Producer, Musician and Now Restaurateur, John Pedigo’s Had a Busy Year

To put it mildly, the past 12 months have been eventful for John Pedigo.

“Up until a couple of months ago, I was just, you know, producing records,” he said during a recent conversation. “Everything was going just fine, and then a restaurant happened.” 

The restaurant in question would be beloved Deep Ellum landmark AllGood Café. Pedigo, along with his partner Robin Gill and fellow musician Ward Richmond, assumed stewardship of it in early November, as owner and transformational local music figure Mike Snider headed off to a richly deserved retirement closer to his family in Ohio. 

“I’ve known Mike since …. I don’t know … forever,” Pedigo said. “I’ve always kind of been around him. At some point, I was talking to him and his buddy, and it was basically like they were going to close the restaurant. So, I went up there with Robin and Ward — we were really just going there to have one last chicken fried chicken, which is my favorite meal that exists.

“Then we started talking. Robin, her whole career has been in the food industry and kind of fixing places, fixing systems, so it was like, ‘Well, why don’t we just do this?’ It wasn’t a lot of rumination. It was really just, ‘How can we help? And can we actually do this?’ … When we were signing the paperwork for it, we were sitting around, and I thought, ‘How great would it be in 25 years if we can pass the torch to somebody else?’”

Pedigo also recently moved in a new house in the Lake Highlands area, which found the acclaimed singer, songwriter and producer with a newfound studio space, a barn reconfigured and built out by no less a legend than studio designer Bob Suffolk and christened Barnito Studio, where long-time Pedigo partner in crime Joshua Ray Walker cut his most recent LPs, including the left-field Stuff, released earlier this year. 

Barnito is a spot of Pedigo’s own, just steps from his back door, after years spent logging time behind the mixing boards at Modern Electric and Audio Dallas.

“It’s pretty amazing,” Pedigo said. “It’s very homey in a way, but it really works for me, and luckily, people like it. When I grew up, my dad worked from home, and I guess I grew up thinking, ‘Isn’t that better?’” 

Whether in a vinyl-covered booth at AllGood or helping shepherd songs that will ultimately fill the grooves of a vinyl record, Pedigo’s overarching goals are disarmingly simple: put good into the world.

“How I look at making records is generally, at the end of the day, I want the artists or the band to hear what they thought they were doing, you know?” Pedigo said. “When you’re under that kind of microscope, people learn how good they are or find out real fast if what you’re doing is actually translating. … With the AllGood, it’s kind of a similar thing. I want people to walk out thinking ‘That was worth my dime.’ … I want to make sure the value is there — [that] it’s worth the squeeze.” 

In It to Win

The idea of making something worth the investment also extends to Pedigo’s portfolio as a producer. Apart from much of Walker’s catalog, Pedigo has also worked with a slew of local talents: Old 97s, Vandoliers, Matt Hillyer, Ottoman Turks, Trey Johnson and 40 Acre Mule, among many others.

“I’m trying to make sure that people are in it to win it,” Pedigo said. “I’m the most curious about creation, and I’m most curious about new ideas. So, when people come to me, I look for some kind of point of view. I would argue that everybody’s pretty good, but if you have a point of view, it helps kind of further that along faster.”

Over the coming months, more of Pedigo’s production work will find its way to turntables and streaming services. He’s nearly finished mixing Walker’s forthcoming LP, I Ain’t Dead Yet, which Pedigo describes as “a back-to-form version of his stuff,” and will be out in May. 

“He’s the most prolific guy I know,” Pedigo said. “I’m super lucky that we get to work together all the time.”

There’s also Pedigo’s new side project, Armchair Rebels, a band he’s stood up with Robert Anderson and Tim Cooper (the drummer and bassist, respectively, from 40 Acre Mule), as well as a record he’s assembling with singer-songwriter Chad Stockslager “where it’s basically just him on piano, me on guitar and singing harmonies the whole time,” Pedigo said. 

Pedigo wryly acknowledges that neither pursuit dominating his days at the moment — the music business or the restaurant world — is necessarily wired for earning a comfortable living or being easily navigable. 

But what is as true of the last 12 months as the next 12 — and beyond — is what Pedigo and his collaborators choose to take away from their endeavors. 

“As we all know, art doesn’t pay the best, but it is truly the most gratifying, because we get to create,” he said. “I do find pretty good value in that. … It can be an evergreen adventure, if you do it correctly. We’re all chasing that. It’s always like ‘How do we create something that will last?’”