Bob Pressner

If you’ve never heard of Bob Pressner, stop reading this for a minute, go to YouTube, type in his name and the song title “King of Nothing” and check out the number of views the video has accrued—your eyes are not deceiving you, it’s 20 million and counting. Now, before you even play the video, consider this: Bob Pressner is not some fresh-faced kid with an overproduced pop tune to hawk and the latest styles to flaunt. He’s just passed the big 6-0, is a former Wall Street commodities trader who’s never had a hit record and, in his own words, “doesn’t look that great anymore and is a little overweight.” So why has this singer-songwriter found such a huge audience? Go ahead and press play and it’ll all make sense. “King of Nothing,” like many of Pressner’s other songs—“Looking Back (I Wouldn’t Change a Thing”) and “The Blue Has Left Your Eyes” have also racked up view counts in the millions—has become so massively popular on the video site because it has substance and significance, something that’s often in short supply in so much contemporary music. The hooky melody sticks to your ribs and the words are inspirational, but not in a sappy or maudlin way. Bob Pressner’s music has caught on because he’s offering something that listeners crave: music with meaning. Now, on Everyman, his new album, Pressner is taking his artistry to the next level. A captivating mix of classic rock and Americana, Everyman offers more of what’s made this artist one of the most sought-after among a wide demographic of YouTubers, as well as the star of his own Comcast on-demand TV concert. So what is his secret? Simple: he long ago gave up trying to be someone he isn’t. “That’s my strength,” he says. “I decided I want to be me and express myself and stop trying to please somebody else. And I want my music to do that in a fairly simple form. I don’t want elaborate productions. I don’t want so many drums and effects. I believe that I have something to say that is valid and that people want to have something that touches them,that moves them, that they can think about.” Teaming with co-writer Reed Thomas Lawrence and producer/songwriter Robb Vallier, prolific lyricist Pressner penned a new batch of songs that reflect his personal experiences and values today. They range from “California,” which he calls “bright and light,” to the somewhat darker, more cautionary “Hard Times Ahead,” to “Watch You Grow,” Pressner’s paean to parenthood. “Waterfall” was inspired by his days as a younger man studying in Colorado with a Tibetan monk, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and being taken under the wing of the great American poet Allen Ginsberg, while “New York City” honors the town where Pressner formerly toiled within the manic financial sector. Much of who Bob Pressner is today can, in fact, be traced back to a single day in New York, February 26, 1993, when a truck bomb was detonated beneath the World Trade Center—eight years before 9/11. Pressner was at the towers on the day of that first tragedy, and it was then that he decided to leave that life behind and concentrate on his first love, making music. Although he had performed during his commodities trading years—“I played every club in New York,” he says, “and even had my own TV program for a while”—Pressner’s “world view changed considerably” after the bombing. He soon discovered that the music he was creating, and his ability to convey what he wanted to say through that music, were improving, maturing, as he himself got older. “I may not be the kind of artist that the record companies want,” he says, “but I give it my all, I give it my passion and try to be who I am.” The result was the massive audience that found in his music something they too were looking for—even if they didn’t realize they were. “I’ve literally gotten thousands of emails that say something like, ‘Bob, I’m 32 years old and I’d given up. I thought I was too old. People were telling me I should quit. Then I looked at you and you’re an inspiration to me. I just want you to know I’m not going to quit.’ One of the lessons I try to teach my kids,” he adds, “is that I have lots of weaknesses but I go with the strengths that I have. It’s said that maybe one in a million makes it, but what if you’re that one in a million?” As always for Bob Pressner, it all comes down to one thing: honesty. “There’s a song on this album called ‘Be Yourself,’” he says. “I have zero interest in fame for fame’s sake. I have a tremendous interest in trying to move people and touch people with something interesting, something that makes them think and reflect, something that’s different from the stuff that’s out there.” The “King of Nothing,” it seems, has given way to the “Everyman,” and we’re all the beneficiaries of that. Bob Pressner's new album EVERYMAN ft. CALIFORNIA available now!