By Brian F. Wright
Cover photo by Will von Bolton
“And I said, what about Breakfast at Tiffany’s?…”
With nearly 400 million streams and more than 2 billion spins on radio, Deep Blue Something’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” remains one of the biggest hit songs to come out of North Texas. Formed by students at UNT, the band featured Todd Pipes on bass and lead vocals, his brother Toby Pipes on electric guitar and lead vocals, drummer John Kirtland, and rhythm guitarist and backup vocalist Clay Bergus, who was eventually replaced by Kirk Tatom (who himself was eventually replaced by Clay Bergus).
In honor of the 30th anniversary of their worldwide success, I sat down individually with DBS and their collaborators to discuss the band’s origins, their memories of the Denton music scene, and how they came to write and record their biggest hit. The following oral history presents their individual perspectives side-by-side.
Todd Pipes: After graduating from Sam Houston, I had no leads, no prospects, nothing. But Toby calls me up one day and says, “Hey, you gotta come up here. There’s bands everywhere.” And I was like, “In Dallas?” He said, “No, no, no. In Denton. You can’t believe it. There’s a venue on every corner.” I came up to visit, and he wasn’t exaggerating. Like on Fry Street, in one block there were three little venues and there were all these bands playing. So I decided to go to UNT to get a master’s in English and start a new band with Toby. By the summer of 1991, we had it up and running, and by the end of the year, all the pieces were basically in place.
Toby Pipes: Back then, there were tons of bands around Denton. Tripping Daisy were there. There were a lot of grunge bands, because that’s just what was going on back then. And, because of UNT, there were a ton of funk bands that had these awesome horn sections and could do all this amazing stuff. Everyone was just really good at what they were doing, and we all kind of knew each other, because we would play shows with each other all over the state.
Clay Bergus: I met the guys, and they were like, “Hey, do you play any instruments?” And somehow that led them to asking me, “Hey, do you want to come over to John’s house and hang out and see what we do?” So we went over to this house on Locust Street. It was just the four of us. I don’t even remember what we played really, but after that we decided to get our own rehearsal spot. It was a storage space, an all-tin shed. The garage doors would open up, and there were cows out in the pasture right there. We were like right on the edge of the property. It was just a fence and cows, and us just raising hell. We were out there all the time.
Todd Pipes: A lot of the Denton stuff, because of the music school, a lot of it was musicians playing to impress other musicians. Which I love. But there’s only so much you can listen to, and there’s a reason that there’s no girls at your show. So, accidentally, just because we thought, “We like Love and Rockets. Let’s do some stuff like that. Or Jesus and Mary Chain, but a little less harsh.” I mean, all of a sudden there are girls at our show. Because we are writing these simple songs, they were melodic and a little more accessible. So there were some great bands and some great musicians in the scene, but we just became this kind of odd thing that was going on.
Toby Pipes: I think we took off because we were doing something really different compared to the grunge, funk, funk-rap thing that was going on. We were a new wave pop band, and that was kind of refreshing for people. I’m sure at the time it was considered “uncool.” But we wanted to be like Slowdive or The Ocean Blue or The Sundays or something like that. We wanted to be that kind of band, but after Pearl Jam and Nirvana came out, that was not the coolest thing to want to be.
Clay Bergus: Back then the band was called Leper Messiah. The first five or six shows I played, I would get up, play the first song, go back and sit in the audience, and then play the last song. I remember we were at this venue called the Library and, literally, there was a table right in front. I played the first song, and then I went and sat down. Everybody was kind of looking at me like, “What are you doing?” Eventually, I started to play on four or five songs, then the entire set. Around this time, we also started playing at this place called O’Tays, which was by the Delta Lodge.
Toby Pipes: Back then, a band would start out at The Library, then you’d get a gig at Dr Smith’s II. Then behind that was O’Tays, which was a newer bar. I worked there as the door guy, believe it or not. It had a cool setup for the bands. Pretty much if you’re in there, you were watching the band. There weren’t any other rooms or anywhere else to go. So whatever was happening on that stage, everyone’s watching it. And once we got going pretty good at O’Tays, our crowd was competing with the bands at Rick’s [Place]. And that’s when we got the invitation to play Rick’s.
