Entertainment & Music Industry Interview - Mark DiPietro's Musical Philosophy

Greg Staffa 0:00

You're listening to the Staffa Corner Podcast, a Staffatarian look at entertainment and life, with your host, greg Staffa. My guest this episode is talented artist, writer and musician Mark DiPietro. His sophomore album, the 13th Wave, dropped online a couple months ago and is available on all music outlets worldwide. Mark, thanks for joining us today.

Mark DiPietro 0:28

You're welcome Nice to be here.

Greg Staffa 0:30

Tell us a little bit about your growing up. What got you interested in music?

Mark DiPietro 0:34

My mother, was a professional singer and my dad played music. I came from a musical background and started playing guitar. I first started playing the tennis racket, pretending it was a guitar background, and started playing guitar. I first started playing the tennis racket, pretending it was a guitar at like five years old and then I started playing at like seven or eight years old and I took my guitar everywhere, even as I grew into my high school. I brought my guitar with me everywhere. I played for six to seven hours a day, religiously, and I never really wanted to be, you know, the guy who can pick up a guitar and play. Mary had a Little Lamb, you know, at a party. No, I had to be above average and that's what I did. I started to write at 13. My mother gave me guitar lessons at 10 years old. I took three lessons and we broke for the summer. The guitar teacher came back. When he came back I was playing Led Zeppelin and he told my mother he goes, I have. No, I can't. There's nothing else I can teach him, unless he wants to. You know, learn music theory. I mean, I used to read and write music.

Mark DiPietro 1:46

I still write all my own music, but I don't write it down on. You know I don't write it out like I'm for an orchestra. If I do, everything I record is all real instruments. There's no sampled anything in the songs that we do. If I need choir, I get a choir. I do most of the vocals all myself. I we layer them. I do all the guitar work myself. On the first album I used them. Uh, I had a guy do some guitar work with me and the, the orchestra, the strings were all real. We got, uh, I had to try the string section and that played with uh, uh, oh, my God, I can't. I can't remember his name. He's so incredibly famous but he has an orchestra and I took his stream. We took five of his string people. I had a conductor write out all the music for the violins, violas, bass, standup bass, and so they laid all that down on that first album. Dipietro leaving a was the name of it. I thought it was a cool play on words.

Greg Staffa 2:46

That is and that came on the summer of 2024, correct that album the first one.

Mark DiPietro 2:52

Dipietro Leaving a Mark

Creating DiPietro Leaving a Mark

Mark DiPietro 2:55

took years to record that because I was writing them as we were doing it. It was very time consuming. I did it at a place called the hideout, which was at once odds on recording studio in henderson, nevada. It's where celine dion, santana, all these guys, they record their music there because it's such a hidden place. And my producer on that album was josh commie phenomenal yeah, he's pretty. Right now he's producing U2, their new stuff. That album came out very good Musically. It was great. I started writing a song from one note that I'll hear. I could be watching the end trailer of a movie. Hear one or two notes. I build a whole song around it.

Greg Staffa 3:45

Is that what a lot of your music is? It's just drawn from almost nothing. It's what you see around you and that determines how the song goes.

Mark DiPietro 3:55

Yeah, on that first album I wrote it all sitting for about—. I wrote most of the songs that lay the basic. You know, just acoustic guitar and me figuring out the lyrics to them by my pool in Las Vegas at one o'clock in the morning. I go out there every night at one o'clock in the morning for years and just keep writing. I've never written a song. You know, a lot of those songs are like love songs and some of them are love songs and people think, oh man, you know I wonder who that was about? It about nobody.

Mark DiPietro 4:29

I've never written a song about anybody that I'm currently in a relationship with. It's just reflection of my life or a conversation I had when I was in high school. The song leap of faith was a conversation that I had with a girl that I was infatuated with. So I mean, I don't know. Sometimes I wonder. I sit and wonder where did this come from? Like this album, 13th Wave, I just love that album.

