Rick Berlin on Yale Acid Trips and Working at Doyle's for 20 Years

There isn’t a musician or a true music fan anywhere around Boston who doesn’t know or hasn’t been touched or inspired by longtime JP resident Rick Berlin. His storied performance history goes something like this: Sang with the Whiffenpoofs at Yale, formed Orchestra Luna, morphed it into Orchestra Luna 2, changed it to Luna, started up the Suitcase Band, then Berlin Airlift, then Rick Berlin the Movie, which was followed by a solo period, then a variety show he called Marlene Loses It at the Lizard, then the Shelley Winters Project, some more solo work and, these days, singer in the Nickel & Dime Band. Whew! His newest album is titled “Paper Airplane.”

How long have you been in JP?

I first moved here in 1978. I was here in three different houses for quite a while, but I also lived in Cambridge and Somerville and Beacon Hill and the South End. I moved back here when the Sox won the series in ’04.

What were you listening to as a kid?

My father played a lot of jazz and classical on the stereo, and he liked Broadway musicals, so he’d take me to see shows. He would pretend that he was a reviewer, so we would go in for nothing. At home we’d be singing “Damn Yankees” and “West Side Story.”

No pop music?

Not till my senior year at college. Then it was Bob Dylan and the Beatles, and I thought, this is how I would like to live. I didn’t write anything until much later. I would go up into a tower at Yale. You could close the door and have a piano to yourself, so I would trip on acid and just play. It sounded wonderful to me. I’m sure it was awful, but I felt as if I could do anything. I didn’t sing, I just played. I didn’t study songwriting. My influences were really my friends, who were songwriters. I thought, “Well, if they can do this, I’m gonna do this.”

How did Orchestra Luna happen?

I bought an upright piano, had it hoisted up to my second floor, and I started playing. A fellow named Harry Bee, who went on to be the administrator at the Berklee Performance Center, happened to be walking by, and heard me playing. He knocked on my door and said have you ever thought of having a band. Six months later we put together Orchestra Luna and got signed to Epic Records. It was a peculiar band. It was just, let’s start a band. It was like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney.

Your different bands played different music, from pop to prog-rock. Are you always changing your approach to writing?

It varies all the time. I write based on the response to who’s playing with me. When I write just for myself, it’s completely different.

Has writing songs become easier?

If I have a good phrase, I’ve got a song. If I have a good anecdote, I’ve got a song. If it’s a portrait of a person, I’ve got a song. I think it was Nick Cave who said, “There’s a song coming down the street, and if you don’t go out and shake its hand, somebody else will.”

You’ve worked as a waiter at for more than 20 years.

Right. I’ve never made a living as a musician. But it’s still magic to me. All my money goes into making records, and I love making records and performing; it just fills me up. I mean you can have a bad show and it feels terrible until you have a good one. But it’s not a courageous act, it’s just an inevitable part of who I am. I think if that was taken away from me, I’d expire.

Rick Berlin plays a solo gig at Jacque's Cabaret, 79 Broadway, Boston, on Jan. 30 at 9:30 p.m. Call 617-426-8902.