With a growing local following, the band started gigging four nights a week, alternating between playing music and going to school. It was in this era that Todd wrote what, years later, would become their biggest hit.
Todd Pipes: So two things were happening: I’m working on my master’s and I’m taking a course in prose poetry. Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, those guys. And it gets me thinking: I wonder if you could write a hit song that doesn’t rhyme. I’m just thinking about this, so this is in my mind. I also had in my mind that “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is a cool phrase, right? I’d only seen part of the movie by that time. I had read the book at some point, but I kept thinking, that’s a cool phrase. “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” I don’t know why it’s cool, but it sounds cool. There’s something there, right?
So I’m sitting down. I live in the Oaks Apartments, and I work a block away at the library. I sit down on the couch, turn on the TV, and it’s an Audrey Hepburn movie. I think it was Roman Holiday, but I’m not sure. Either way, that jogs my memory. And I picked up a guitar and I started playing, and I said out loud, “What about Breakfast at Tiffany’s?” And it just started happening.
The chorus comes out immediately. So I’m like, okay. “And I said, what about Breakfast at Tiffany’s?” If one person’s saying “I said,” then somebody else has to respond. I’m like, these are two people talking about this movie, right? What if they don’t like it? What if they don’t really care that much? And so that’s where this thing came out. But then I’m looking at my watch, and I realize I got to get to the library. So I’ve got this thing in my head, and I’m singing it because I don’t have any means of writing it down. I’ve got the melody and chords, the bare bones of it. It’s sort of D, A, and G. And I’m sitting there hurriedly going, “Well, what if the verse is just the same chords in a different order? That’s cool.” But, again, I was like, I gotta go, I gotta go. So I put the guitar down and I’m singing this song. I’m walking down the street singing this song and I’m thinking of words. As soon as I get to the library, I just start jotting down whatever I’m thinking of, trying not to lose the idea. For the rest of my shift, I’m just singing this song in my head because I think I’m going to forget it. Singing it, singing it, singing it. Jotting down words. I walk back to the apartment, play it, and I realize I’ve got these words and they don’t rhyme. And then I think, “Holy crap, this will be my song that doesn’t rhyme.” Because I put “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” in it, I don’t think anyone’s going to notice. And no one ever did, by the way. In all these years, no one has really ever said, “You know what? You know that crazy song? It doesn’t rhyme. Like it really doesn’t rhyme.”
But I took it to the guys, and I showed them the song. And they were [nonchalantly] like, “Yeah, that’s pretty cool.”
Toby Pipes: We used to bring in new songs all the time. So it wasn’t a big deal. It was kind of like, “Oh, that’s catchy and it’s easy, so we’ll play it tonight.” Because, back then, we were playing so much that we could learn a song in the afternoon and then play it that night at a show, or the next night. And we had a built-in focus group, because we could see right away what was working and what wasn’t. We would also just make up new stuff live, while we’re playing, so the song would change all the time. But the main meat of it was easy to play, and people liked it, so it was part of the set. But that happened every week. Every week one of us would show up at the rehearsal with a new song, and just go, “What about this one?” And everyone would go, “Sounds good.”
Clay Bergus: I think it was at Todd’s apartment at the Oaks. Basically, he said, “I’ve got this thing. It starts on a D, then it does this, and it goes to the G,” etc. And I’m like, “Okay.” So I just sat there and messed with it. That’s kind of how it all started. We sat in the living room at his apartment and just pecked at it for a minute. I think it was the first time that I was able to trick out the part how I wanted. Not that it’s complicated. Anybody could play a D and an A and a G, or whatever it was. It’s just playing it that certain way. So that’s kind of how the song all came about.
And then, the first time we played it everybody went crazy. We had played songs that people liked and would clap along to, but with “Tiffany’s” they kind of freaked out. And the next time we played it, there was a little more of a freak out. It just got bigger and bigger.
