We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Angelo “Scrote” Bundini a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Angelo “Scrote”, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Currently I am producing a tour called BEAT. It features mega star musicians Adrian Belew, Steve Vai, Tony Levin, and Danny Carey performing 80s King Crimson music. 65 US dates in total throughout this Fall. This tour is meaningful to me for many reasons. For one, the musicianship is at the highest of levels and I’m working directly with the band on the show. Secondly, it’s the first tour I’ve ever been involved with where I’m not actually in the band though my role is to lead all things creative.

Another meaningful tour that I’ve been producing and playing in is called Celebrating David Bowie. Bowie has always been a major influence on me so when I created it in 2016 just after he passed away it was a real passion project meant for one night only. But eight years later now, we’ve performed in 17 countries on 5 continents where I’ve been featured with a long list of superstar artists such as Sting, Corey Taylor, Todd Rundgren, Adrian Belew, Angelo Moore from Fishbone, Seal, Ian Asbury, Thomas Dolby, and too many others to list.

But in between those tours, I’ve released a variety of albums of my own which in a way are really the most meaningful projects of them all and what I typically spend most of my year tending to.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I remember the exact moment and circumstance when it became clear to me that this was going to be my life’s mission. I was 16. With that, my mom, a very talented and learned pro musician, made sure right off the bat that I was going to learn from the best. In walked my first official music teacher – bebop trumpeter Pat Harbison. Pat came to teach at my high school through a grant from the National Endowment of Arts. This is where my journey really began.

Through Pat, who went on to head the acclaimed jazz program at Indiana University, I not only developed a deeper personal and academic connection to music but discovered the much heralded University of North Texas music program. After three years in the UNT jazz performance department, I moved over to the composition department where I graduated with a focus in experimental orchestral, chamber, and electronic music.

Next I lived in San Francisco performing, touring, recording, and producing before I decided to move to Los Angeles. I had many musician friends here in LA already so I was able to pick up shows and recording sessions pretty quickly. Again that led to band leading, music directing, and producing shows of my own and for others. All the while I kept my place in San Francisco so I could bounce back and forth regularly to work in both cities.

By 2012, I was too busy in LA to keep my San Francisco spot. Also around then, the music industry seemed to be going through a big change so I decided to step back a bit from record producing and focus more on music directing and producing concerts which led to the Celebrating David Bowie concerts.

The Celebrating David Bowie tours eventually led to my tour producing partnership with legendary executive music maverick Miles Copeland who managed The Police and Sting as well as founded famed IRS Records. We currently have the BEAT tour launching across the US and are developing a new, completely different tour to kick off next April as well as another Celebrating David Bowie European tour in 2025. Meanwhile, I continue to consistently perform my own shows and release my own records.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Yes. It may sound funny but I strive to only perform, write, record, and produce music I love. I don’t care who it’s for or what it’s for. It could be my music. It could be somebody else’s music. It might pay a lot or it might pay a little. I don’t need to be featured or I could be heavily featured. I just have to love it somehow. I don’t mean like it. I mean love it.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I’m always pivoting. It’s not only a way of music but a way of life for me. If I’m not feeling like playing live, I pivot to producing records. If I’m tired of producing records, I might write more. No one element of music will satisfy me for long. I don’t mean that frivolously or frenetically. It’s intentional and purposeful. I take everything on full force and see it through. But at the end of a project or wave of projects in one particular direction or even throughout any given day, I pivot constantly to keep my interest level and passion high and ideas moving.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ScroteMusic.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ScroteMusic
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BundiniMusic
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/AngeloBundini
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ScroteMusic
• Other: https://Scrote.bandcamp.com

Image Credits

N/A