Songwriting Process and Inspiration

Mark DiPietro 4:55

I love the songs. I like the. It's more punchy than the first album. The song Bad Guy I'm not the bad guy. I wrote that song in Florida. I was watching the Johnny Depp Amber Heard trial and I'm watching this for days and I'm thinking man, not once did he say I'm not the bad guy here, you know, because it was such a funky trial, and then I wrote that song. It was, which I love, that song, I'm Not the Bad Guy.

Greg Staffa 5:28

One of the things that interested me while listening to your music is there's not a particular style or a theme to how your music is. Most artists you can kind of you know oh, that's a Def Leppard song, that's because you can tell by the tone and how everything sounds. But with your music it was a little bit all over the place. Is that intentional or is that how you write?

Mark DiPietro 5:49

That's intentional. I didn't want to be labeled. There's a song on the 13th wave called Fight for Our Love. I recorded it myself, I did the vocals. I wrote it for a woman to sing. I couldn't find the right voice, interviewed, auditioned 13 female singers that were great, but not one could deliver it. And so I found this.

Mark DiPietro 6:17

I'm lying. I'm listening to this one kid, 18-year-old girl, sing and the only problem she had was she mirrored billy eilish. But she had a great voice, but she tried to mirror. So we flew her to vegas and I told her I said you, the world already has a billy eilish, they don't need another one. You went on star search or you went on the voice. You didn't make it past the first round because that's exactly what they told you there's already a billy eilish, so I have to retrain you how to sing. So it took days for it actually took 12 hours to get her to sing two words the way that I needed it sung. It was so frustrating so I had to find another singer and I found this girl, cheyenne, that was a friend of mine, and she nailed it. She just nailed it.

Mark DiPietro 7:11

And when I first sent the tracks to Nashville to have that young kid record it before I flew her to Vegas. And the producer in a studio in Nashville goes holy Jesus, who's this guy? Because I guess they weren't used to hearing such professional recording. And then he goes man, he can play the guitar. I've been playing the guitar for so long. I played with some of the best. I played with Allman BB King, and so guitar is just second nature to me and I try not to put too much because a long time ago a label told me I won't say what label I was with, but they said all that lead guitar, that three-minute lead guitar, we don't want to hear that anymore. Vocals we want to hear. I'll never forget.

Mark DiPietro 8:02

This producer told me Mark, the main instrument in your type of music is your voice. That's what's going to deliver. You're telling a story. The music behind it helps deliver the message he said, but use your voice the way that God made you to use it. And I did, you know, because, thank God, I could still sing. I was a smoker for years and I quit smoking and that helped a lot, because there was a time where I couldn't get through a whole song without my voice going completely to rest, and then, once I quit smoking. That ended, that's good.

Greg Staffa 8:42

Do you see yourself as a musician that happens to write, or a musician that happens to write, or a writer that happens to be a musician? I'm a both.

Mark DiPietro 8:52

I've been playing for 50 years. I'm definitely a musician. I've been writing for 45 of the years. I'm a singer-songwriter.

Greg Staffa 9:07

With that one song where you it was written for a woman, do you often write, thinking that you're going to be the one that's singing it, or does the words and stuff kind of hit the page and the lyrics and the music, and then you find the voice for that, that this should be sung by a woman. This should be sung by a man. This is a song that I should sing. How does that process?

Mark DiPietro 9:27

get filtered. I know when I'm writing it if it's going to be for a man or a woman, whether I can find that person or not, I make sure that I can write it, that I write it in a way where if I can't find a woman to sing it, my vocal will do just fine. I wrote a song on my first album called Shadow on my Wall. I originally wrote that song for Sarah McLachlan to do, to try to get a hold of her. It's an act of God. Then I tried to get Celine Dion to do it. So we contacted Sony. Sony said it's a great song, you know, but I wanted a certain amount of money.