Todd Pipes: When we first played it live–We were playing, it was between semesters, and so nobody was in town. And [Rick’s manager] Ed LaMonica had told us, “Hey, will y’all play this Friday?” And we’re like, “Nobody’s in town.” He’s like, “I know no one’s in town. No one cares. But whoever is here will come. Just play.” So we played and I had just showed the guys the song that day in a rehearsal and we decided, well, since it’s just a for-fun show, we’ll play it. This friend of mine had come up from Houston and brought his girlfriend, and we had never met her before. When we were walking home after the show, I remember her saying, “Hey, y’all are good, but that one that you said was brand-new? That one was really good.” And I thought, “Okay. I don’t know this girl. She already said she had fun, but she said she really liked that song. That’s interesting.” That’s the only inclination I had that the song was anything special.
Toby Pipes: Back then, “Tiffany’s” was just a catchy number that we played with. But we didn’t start or end the show with it or anything. We would play it like fourth or fifth, and people always liked it, but it was just one of the tunes.
Although they had built a local fanbase in Denton, they quickly came to realize that their band name was becoming a problem.
Todd Pipes: I remember it was our second gig at the Library. They had a little marquee and it said “Leper Messiah.” As we were setting up, these guys came by and said, “Hey, man, you guys are a Metallica tribute?” And I’m going, “What are you talking about?” “You know, ‘Leper Messiah.’ Metallica.” I was like, “Oh no…” And it turns out that people kept thinking we were a metal band.
Toby Pipes: We thought everyone would get that it was a David Bowie reference, but apparently there was a Metallica song called “Leper Messiah.” So there was some concern that people might think we were a Metallica cover band, and those people would have been really angry when we showed up. But we were young and we thought, “We’re going to lose all of our fans if we change the name!” But that wasn’t going to be the case.
George Gimarc (DJ for 94.5 The Edge): The Edge had a large presence in Denton because our signal was very, very good there. So we got a lot of college kids listening. And at some point, I was either at O’Tay’s, or it might have been at Rick’s—but either way the guys in the band approached me. This used to happen all the time, because bands understood that the Edge was open to the notion of playing unsigned local acts, and I had been an advocate for unsigned bands since 1977. People knew that I was plugged into that stuff.
As I recall, the guys wanted some advice, because there were heavy metal kids coming and heckling them at their gigs. They asked, “What should we do?” And I said, “I don’t know, why are they heckling you?” “We don’t know.” “Well, what’s the band called?” “We’re called Leper Messiah.” And I told them, “That’s a heavy metal name.” I mean, that’s a name you’d see written in silver, pointy letters with blood dripping off the ends! They said, “No, no no. It’s a Ziggy Stardust reference. It’s very cool!” But I told them, “No. It’s a heavy metal name. You’ve got to change it.”
Then the next time I saw them, which was probably 6 months later, they gave me a t-shirt and a demo tape, both of which say Leper Messiah all over them. But when I got a chance to hear that demo, I thought, “Oh, these guys are really good. I like them a lot.” Because this was a really strong tape. “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” was on it. So, this band, from the very beginning, had that seed that was going to launch their career. It was in place, even on that original demo.
The original Leper Messiah demo tape, ca. 1992. Photo by George Gimarc.
Todd Pipes: George Gimarc told us, “Hey. If you’ll just change your dumbass name, I’ll put you on Tales from the Edge.” And we were like, “Okay.” And that ended up being this massive boost for us.
George Gimarc: I was sure that they had to change their name. And then, one day, I got a call on the request line. I can’t remember who it was—it was probably Toby—but one of the guys called me up and said, “You know how you wanted us to come up with something? How about Deep Blue Something?” And I said, “Great.” So, I don’t know if I gave them 30% of their name or not, but that’s what they changed it to, and after that things got a lot easier for them.
