played bass with the Long John Baldry Blues Band on their first tour of the United States and played bass and keyboards with John Cipollina in the band Copperhead. Sears left Copperhead just before recording their first album to work on Rod Stewart's Never a Dull Moment album in London, but mainly to join a new band Nicky Hopkins was putting together. Hopkins, who was on tour with the Rolling Stones had rented Sears a house in Mill Valley, California until he finished with the Stones tour. However, Hopkins was ultimately unable to form the band due to ill health and a dislike of the road. Sears went on to co-produce, arrange the music and play on, Kathi McDonald's Insane Asylum album, using guest artists like Sly Stone, The Pointer Sisters, Nils Lofgren, Neal Schon, Aynsley Dunbar, and the Tower of Power horns. He also co-founded a band called Sears, Schon, Errico with Neal Schon and Greg Errico, playing the Diamond Head Crater Festival in Hawaii, as well as several California shows. Sears spent two weeks recording with Ike Turner at Ike's studio, Bolic Sound in Los Angeles. Tina Turner was there one night and recorded vocals on some of the tracks they had recorded, including a version of George Harrison's song "Something" on which Turner changed the "she" to "he". With Jefferson Starship and Hot Tuna In 1974, Sears joined Jefferson Starship, replacing Peter Kaukonen and switching back and forth between bass and keyboards with fellow multi-instrumentalist David Freiberg. He also wrote two or three songs per album with Grace Slick. Grace and Pete wrote the song Hyperdrive for the Dragon Fly album. Dragon Fly, made in 1974, was the first official "Jefferson Starship" release as a band. Pete's first brush with Grunt Records was when Airplane drummer Joey Covington brought him to the studio to play bass on Papa John Creach’s first solo album. Grace Slick sang vocals in the same track Pete played on, “The Janitor Drives a Cadillac”. During the 1970s and early 1980s he would perform a ten-minute bass solo regardless of the size of the venue, even when playing to a 100,000 people in New York City's Central Park in 1975. Singer Grace Slick left the band after her non-appearance caused a riot in Germany in 1978; within months drummer John Barbata was severely injured in a car crash and the band's other singer,