Hey, I'm Brian Hyatt, and this is Rolling Stone Music Now.

I'm in the studio with Andy Green, and today we're going to be celebrating the life and music of Peter Torque of the monkeys.

We have a bunch of interview clips that we're going to play with Peter, but first I wanted to ask Andy,

how would you kind of sum up Peter's role in the monkeys both musically and on the TV show and also just kind of like his life story.

Yeah, it's a bit complicated because the show and the group are two very different things in a lot of ways.

When they cast the monkeys, they hired two actors and they hired two people that were

pro musicians and Peter Torqui was one of them.

So he was a talented banjo player bassist and a like a

guitar player that's on their first album on a bunch of songs and on the show he

was the goofball he was sort of the lovable stupid guy that was always just

falling down and being goofy basically.

But in life he was kind of, especially in the 60s, he was the really cool monkey.

My interview that I did with him in 2007 was for one of Rolling Stones anniversary issues and the stories I talked him for

were about the Los Angeles scene in 1967 and also Monterey Pop and one of the

reasons I talked to him is he was sort of one of the kings of the LA scene in 1967 which completely

belies the idea that the monkeys were considered so commercial and uncool and artificial.

Yeah, I know the four monkeys, he was the coolest one. he knew Stephen Stills in the 60s he knew Crosby then he was part of the whole

folk scene then he was a very talented guy who got stuck in this TV band and it forever gave him a rep as like a children star which was very unfair.

So let's hear a little bit of what Peter had to say to me in defense sort of of the monkeys

and explaining how he saw their sort of musical position.

Did anyone give you shit for being in the monkeys or to you with any less respect than if you

were in some other band?

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