Mark DiPietro 10:04

I demoed the tape. I demoed the song and when

Finding the Right Voice

Mark DiPietro 10:07

I demoed it it came out great. But I said you know, I really voted for a woman to sing. I think it will have more impact if one of the top pros do the song, but unfortunately Celine Dion's people. Just, it was too much headache to go through. So I put it on the album with me doing it, because I find it to me when you're writing a song, one word could change it, the way you sing. One word can change the entire feel of the song and it's hard to really train somebody to do that. You have to find somebody who's really got it inside them, who can see what you're seeing, and for them to sing it that way.

Greg Staffa 10:53

Yeah, I look back at the movie Con Air and the love song from that movie. They actually had it originally recorded by somebody I can't remember the name, but I think they had it.

Mark DiPietro 11:04

How could I be true on?

Greg Staffa 11:05

my own. Yeah, that was Leanne.

Mark DiPietro 11:06

Rimes did it. It originally recorded by somebody I can't remember the name, but I think they had. Yeah, that was Leanne Rimes did it, but the first person who did it. They redid it with Leanne Rimes. Yeah, they both did it pretty good.

Greg Staffa 11:17

They did, but it changed. There's more maturity in the voice, and I think that's what they're looking for. The maturity, but it goes down to what they're looking for is the maturity, but it goes down to what you were saying how the right voice can can change anything, and that's that's one of the big times that I can remember that a song for a major film went through a change like that, where the audience actually learned about it and they spoke about it. Usually these things happen behind the doors way in advance, but that was a big one and it really really had Leigh-Anne Rimes take off.

Greg Staffa 11:46

Yes, but it was one of those things where someone else had recorded it and they were going to go with her and they said you know what, this just isn't the right fit, and sometimes the music, you know it doesn't matter and it changes everything. I think they made the right decision in the end, but both versions were beautiful. Just there was a maturity that I think they made the right decision in the end, but both versions were beautiful, just there was a maturity that I think the first one was missing.

Mark DiPietro 12:11

But it made me think of that. Right, you have to be like my daughter. My daughter's a sensational singer. They wanted to sign her. Universal wanted to sign her, but she didn't. I did a five-song EPAa. I helped her write five songs and we went in the studio and we recorded, I got, I brought in the best musicians to play behind her and then they wanted to do a photo shoot of her with a acoustic guitar in front of her naked body and she wasn't going for that. She said nope and uh.

Mark DiPietro 12:49

But of course, in today's day and age it's not like the old days. Today they want you to put up like a quarter of a million, half a million dollars to launch an artist they want to see money out of, out of their pocket. I told him I said listen, I listen, I just spent a hundred grand on this. I'm not gonna put up another 250, you know to do this. They said we can launch her. She'll be a huge star. I said sorry. And then she just said you know she has a problem with her self-confidence, but man, does she sing? She has such a phenomenal voice, really does. If you listen to her stuff you'd say holy Jesus. That's what they said before they even saw her.

Greg Staffa 13:29

You've been doing this a long time. A lot of things have changed as far as how music gets put out there. Now anyone from their home can almost put out their own album. We're seeing shows like American Got Talent creating singers from almost nothing. Has that been a good thing, a bad thing? Has that watered down how musicians are?

Mark DiPietro 13:51

I don't think that's a bad thing? I don't think it's a bad thing. You know, boston did their first album in a basement. You know, just, tom Schultz was a genius, though you know an MIT genius and all the mixing and producing that he did, he was he's a fantastic guitar player. So can you do it at home? I don't see anything wrong with doing it at home. But I like analog recording. I like real instruments. I want to hear my fingers on the neck of the guitar.

