the two of them as a trio.

MB: With Rob and Mike?

RW: Yeah. I might be on some of those.

MB: It could be! This was definitely 2000, 2003 or something.

RW: Yeah, early 2000s.

MB: Interesting. I’ll have to check. I wonder if he mixed any of those shows.

I know he was doing the recordings, but he was also touring with Blues Traveler, so it was sort of like when he was home, they recorded.

I’ll have to look through that stuff.

RW: That was a fun group, actually.

JAPAN AND FUJI ROCK

MB: All right, another one from earlier. Japan.

What was Japan about? Who was that with?

RW: That was with The Breaks.

That was part of our plan from the beginning, to think of this as an international project.

Stanton and Eddie had both been over there a bunch, but I had never been.

I tell people I had some kind of curse with Japan. Multiple times I had a trip lined up and something would go wrong at the last minute.

I think I had one planned right before COVID and that got canceled. Other times someone would have a family issue or something would go wrong at the last minute.

So until we finally got over there, I thought, “What’s going to go wrong with this trip?”

But we got there. We played Fuji Rock, and it was a great response.

People seemed to really dig it, and hopefully we’ll go back on the next album.

It blew my mind how much people appreciated this kind of music and had knowledge about this stuff. There seemed to be this natural background of people getting the references.

Really, really fun.

MB: Very cool. I’m glad you finally got to make it there.

Maybe I’ll get there one of these days. You need a tour manager, I’ll go with you.

RW: It was really amazing. Great record shopping, great food. All the stuff I like to do.

FILM, TELEVISION AND MICHAEL ANDREWS

MB: You mentioned earlier that between all these things you’re doing, you’re still finding time to chill and buy records.

Still sounds busy to me.

The next thing you told me about was movie and TV work with Michael Andrews. Can you tell me more about that and how it came together?

RW: We’ve been doing that stuff for years.

He’s a very successful film and TV composer.

I don’t know if I can talk about the projects we’re doing right now because we’re in the middle of them, and that’s his stuff. So until things are released, probably not.

But he’s done a million things. If you look at Michael Andrews on IMDb, most of his projects I’ve played on in some kind of way.

He’s done a million great things.

He’s the composer, and I’m kind of like an instant keyboard player. I’ll come in and play fancy keyboard parts. We’ll work together a little bit, and I’ll be in the room and help with stuff.

It’s a great thing.

It’s informed our music in The Greyboy Allstars a lot too. We always loved old film scores from the ’70s because a lot of them were funky and had atmosphere.

To actually work in films and then come back to the band, we’ve been able to apply some of those ideas.

The new album has a lot of very cinematic music on it, stuff that takes you on a journey with atmospheric moments.

GIRAFFE

RW: I’ve got another plug too.

MB: Yeah! More projects.

RW: I have a band called Giraffe that has a record coming out August 21.

It’s a cool record. Aquarium Drunkard is putting it out with a label.

I should have these details written down. I didn’t think to prepare it.

But it’s all improvised.

Dave Harrington is the guitar player, Spencer Zahn is on bass, and Kosta Galanopoulos is on drums.

We played for about four hours, took a break, and then overdubbed for four hours on the same take without winding back or fixing anything.

It was just the four of us playing, then playing again.

Dave Harrington, who is amazing, took it and chopped it up, dubbed it out and did a crazy mix on it. He picked the best stuff.

There’s no composition, pre-planning or fixing, really.

It’s like seeing a freeform gig, but edited.

I think it’s a very interesting piece of music.

MB: You’ll have to send me some information so that I can share it with all of my followers and get the word out.

RW: I’ll send you the details because I should have written that down.

It’s something we do locally here in LA. It hasn’t toured or anything, but it’s really fun when we do it.

Everybody is super busy with other things, but you get together and do this thing for us musicians to enjoy.

MB: Right. Because you’re not super busy.

There’s always another band, another album, another collaboration, another project.

I don’t know how you keep all of that straight.

ROBERT WALTER’S 20TH CONGRESS

MB: We haven’t even talked about 20th Congress. What’s going on with that one?

RW: I haven’t done anything serious with that in a while.

We talked about doing a reissue of Money Shot and maybe doing a little tour around that.

I also did a tour last year with Mike Gordon, and he has a record that I played a little bit on that will come out at some point.

I can’t remember what else I’ve played on.

I just try to say yes to anything that I feel would be interesting.

Especially as I’m getting older, I want to make as much music as I can and be part of as much stuff as I can.

