The young musician hoisted up his first new electric guitar and looked out at his audience. Then he ripped into an E chord.
“It just hit me here in my visceral and vibrated through me and that was it,” recalls Creed Bratton of that fateful day nearly 70 years ago.
Best known for playing a character bearing his name on “The Office,” Bratton, 81, has spent his life making music, breaking on the scene as a member of the Grass Roots in the 1960s; this week he’s releasing his 10th solo album, “Tao Pop,” which adds jazz inflections and nifty touches of syncopation to his singer-songwriter and rock foundation.
“I consider myself a rock star because I’ve got gold records,” Bratton says deadpan. “And they can’t take that away from me.”
Bratton, who is generally as affable, thoughtful and loquacious as his TV alter ego was not, was born in Los Angeles. He grew up in a musical family, he recalls watching his grandparents’ band, the Happy Timers, play in Long Beach and even put the band (with Grandma on drums and Gramps on guitar on one of his album covers).
“Until I went to school I literally thought everyone knew how to play music,” he recalls. Growing up in Coarsegold, near Yosemite, he’d listen at night on a crystal radio to Little Richard and Ray Charles and the Everly Brothers and Patsy Cline when KFWB would come in over the hills. “I just fell in love with all of it,” he says. “It was magic to me.”
(Quick aside for a moment more reminiscent of the TV Creed: When I pointed 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 so many weird things about me, and even I speak of myself in the third person. I’m an enigma to myself.” Turns out he went to junior college in Visalia.)
Bratton had been learning the trumpet when he got that electric Silvertone guitar, which had an amplifier in the case. That first “concert” was just him out in this barn; 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, though it’s not clear which one was in attendance. Bratton also says he had a raccoon named Davy Crockett.)
He cranked up the volume and struck that chord. “And that was when I said, trumpet, shmumpet, I want to do this,” he says. “It wasn’t about money or girls until later. All I cared then was about the music and making that sound.”
After the Beatles caused a “paradigm shift in my consciousness” with “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver,” Bratton joined the Grass Roots and became a rock star with songs like “Let’s Live for Today’ and “Midnight Confessions.” But he grew frustrated by having producers bringing outside songwriters and musicians.
“I literally had a breakdown after we were on ‘The Tonight Show,’ he recalls. “I said, have you heard the Band’s “Big Pink”? It’s so truthful and I want to do that.” But the rest of the band was content and Bratton soon took a settlement and left. He struggled for many years, recording albums in Malibu and playing at small clubs while also studying acting and earning small roles.
Then came “The Office.”
Bratton was initially a background character but creator Greg Daniels gave him a shot and Bratton helped shape his character — which he says is pure fiction, even if the TV version was also in the Grass Roots and has the same real name. “People think I was always stoned or that was me as a human and I was just ad-libbing,” he says. “But it was the writers’ words. I did speak to the writers about my past, although I can’t discuss the Black Ops stuff I did because there’s no statute of limitations for murder. So let’s just let that go.”
He’s joking, of course, but Rainn Wilson, who played Dwight Schrute, says that the real anecdotes Bratton shared on the set were almost as mind-boggling. “He’d 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 for Vietnam or when I did acid onstage in Central Park and saw the face of God,” says Wilson, who says he loves all of Bratton’s albums. “They’re 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 were waiting around,” Bratton says. He’d play for his castmates, often with Ed Helms on banjo or Craig Robinson on keyboards. ”When I think of the set I often think of their music,” says Angela Kinsey, who played Angela, citing the shooting for Jim and Pam’s wedding as a cherished memory. “We had to wait on location while the crew lit the scene, and Ed and Creed played for us and my daughter was there dancing around to their music.”
Beyond being a gifted storyteller and musician, his “Office” castmates say he’s a good friend.
“He’s a deeply caring and grateful person,” Kinsey says. “He’s quirky and has a fun lens he sees life through.”
Kinsey adds that one of her joys in life is living down the block from Bratton. “During the pandemic he’d come to our yard in the evening and sing songs, bringing a moment of beauty and normalcy,” she says. “Music is his love language to life.”
Brian Baumgartner, who played Kevin, says that in early 2020 when Bratton’s Australia shows were canceled because of wildfires he decided to host a benefit at the Roxy Theater to raise money for the people affected by the fires. “He put on such a show for people,” recalls Baumgartner, who was there with Wilson and Kinsey to help out. “It was moving.”
Baumgartner and Wilson both say audiences come to Bratton’s concerts because of “The Office” but they leave as fans of the music. “It would be very easy for him to phone it in at this point but he continues to create and innovate,“ Baumgartner says.
“And even now when he’s like 97 years old, he still shreds on guitar,” Wilson says. “He puts on an amazing show.”
Bratton has no problem with people checking out his music only because of “The Office,” and he happily tells stories about the series during shows. “If I’m connecting as an artist with these people and then they leave humming my songs, then lucky me,” he says.
New songs continue flowing. Bratton says when he’s coming downstairs in the morning to have breakfast, meditate or do yoga, sometimes the piano or guitar will beckon. “I’ll be heading to do something and they’ll say, ‘Get over here,’” he says. “I know it sounds like la-la stuff but it’s true. There’s a veil and there’s another place of information other than here, and it’s almost like the other side’s nudging me. So I just sit there and get out of my own way and write.”
He also sees the lyrics (which are often clever without being cutesy) as messages from his subconscious. “I’m not even aware of it as 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. “He’s refreshing to be around.”
Music and acting consume much of his attention, but not all of it. In his spare time Bratton writes poetry and creates fake killer or assassin names (he hopes to one day share his list with the Coen Brothers), but he’s also writing his life story as well as a book about the Buffalo Soldiers and Native Americans while working on a new show called “Creed’s Cabin.”
“I’m Mr. Irons in the Fire,” he says. “I’ve got to keep the old mind stimulated or I’ll go nuts.”