Mark DiPietro 14:22

Music is not perfect. You know, when you do digital recording you can alter anything and you can do pitch this, pitch, that. No, I don't like that. It's amazing because in the studio I try to on some of my guitar leads I want it to be just not to hit the note, almost to get there and fall short of it. It's harder to try to do that than do it Perfect pitch. I just don't like. I don't think music is. Music's not meant to be perfect. You know, music's supposed to be felt and if I touch one person's heart with a song that I wrote, I did my job. You know, do you want millions of people to love it? Well, every songwriter does, but in the end it's not about that, if I can relate to people, you know when they hear it people love. What do you put when you're miserable? You just break up with your wife, you divorce your wife. What do you go and put on Something that makes you more miserable? Love songs are timeless.

Mark DiPietro 15:27

I try to write timeless songs. How old are you? 50. Okay, you're 50. So you still grew up in a decent time of music. These kids said I don't know, really. You know I'm older than you.

Mark DiPietro 15:47

I grew up in the best era of music ever Zeppelin, lloyd, savick, santana the best musicians, literally. Crosby Seals, nash, young, bee Gees just great. Phil Collins, the

Analog vs Digital Recording Philosophy

Mark DiPietro 16:07

best out in John, the best songwriters on the planet and the most talented writers that are like. Jimmy Page was a magician, probably one of the most versatile guitar players in the world and there's a lot of listen. Today I go online and I look at these young guitar players in the world and there's a lot of listen. Today I go online and I look at these young guitar players. They're playing, they're shredding and they're doing. You know I could shred on a guitar, but there's really no need to do that, especially with the music I write. But it doesn't impress me to see somebody rifle up and down the neck of a guitar. I want a guitar to talk to you. David Gilmour from Pink Floyd was that guitarist?

Greg Staffa 16:52

He actually made the guitar talk. Yeah, everything's so synthesized and digitally created. And I was listening to, I think what song was it? Sweet Emotion, I think was the song, and I think one of them was talking about how a piece, a PC I think that was the song. They were talking about how one of their equipment broke while it was being recorded and you can actually hear it break. But it's such a good song and they loved how it recorded that they just left it in. And so there's this element of having real musicians with real instruments, flaws and all that aren't always perfect that you can't get when you digitally create something that's created in a computer versus performed.

Mark DiPietro 17:37

Right, just like drum work. Today you don drums and as long as you have a drummer on the keyboard, he can actually do the drum work all from a keyboard there's something in the soul that's just not there.

Greg Staffa 17:57

I think audiences can agree, can pick up that, they can still like the song and everything, but I think there's something that's missing.

Mark DiPietro 18:05

You miss it, of course, because my lead guitar work, because I'm a singer, I play lead guitar as if I'm singing, so that's what makes it. I don't need all that fast. There's some songs, like Toxic Fever, that I did a fast run there's. There's a run that I did in that song that they actually had to slow down when they mixed it down because I I did it too fast and it still came out fast on the song. But that song's about a chick that was hitchhiking, needed a ride somewhere, and the guy who picked her up had different intentions. You know he wanted to do her harm and rape her and she wouldn't have any of that. So you know she gutted him and then she happened to like it and turned into a serial killer. Serial killer that's what that song is about.

Greg Staffa 18:58

Toxic fever you really drop from all sorts of places, don't you?

Mark DiPietro 19:02

yeah, I was watching a movie where this chick was, you know, being abducted. A hitchhiker was being abducted, took her out to the woods, so I wrote that song like man toxic fever, and that's why the song starts off feel my blade as it cuts you to the bone speaking of film and movie, have you had any desire to write for some tv show or film?

Mark DiPietro 19:26

that have your music. Most of my songs belong in movies. The song here we are again is about a love that transcends through time. In different lives they always find themselves together and if you really listen to that song closely, there's no guitar work in that song. It's all piano and vocals and a layer, a pad, laid behind it. But that is a pretty song and when I played it for a radio station in LA he goes man, you gotta do a video. This belongs in a movie To give that song a listen. That is a very good song. The vocals I laid to it, which I was even shocked, came off great have you explored that then?