MB: I’m here for it. I know a lot of people are here for it.

CONNECTING ALL THOSE MUSICAL WORLDS

MB: Do all of these projects live in completely different musical worlds?

Are they all connected, aside from just through you? Do they feel connected to each other in any way, or are they very different?

RW: Some are more different than others.

Obviously, the jazz-funk stuff is in the same wheelhouse, and those people interact with each other.

Then there’s stuff that is more serious and improvisational, more art-project stuff.

As a musician, it’s not really that different.

But I think for a listener, somebody who comes to a funk gig might hear some things I play and be like, “Wow, that’s pretty out,” or find it challenging.

Hopefully there’s connective tissue to all of it.

Even when I’m playing something that’s a little more esoteric, I try to bring some sort of feeling or emotion or humanity to it so it’s not just dissonant or just out.

But I also want to stretch.

I don’t want to be, “Wind me up and I’ll entertain you.”

I want to challenge myself and challenge the audience so the music feels exciting.

I didn’t want to be in a wedding band. I didn’t want to be in a cover band. I wanted to play original music. That’s why I got into this.

When I perform, I want to learn something about myself, and I want the audience to go through that journey too.

THE RECORDS MORE PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW

MB: Is there a particular record or project that you wish more people knew about?

RW: There’s all the stuff that Eddie and I have been doing, and The Breaks is kind of an attempt to remedy this.

Around COVID, we made that WRD album with Adam Deitch. Eddie Roberts, Adam Deitch and myself. It’s a great organ trio record called The Hit.

Then we made a record right after that called The Rare Sounds, with Eddie and me, Chris Stillwell and Zak Najor from The Greyboy Allstars.

It’s like a New Mastersounds/Greyboy Allstars matchup band.

Then Eddie and I did a record with George Porter Jr. and Nikki Glaspie in Iceland, with a bunch of guests on it.

Eddie and I have done all these projects, none of which ever toured.

They’re these sleeper, interesting, cool funky records that we did. They’ve just kind of been sitting there in the Color Red catalog.

A lot of people like them, but they never really went anywhere because we never played gigs behind them.

The Breaks was the idea of, “We’re going to do one of these and actually support it.”

But it’s all part of the same musical thread to me.

MB: I just started listening to it, and it really, really gets going. I couldn’t be happier with that.

What’s the name of the record that you did with Nikki Glaspie?

THE FLOKI SESSIONS

RW: That’s called Floki Sessions: Boots in Place.

It was recorded in Iceland at Floki Studios.

Joe Russo did a record up there. The New Mastersounds did a record up there.

It’s way up north. You fly to Iceland and then you have to keep going. You still have to keep driving.

It’s called the Troll Peninsula.

We did it in the winter, so it’s dark. It’s only light for about four hours a day. It’s like being on another planet.

It’s a total adventure.

You’re kind of isolated up there, but it’s an incredible experience. It was really fun.

And George Porter Jr. is another hero of mine.

When I’m playing organ bass, more than organ players, I reference him a lot because I just love his playing.

He’s one of those guys that if I get a chance to play with him, I’m like, “George is on it? Say yes.”

Any chance you get, you just want to be around him.

And Nikki I love, of course, too.

WHERE TO START WITH ROBERT WALTER

MB: If somebody knows you just through Greyboy and wanted to dive into Robert Walter and get to know you more, what would be the next thing you’d tell them to listen to?

RW: I would say one of my solo records or 20th Congress, probably.

I like Spirit of ’70, but that’s basically me with The Greyboy Allstars.

I love Gary Bartz on it, who I adore and think is a national treasure.

I was too young to be playing with him at that time. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but he sounds great on it, so it’s fun for me to listen to that one.

And I like my playing on The Breaks’ new record, actually.

I feel like I’m not getting worse, which is good.

MB: That’s good, especially if you feel that. We feel that, but it’s good if you feel that too.

RW: It’ll happen eventually. I’ll start getting worse eventually. But I’m still on the upward.

MB: Hopefully you won’t be in your right mind and you won’t know you’re getting worse.

WHY ROBERT IS SAYING NO TO TRIBUTE SHOWS

MB: Is there anything that makes you say yes or no to a collaboration?

RW: I’ve been saying no to tribute things.

It’s not that I haven’t gotten a lot out of them in the past because I do love learning an artist’s music.

I’ve done them where it gave me a new appreciation.