Toby Pipes: We had a song on Tales from the Edge [Volumes 7 & 8], that George Gimarc put together. It was called “Raise Your Hands.” So people knew that song locally. “Tiffany’s” just took off on its own later. This would have been like 1992 or 1993, so “Tiffany’s” didn’t take off for another year and a half, two years.
Around this time, Clay exited the band, leaving Todd, Toby, and John to record their album as a three-piece.
Todd Pipes: We recorded our first CD, 11th Song, in Denton at Reeltime Audio with [producer] Eric Delegard. That was a great experience. None of us had really been in a studio before, and Eric had this duplex in town. So we were all set up kind of in the living room. The drums were in the kitchen. And that’s how we recorded. Because Clay had left by then, we had to rent an acoustic guitar. We recorded that whole record as a three piece. I played all the acoustic [guitar] parts because we didn’t have a rhythm guitar player. We recorded the whole thing, I think, in three days. Then we just overdubbed the vocals and mixed it quickly. I was just amazed that this guy–who was my age–this is what he did. So all of this was kind of ticking in my mind. And the first money we got, I thought, “I’m going to buy some recording gear.”
Toby Pipes: Todd and I had been recording ourselves, if we needed something recorded. But Eric knew what he was doing, and he had that studio out of his house at the time. Todd and I were kind of facing each other in the living room, and John was in the kitchen. Eric would say, “Start,” and we would just go. We recorded it all live. But we went back to do the vocals, of course. The whole thing went pretty quickly, because we had been playing those songs all the time. We were playing them so much at shows that we could just rattle them off no problem.
Eric Delegard (producer/engineer): I don’t remember exactly how much studio time we did, but I believe they paid me $750 to do the recording. It was pretty low-budget. You know, a couple days recording, a couple days mixing. But they had this one song called “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” and I couldn’t get it out of my head. It was a really good song. It was catchy. So I really took an interest in that song. I remember that I went out and got the best vocal mic I could. Because I didn’t have really great equipment. So I went to my friend Terry Slemmons and rented his best microphone to record that song. And Todd and I spent a lot of time double tracking the vocals, trying to make the choruses sound big, working on the arrangement. I thought it was a hit, and I spent the most time working on that song, in particular.
Todd Pipes: We recorded the first version of “Tiffany’s” for 11th Song. It was slower, and it doesn’t have the baritone guitar part. It’s a more just verse-chorus verse-chorus kind of thing. It was something that would’ve been at home on college rock radio at the time. And it was actually at the record release for the CD that we officially changed our name from Leper Messiah to Deep Blue Something.
Toby Pipes: The name “Deep Blue Something” was just from a song that we had on the set list, this long instrumental that we would play.
The original version of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, off of 11th Song (1993)
After the release of 11th Song, the band signed with Paul Nugent and Mike “Swin” Swinford’s Dallas-based management company, Rainmaker Artists, and soon began working on their second album, Home. They also added guitarist Kirk Tatom, John’s roommate, to the band.
Kirk Tatom (guitar/backup vocals): What happened was me and John lived together in this huge white house. And he walked in one day and I was in there playing guitar. He said, “What are you doing Friday?” “I don’t know, why?” He was like, “We got a gig in Fort Worth, and we need somebody to play.” And I was like, “Okay.” I knew how the songs went. I had the record. So, yeah, I just showed up and played that show in Fort Worth. I want to say it was the next day. But we had great crowds. They were definitely one of the bigger bands in town. They were a substantial draw at the time, so I was walking into an unbelievably great gig. They had already done a lot of the groundwork.
Toby Pipes: 1993 to 1994, the momentum of everything changed. It wasn’t like we could go off on the weekends to drink beer and just play shows anymore. Now there was stuff going on. Money is exchanging hands between management and booking and venues. It’s no longer like we called up some club and got a gig on the weekend. There’s other people involved now. Also, we finally were making money. Nothing huge, but we could pay bills and stuff. So that was a big deal.
After 11th Song came out, we were playing much longer sets and we had to have a lot more material. So that’s how a lot of the songs got written for the next album [Home]. So half of that record, I would say, our audience would have known those songs already.