Mark DiPietro 20:13

uh, not really. I. I haven't gone down that route. I have some. I had some entertainment lawyer in la who did a lot of movie soundtracks and I don't know I I broke contact with him because he liked the song darker shade of gray, because he's a jewish lawyer. He's very good friends of barbara streisand and I guess he saw a post on my facebook that turned him off and and I called him. I told him you know you can't, I won't give you his name, he's very famous. I said you can't. That's why I never discussed religion or politics with anybody. I won't. I may not agree with you. That doesn't mean that you know you're a bad person. You believe what you believe, I believe what I believe.

Greg Staffa 21:01

Well, especially especially the way you said it, how a lot of your songs aren't about other people or people that you know are dated. They come from random things and if that random thing takes you in the direction of a storytelling that might not be politically what everyone else thinks.

Mark DiPietro 21:20

No, it's not that. The song was political. I posted something on Facebook one time time and even my promoter, now Donna, told me take it down about the election. Oh, she said, you're gonna, you may, you'll piss off. And she was right. And I took it down because half the country believes one thing and the other half believes in another. And so I

Musical Influences and Industry Advice

Mark DiPietro 21:45

took it down. I guess he may have seen that, which I could care less. To tell you the truth, I've blown off such million-dollar deals in the music industry, Just supposed to do a three-movie soundtrack for Sin City Girls that they shot in Vegas. I was just too busy at the time. I signed the contract and then something came up and I blew it off, Pissed them all off because they were expecting the music. My music wasn't the kind for a bunch of strippers partying, getting high and hanging at a pool, so I decided not to do it.

Greg Staffa 22:25

Is that an avenue that you would like to explore or, if the opportunity happens, I would?

Mark DiPietro 22:31

love to. I would love to, I would love to have my songs in me in movies. If you really listen to them, they should be. You know, a lot of people have told me that your music belongs in soundtracks to movies, because there's a lot of garbage music out there and not that mine is. So you know I'm. The one thing about me is I'm really I'm not full of myself. I don't think I'm better than anybody, but and that's why on social media, when somebody asks me, hey man, what do you think in this song? Or listen, tell me what your opinion is of this song I said no, you don't want. You don't want to ask me that, because I will give you an honest opinion and I'm a pro, and then it's going to end up pissing you off if it's, if it doesn't go your way, what you want to hear, and then it's just going to be bad feelings. I don't want bad feelings and it happened one with this.

Mark DiPietro 23:24

This chick asked me to listen to her song. She was a piano teacher and a vocal teacher and she wrote an original song and I told her I was very honest with her. I said I don't know how you teach piano number one. You're not that good. I don't know how you teach vocals, you can't sing and your song will never be heard in the American market or any market by that means. Oh, oh. I won't say what she said. You know she was messing me up and down. I just blocked her, you know. I told her don't ask me. You know, because I'm gonna be honest. I know if I hear something. You know if you, within the first 10 or 15 seconds, you know if you going to listen to the song.

Greg Staffa 24:09

Yeah, while we're at it, why don't we take a brief pause and listen to one of your songs?

Mark DiPietro 24:15

When the dust clears. I only want to see your face. Keep me safe from the storm. Only your heart will keep me warm. I need the fire in your eyes to take me home.

Greg Staffa 24:30

Don't give up on me, baby. That was wonderful. So what advice? I mean? I know you were cautious with what you said with the woman, but what kind of fundamental advice would you give to someone that is looking at starting off? They're looking at going either the because I think one of the first decisions that a musician has to make is do they go the digital route or do they go the instrumental route? I think that's one of the things that you seem passionate about is is playing the real music.

Mark DiPietro 25:06

Yeah, I believe in analog. I would tell these young artists to. If number one, it takes money you have to have. If you really want a professional product, it has to be professionally recorded, professionally mastered. You need producers, you need arrangers and you need great musicians behind you. You know everybody thinks that they're. You know that they can do all the guitar work themselves and all the bass themselves. And if you play keyboards you could do that.

