Peter Wolf on the J. Geils Band’s Touring, Hanging with Van Morrison and Dylan, and Seeing Spinal Tap

Peter Wolf is a man with a million stories to tell. Thankfully he put many of them in his memoir, Waiting on the Moon: Artists, Poets, Drifters, Grifters, and Goddesses, released in March 2025 on Little, Brown and Company. In the hard-to-put-downWaiting on the Moon, Wolf is tells of his relationships and exploits with the likes of Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, the Rolling Stones, Sly Stone and Merle Haggard.

Wolf is best known as the frontman for the J. Geils Band. Their 1980 album Love Stinks reached No. 18 on the Billboard 200 album chart, and the title track went to No. 38 on the Hot 100. The big breakthrough came in 1981 with the album Freeze-Frame, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200. The title track hit No. 4 on the Hot 100, and the single “Centerfold” spent six weeks atop the Hot 100 in 1982. 

Wolf left the Geils band in 1983 over creative differences. The band released one more album in 1984, and Wolf released his first solo album, Lights Out, in 1984, which rose to No. 24 on the Billboard 200. That album featured such guests as Mick Jagger, Elliot Easton of the Cars, G.E. Smith and Ed Stadium. 

His latest and eighth solo album, A Cure for Loneliness, came out in 2016. 

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