Novo Combo , Novo Combo whereabouts, Animation Generation, Pete Hewlett

Pete Hewitt

Look who we found: Novo Combo

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If you come from an era where vinyl gave way to cassettes, which gave way to CD’s, which gave way to the evolution of digital downloads, you have been scouring iTunes and other sources for some of the music you grew up with, just like me.

One of the bands I have been hopelessly searching for is Novo Combo, a four-piece guitar-driven pop/rock band that released two albums on Polygram in the early 1980s. The first was a self-titled effort that spawned some Billboard singles, including “Tattoo,” “City Bound,” and “Up Periscope.” None of them ever sniffed higher than #30 on the charts, but this was a band of stellar musicians and songwriters that had a lot going for it. However, after their second album, 1982’s Animation Generation, Polygram chose the “out” option on their contract and the band split up.

How do I know this? Well, the beauty of the web is that you can easily find people like Novo Combo lead singer/songwriter Pete Hewlett, now a member of the Hewlett/Anderson Band. Not only did Hewlett email me back, he was going to be in Nashville a week after our email exchange, and I was able to meet him at the airport to catch up. How is that for modern technology?

But the really interesting thing about Hewlett is that Novo Combo was a mere blip on the radar screen of his career. Currently living in Pittsburgh, Hewlett has toured as a band member with Billy Joel and Carly Simon, has done jingle work, and even lived in Nashville for a year where he worked with Amy Grant and various others.

But I know there are people out there that are looking for Novo Combo music and wondering what happened to them. Hewlett even confirmed that since the Hewlett/Anderson website went up, several others have contacted him looking for music. So what happened to them after Animation Generation?

“We were together two and a half years when the band split up,” says Hewlett. “At that point, I had pretty much had it with everything. We went through a management problem, and (drummer) Michael (Shrieve) and I were sued by our old manager.”

But while living in New York, Hewlett became friends with Mark Rivera, who played saxophone in Billy Joel’s band. Rivera, along with Novo Combo tour manager/soundman Ted Leonard, helped Hewlett land an audition with Joel to play in his band.

“I got a call from both of those guys to see if I would be interested in touring with Billy,” he says. “I was like…umm, okay, cool! Because it was different for me not being a front man/guitar player, and I thought this would be a nice paying, easy, fun gig. And it was. It was all a result of just being in New York around the industry.”

Joel’s producer, Phil Ramone, wound up hiring Hewlett for sessions, directly and indirectly leading to work with the likes of Julian Lennon, Andrew Lloyd Weber and Marc Cohn.

But as for Novo Combo, Polygram had decided to put its promotional efforts into a band from the U.K. that they had recently signed called Def Leppard.

“Polygram went through a huge changeover like so many record companies did,” says Hewlett. “So everybody that was into the band was gone, from the president on down. We did our second album with them and at the end of our tour we found out our management wasn’t paying our bills at home, and we had no more money. Our gripe was kind of, ‘Why are we out touring if there’s no money? Why aren’t we getting something and doing another record?’ In a lot of ways, I think it was unfortunate that we didn’t pursue that.”

But even though the band split up, they all remained friends. Hewlett still talks to Michael Shrieve, who before Novo Combo was a founding member of Santana, as well as guitar player Carlos Rios, who went on to play with Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac, and original guitarist Jack Griffith.

Now currently in Pittsburgh, Hewlett and Shrieve recently spoke about the possibility of putting the old Novo Combo music on digital download sites. If, like me, you have been searching for Novo Combo’s music, stay tuned on this. And for more information on Pete Hewlett, please visit www.hewlettanderson.com.