Mark DiPietro 25:40

Here's what was explained to me on the first album that I did. I picked. Actually, the studio introduced me to John Wiedemeyer, which played with everybody, a phenomenal guitar player. I can't remember the bass player's number. Yoshi was from, I think he was from Argentina. The drummer Used all real strings and everything. And one thing they told me you're the cake, we're the frosting. And when they came into the studio and the bass player asked me, he said you got the charts for what I'm supposed to play. I told him I was like I was told you were a pro. If you need charts to play it, I don't need you because I could play bass myself. I don't need you because I could play bass myself.

Mark DiPietro 26:30

What I'm looking for is I laid the, I laid the vocals down. I laid the guitar work down, the, the acoustic guitar or whatever. What I wanted to do for you guys to listen to. I want your interpretation what you hear in your head, not what I hear. If, if, if, I'm just going to do everything I hear, I don't need anybody. And then they said okay.

Mark DiPietro 26:54

And when the piano like there's a song called Special Way, this piano player, chris out of LA, is so good. He said how do you, you know, what do you want me to do with the piano? And I said play what you feel, bro, listen to the song. Your piano comes in, do the piano fills through the song and I want you to do a piano solo at the end of this song and I want you to play what you're feeling when you're playing the song. And he did it. The song's like five minutes long. He did such an awesome job on piano. It came out so beautiful. And then I had him do all the piano work for the whole album. He was just, he was so good, wow.

Greg Staffa 27:40

Wow, that's great. So your debut album, deputro Leaving a Mark nice little play on words here came out. Your second album, the 13 wave, is also out, both online and available on music outlets all over. Well, mark Petro, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a pleasure and I'm looking forward to seeing what else brings your way. And I'm looking forward to hopefully getting some of that music that you talked about onto some movies or film. That would be always kind of exciting. It's exciting to see someone else's work pop up. You know, anytime I've written reviews of stuff and then you see it in the trailer where they use your quote. So it's always fun to see your work on another outlet type thing that you're not used to seeing it on. So that'd be another feather in your hat. But thanks for coming on and sharing your story and giving us a little insight to your music, and I invite others to check out both the DiPietro Leaving the Mark and 13th Wave.

Mark DiPietro 28:43

Yeah, if they're looking up the 13th Wave, they could just put Mark Allen DiPietro. It's really pronounced DiPietro, but I pronounce it DiPietro. Mark Allen DiPietro, the 13th wave, and it'll all come

The 13th Wave and Future Aspirations

Mark DiPietro 28:55

up and I hope they enjoy it. I think it's good music and I hope it touches them.

Greg Staffa 29:00

And I invite you to not just listen to one, because I think one of your things is it's not all that same type of music. One of your things is it's not all that same type of music. So if you listen to one and you're like, eh, that's not my type of music, give it a couple of listens to the different stuff that Mark has on there, because it does have an assortment of things, so you might not like one song, but the other three you might fall in love with. So don't just give it one shot. Give the overall listen to the overall album, because it encompasses a lot of different types of music, which I think makes for a more creative listening.

Mark DiPietro 29:38

That's why I did it that way. You know, a lot of most people really, really love the song. Only a Moment. It starts off with piano it's. I only came here for a moment, only a Moment. It starts off with piano it's. I only came here for a moment. It's about a chick that's looking through a window and she broke up with this man and of course he didn't want to break up, but they had a breakup. But she always comes back to him when the other man that she went to, when they have a problem. And it's a good song, good vocals, good harmony in that song. Greg, it's been a pleasure, my friend.

Greg Staffa 30:15

All right, well, thank you, mark the name of that song is Only a Moment. Which album was it on though? 13th Wave Perfect. That was the second one. All right, well, thank you, mark. Thanks for coming on and sharing your wisdom with us, and look forward to hearing the next album whenever it comes out. Thank you, greg. Have a good day, man, you too.