Kirk Tatom: We recorded the next album at Alley Cat in Denton, which was right next to Rick’s Place. The studio was in the back of a bookstore. It was basically a control room and a small jam room. It was little bitty. And the worst part about it was that there was a piano in there that took up most of the room. It was real cramped. But I was just glad to record. I really was. I was just thinking that “I got to go in here and play my best, and I hope I’ve practiced enough and am really on top of my chops.” I just wanted to do the best job I could.
Todd Pipes: We had recorded the Home album at Alley Cat, but nobody had really bothered to listen to it until we had printed it up. And we quickly realized that those mixes did not sound good. For the last album, we had worked with Delegard and he mixed it and it sounded great. So now that we were working at a more “professional” studio, I just assumed that it was going to sound good. But, after listening to it, we realized we had to remix this. That’s also when we decided to re-record “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” because the song was different by that point.
Toby Pipes: At first, ‘Tiffany’s’ wasn’t on the Home album, because we figured it had kind of run its course. We weren’t going to stop playing it at shows, but it had been on 11th Song, and now we’re making a new record. It wasn’t until there was this commercial that was on The Edge…
Todd Pipes: We were doing two nights at Trees, and Trees, if they had a really solid month, they would do ads on The Edge. You know, “This is who’s playing this month.” So they would play snippets of the different bands. And since we were playing two nights, they played this slightly longer snippet of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” And all of a sudden people started calling the station asking, “What is that song?” So that’s how we got added to The Edge.
Kirk Tatom: From what I understand, people would call in and say, “What’s that song on that ad?” That gave Paul and Swin a little leverage and they told the station, “Hey, look, we’ve been working with y’all. We’re spending money at the station. How about we throw this song on [the local music showcase] Friday Night Cockfight?” I think that’s what it was called. Something stupid like that. Then it won, and it won again, and it won again. And then Q102 picked it up, and then the Edge added it into regular rotation. After that, Rainmaker wanted us to go back and redo “Tiffany’s” because it wasn’t originally on that record. Paul and Swin were like, “Hey, you need to put it on the record. That’s the song. That’s the one we can get going.”
Toby Pipes: The music was just being played in the background of the commercial. Then our management hears that tons of people are calling the station requesting the song. But we were still just like, “Well, that’s on 11th Song.” But the radio station said, “We need a proper version, a better recorded version, if we’re going to play it.” And we were playing it different at that time. We had it more figured out. The 11th Song version is kind of all over the place. It’s too long and I’m just making up stuff on guitar as I go. But at this point, we had a better way of playing it. So we went and re-recorded it with [producer] David Castell.
1995 Deep Blue Something press photo
David Castell (producer/engineer): I first met Paul and Swin when they were working with the Spin. That was the first band they co-managed that I recorded. They were a great band. After that, I became their “fix-it” guy, and that’s how I came to work with Deep Blue Something. Honestly, it was just another job for me. The guys just came and recorded at my studio in Garland. I think 95% of the album was already fleshed out before they got there. So I would just jump in with ideas.
Toby Pipes: This was the first time we worked with someone that was doing the full producer thing. I think people used to think we wanted everything to be done our own way because that’s how we were doing it and it seemed to be working. But Castell would point things out: “Hey, you always do this…” or “You do this in the other song, why don’t you try it here?” And we were like, “Okay.” But that’s what you do as an engineer and a producer. You want it to sound great, too.
Kirk Tatom: The song was pretty much the song. We just went in and recorded it the way we’d been playing it night after night. But Castell did suggest some great added touches, such as the vocal harmony parts. He’s really good at those, and he and I were kind of kindred spirits. We both love little vocal stabs or emphasizing a particular line to make it stand out.
David Castell: Before the last chorus, there’s this “ooooh” that crescendos. It’s a double chorus, and I wanted it to start with this stacked, harmonized “ooooh” that starts small and gets louder. But probably my biggest contribution to “Tiffany’s” was suggesting that Toby use a Jerry Jones six-string bass guitar. He was playing a guitar melody that bridged the choruses and verses, so I thought, “That’s badass. Let’s make that as badass as possible.” It just came to me. “Hey, I know a guy that’s got a really weird guitar. Let’s try it.”
