“This year is the first year I was able to support myself on my music,” Peter Salett, the singer, songwriter and sometime actor said last week. “It’s been a good year.”
Besides being able to pay his bills without holding down a day job, Salett’s hit single “Heart of Mine” – which is also the name of his second full-length record and currently ranked no. 24 in Thailand – was used in Edward Norton’s film Keeping the Faith starring Ben Stiller and Jenna Elfman.”[Edward Norton] told me he wanted to use some of my songs for his movie,” said Salett, who confessed that he and the academy award-nominated actor have been friends for years. “I didn’t write ‘Heart of Mine’ with the expectation of it being in the movie. But I wrote it at [Norton’s] place in Los Angeles and he ended up picking that song. It was very exciting and it works so well in the movie.”
Keeping the Faith is not Salett’s first foray into theater culture. Originally from Washington D.C., Salett dabbled in acting while he studied English literature at Brown University. After college he moved to Juno, Alaska where he landed a role in a local theater company’s production of Bertolt Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle.
“It was a great experience for me,” Salett said, referring to his days in Juno. “It took me out of my East Coast lifestyle.”
In 1993, when he finally settled in New York City, Salett decided to forsake an acting career so he could focus on music.
“In New York you’re faced with so much discouragement in the arts,” Salett explained, “so I made a decision that I wasn’t going to put myself out there as an actor and face rejection at auditions while I was working on my music.”
Salett made it seem like an easy choice.
“I love the connection with the audience,” he explained. “Writing the songs and singing my own songs – it’s a little bit more a purer buzz for me than acting.”
Despite this resolution, however, Salett continues to operate in the acting world. Not only is “Heart of Mine” the centerpiece of Keeping the Faith, but some of Salett’s other songs have made their way into movies as well. His single “Walking Dream” can be found over the closing credits of Hurricane Streets, an independent film that won an award at Sundance, and his single “Only Mine” can be heard in Other Voices, another independent film acknowledged at Sundance. And come this spring, not just his voice, but Salett himself, will be found on the silver screen. Salett is scheduled to appear as an actor in the comedy Wet Hot American Summer starring Janeane Garofalo.
Contrary to what he may have imagined back in 1993, last week Salett acknowledged that all of these theatrics have benefited his music career.
“Probably because of my background as an actor, and because I know a lot of actors, the opportunities have presented themselves,” Salett said. “And the major label scene is such a black hole. I’m much happier getting my songs out through these films.”
Peter Salett Barbara will be performing with Barbara Brousal tonight, Thursday, Dec. 7 at 8:30 p.m. at Scott E. Moore’s The Writer’s Hang at the Liquid Lounge (936 Park Ave., Hoboken). For more information call 420-7989.