The young musician picked up his first new electric guitar and looked at his audience. Then he played an E chord.
“It just hit me here in my gut and vibrated through me and that was it,” Creed Bratton recalls of that fateful day nearly 70 years ago.
Best known for playing a character named after him on “The Office,” Bratton, 81, has spent his life making music, bursting onto the scene as a member of Grass Roots in the 1960s; This week he releases his 10th solo album, “Tao Pop,” which adds jazz inflections and clever touches of syncopation to his singer-songwriter-rock foundation.
“I consider myself a rock star because I have gold records,” Bratton deadpans. “And they can't take that away from me.”
Bratton, who is generally as affable, thoughtful and talkative as his television alter ego was not, was born in Los Angeles. Growing up in a family of musicians, he remembers watching his grandparents' band, the Happy Timers, play in Long Beach and even forming the band (with Grandma on drums and Grandpa on guitar on one of their album covers). ).
“Until I went to school, I literally thought everyone knew how to play music,” he recalls. Growing up in Coarsegold, near Yosemite, I listened to Little Richard, Ray Charles, the Everly Brothers and Patsy Cline on a crystal radio at night when KFWB came in from the hills. “I fell in love with it all,” he says. “It was magical for me.”
Bratton Creed
(Shayan Asgharnia)
(Leaving aside a moment more reminiscent of TV's Creed: When I point out that IMBD names Coarsegold as his hometown while Wikipedia lists Visalia, Bratton, whose real name is William Charles Schneider, responds: “It's confusing being me. People say that.” There are a lot of weird things about me, and I even talk about myself in the third person. I'm an enigma to myself. Turns out he went to college in Visalia.)
Bratton had been learning to play the trumpet when he acquired that Silvertone electric guitar, which had an amplifier in the case. That first “concert” was just him in this barn; In the audience was his steer, Rocky, his horse, Lucky, some chickens and a dog. (He actually had two, a German shepherd named Trooper and an Airedale named Bob, although it is unclear which was present. Bratton also says he had a raccoon named Davy Crockett.)
He turned up the volume and struck that chord. “And that's when I said, trumpet, shmumpet, I want to do this,” he says. “It wasn't about money or girls until later. The only thing I cared about then was the music and making that sound.”
After the Beatles sparked a “paradigm shift in my consciousness” with “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver,” Bratton joined Grass Roots and became a rock star with songs like “Let's Live for Today” and “ “Midnight Confessions.” But he became frustrated because the producers brought in outside composers and musicians.
“I literally had a nervous breakdown after we were on 'The Tonight Show,'” he recalls. “I said, have you heard the band’s “Big Pink”? It's very sincere and I want to do it.” But the rest of the band was happy and Bratton soon made a deal and left. He struggled for many years, recording albums in Malibu and playing in small clubs while studying acting and landing small roles.
Then came “The Office.”
Bratton was initially a background character, but creator Greg Daniels gave him a chance and Bratton helped shape his character, which he claims is pure fiction, even though the TV version was also on Grass Roots and has the same name. real. “People think I was always on drugs or that it was me as a human being and I was just improvising,” he says. “But they were the words of the writers. I talked to the writers about my past, although I can't talk about the Black Ops stuff I did because there's no statute of limitations for assassination. So let's let that go.”
He's joking, of course, but Rainn Wilson, who played Dwight Schrute, says the actual anecdotes Bratton shared on set were almost as mind-blowing. “He would say, 'When I lived on a commune in the redwoods or when I lived with the monkeys on the Rock of Gibraltar or when I enlisted in Vietnam or when I took acid on stage in Central Park and saw the face of God,'” he says. Wilson, who says he loves all of Bratton's albums. “They are a beautiful reflection of his sensitivity and imagination.”
Bratton also brought his music to the show, always carrying a guitar or mandolin. “I wrote a lot of songs in the green room while we waited,” Bratton says. He played for his co-stars, often with Ed Helms on banjo or Craig Robinson on keyboard. “When I think about the set, I often think about their music,” says Angela Kinsey, who played Angela, citing the filming of Jim and Pam's wedding as a cherished memory. “We had to wait on site while the crew lit the scene, Ed and Creed played for us and my daughter was there dancing to their music.”
Beyond being a talented storyteller and musician, his “Office” co-stars say he is a good friend.
“He's a deeply caring and grateful person,” Kinsey says. “He's quirky and has a fun lens through which he views life.”
Kinsey adds that one of her joys in life is living near Bratton. “During the pandemic, he would come to our garden at night and sing songs, bringing a moment of beauty and normality,” she says. “Music is his love language for life.”
Bratton Creed
(Shayan Asgharnia)
Brian Baumgartner, who played Kevin, says that in early 2020, when Bratton's shows in Australia were canceled due to the bushfires, he decided to organize a charity event at the Roxy Theater to raise money for people affected by the fires. “He put on a great show for the people,” recalls Baumgartner, who was there with Wilson and Kinsey to help. “It was moving.”
Baumgartner and Wilson say audiences come to Bratton's concerts because of “The Office,” but they leave as music fans. “At this point it would be very easy for him to make a phone call, but he continues to create and innovate,” says Baumgartner.
“And even now, at 97 years old, he still excels on the guitar,” Wilson says. “He puts on an incredible show.”
Bratton has no problem with people listening to his music just for “The Office” and happily tells stories about the series during the shows. “If I connect as an artist with these people and then they go away humming my songs, then I'm lucky,” he says.
New songs keep flowing. Bratton says that when he comes down in the morning for breakfast, meditation or yoga, sometimes the piano or guitar calls to him. “I'll go do something and they'll say, 'Come here,'” he says. “I know it sounds like a la-la thing, but it's true. There's a veil and there's another place of information besides here, and it's almost like the other side is pushing me. So I just sit there, go out of my way and write.”
He also sees the lyrics (which are often clever without being cheesy) as messages from his subconscious. “I'm not even aware of it while I'm writing them, but they show me how I can improve my life or who I should be nicer to or whatever,” he says. “They remind me to be open and aware of these things.”
This attitude, especially at his age, is “inspiring,” Kinsey says. “He's an active participant in life, still searching and learning,” she says. “It's comforting to be around him.”
Music and acting consume much of his attention, but not all. In his free time, Bratton writes poetry and creates names of murderers or fake murderers (he hopes to one day share his list with the Coen brothers), but he is also writing his life story and a book about Buffalo soldiers and Native Americans while works. on a new show called “Creed's Cabin.”
“I'm Mr. Irons in Fire,” he says. “I have to keep the old mind stimulated or I will go crazy.”