We did a David Bowie one 20 years ago. I already loved David Bowie, but then I learned a bunch of the songs and was like, “Holy shit. There are so many good songs with such a variety.”

Some have tons of chords. Some have barely any chords. There’s all this variety of material that all works.

It really taught me a lot.

And it’s great to dig deep into something like that.

But it became such a cynical way to book gigs. Like, “People are going to like it because they already know what it is.”

It feels like such a failure of belief in people.

I’m a composer, and I believe in writing music.

I believe that people have something to say about their own life experience and that it’s important that contemporary people speak for themselves and speak to each other.

The end-all of music can’t be music from the ’60s, as much as I love it. Or the ’70s. Or the ’90s.

You have to keep doing it and keep creating.

It feels a little gross to me sometimes.

I feel a little bit like a whore sometimes if I’m like, “Oh yeah, Grateful Dead song number 372 all night,” or whatever.

So tribute-cover-band things, I tend to say no to, even if they offer me a lot of money.

Unless it’s some incredible idea or a real original, inspired version of it.

But if it’s just, “I didn’t really have an idea, so this is what we’re going to do tonight,” I’m like, think a little bigger than that.

No shots fired at anyone doing that, because people do a great job with it.

It just doesn’t excite me.

MB: We tend to limit that a bit on the BISS List too.

I’ll list some here and there, especially if it’s friends or if it’s a different take on something specific.

But if I wanted to list a Grateful Dead show every single night of the week here in the San Francisco Bay Area, there are one or two happening every night.

I want the variety. There are other people doing that too.

RW: And I love that music. I love those songs.

I just think they’re well represented already.

STILL SEARCHING AFTER 30 YEARS

MB: After doing this now for more than 30 years, what are you still chasing musically?

RW: To me, it’s the same thing as it always has been.

I think there’s an arc of self-discovery in every gig.

I’m trying to play something that surprises me. I’m trying to take chances during the night.

It can be the other musicians. It’s not always about what I’m playing.

What if I push this around the room and respond to somebody in a way that’s unusual? Or encourage something behind someone else’s solo?

It has to do with the interactions more than just what I would individually play.

I’m looking to suddenly push things in ways that put me in thought-provoking or unusual or novel spaces, so that I walk away having discovered something about my emotions or my brain.

And it happens more often than you think.

That’s why it keeps me coming back and why it’s a really satisfying thing to do as a life pursuit.

It’s fun.

It makes you laugh. You’re like, “Oh wow, I can’t believe that happened.”

The more you do it, the better you get at it.

I think we all have that in common, the people I work with. We’re all looking for that.

That’s the thing when you come off stage and you’re like, “Hell yeah. What a ride.”

MB: We’ve now talked about Greyboy, The Breaks, Jazz Fest, Japan, 20th Congress, the movie and TV stuff and Giraffe.

Is there anything we haven’t talked about that you’re really excited about right now?

RW: I think that’s it.

Giraffe. Also Giraffe.

I think that’s all my stuff.

MB: That’s it. That’s all there is. And then chilling and getting new records.

RW: Yeah. I think we covered it.

ROBERT WALTER ON BISS

MB: Now that we’ve known each other for such a long time, and you’ve watched the BISS List grow and I’ve seen your career go through all these different chapters, what has your experience been with me and with BISS over these years?

RW: I’m just thankful for the shout-out whenever we do a weird…

I’ve started so many odd little bands over the years.

It’s always good to have somebody care about it.

So I really appreciate the support.

MB: I do care about it. I care about you.

It has been a minute that we’ve known each other, and there have been so many times over the years where we’ve just ended up having these conversations, whether it’s New Orleans, the Boom Boom Room or all the other classic places.

Robert, I want to thank you.

It’s always fun catching up with you, whether it’s New Orleans or High Sierra or busting you into my VIP lounge, or finally getting to sit down like we did today and hit the record button.

Thank you so much for being the very first Miss BISS Catches Up.

RW: Thank you.

MB: I’ll see you in a couple weeks.

RW: Yeah, you’ll see me in a couple weeks for sure.

# # #

CATCH ROBERT WALTER LIVE

The Greyboy Allstars

Thu, Aug. 27
Harlow’s
Sacramento, CA

Fri, Aug. 28
Castro Theatre
San Francisco, CA

Sat, Aug. 29
Moe’s Alley
Santa Cruz, CA

The Breaks

Thu, Oct. 8 at 8 PM
The Independent
San Francisco, CA