Toby Pipes: I remember that the power went out in the studio, and we were all just sitting around. Castell was like, “Hey, over in the corner there’s one of those six-string basses, like Robert Smith and everyone uses.” It was a Jerry Jones Longhorn. And he goes, “On all your other songs you have that little New Order dinky thing that you do, but you don’t have it on this one.” I was like, “Well, I don’t have a standard thing that I play. It changes every time.” And he just said, “Well, let’s figure it out. Do something you would normally do.” So me and Todd and Castell just sat there in the room, and I just kind of played bits that I would normally play. Then they said, “You should just repeat that part over and over,” and I was like, “Okay.” That’s when the power came back on and we got the echo pedal out and added in that guitar melody to the bridge.
Kirk Tatom: In the second verse, if you listen to it, there’s a clean electric guitar part, and I’m doing what they call “chicken pickin’.” It’s very country. That was a David Castell idea too. He said, “Hey, do that chicken pickin’ thing.” And I was like, “Oh, okay. Like this?” We worked on it for 20 minutes and then just recorded it. I love to throw that kind of stuff in there. To me, it adds interesting textures because it doesn’t fit, but it does. It works in a weird way. When you hear it, you’ll be like, “Oh my God, this is so country, man!” It’s right out of East Texas.
David Castell: There are very few people that can say, “Oh, that’s a Jerry Jones baritone bass guitar.” But it’s unique enough that it still catches the casual listener’s ear. It breaks up the monotony. That baritone guitar and then adding the chicken-pickin’ guitar in the second verse, it’s like, “We’re going somewhere.” And I think it works on a subliminal level. People don’t think, “Hey, there’s a chicken-pickin’ guitar.” They just feel that it’s different from what they heard in the first verse. It’s subconscious.
I also remember that the opening acoustic guitar part was hell to record. Because you would be surprised how many acoustic guitars cannot play a D chord and then a G chord in tune. One of those chords is going to be out of tune. And we spent hours on it before we decided it was the guitar that was the problem. We marched down to Arnold & Morgan Music Company in Garland, and we went in there and played 10-15 acoustic guitars. It took us, I’d say, a dozen until we found one that could play in tune. So, we got it and then went back to the studio and recorded it. I don’t know if the store loaned it to us, or if we had to buy it and then return it, but I know the band did not keep it. They just used it for the recording. But that guitar is just out there, hanging out on its own. It had to be perfect.
The music video for the re-recorded, hit version of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, off of Home (1995)
Todd Pipes: The recording turned out a lot more “poppish” than we realized at the time. But you don’t really know what you sound like, you know? I remember hearing it on the radio one time and it kind of caught me off guard: “Oh, okay. That’s a lot more pop than I thought.”
David Castell: I am cursed, I guess, with liking popular music. I don’t dig into deep cuts. I like hit songs. Most every song that I’ve produced, that has been my goal. So, yes. Everything, every sound, every pan, every drum sound, every bass sound, every texture is geared to what is popular in that moment. But also “Tiffany’s” is a lot heavier than people think it is. Listen to the chorus, it explodes with distorted guitars. Sure, it’s poppy, but it has split and distorted guitars in there, and they’re loud! So, it’s still a rock song.
In April 1995, Deep Blue Something played EdgeFest in Dallas. By that time, the new version of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” was a bona fide local hit, and their independently released Home album was selling so well in the DFW area that the band was courted by multiple major labels. They eventually signed with Interscope, who decided to simply re-release Home and give it wider distribution. Within months, “Tiffany’s” was receiving national radio play and climbing the Billboard charts, and the song’s music video was in heavy rotation on MTV. By January of 1996, the album had gone Gold, selling more than 500,000 copies. Soon after, Kirk left the band and Clay rejoined, and the group then embarked on a global tour, which turned “Tiffany’s” into a worldwide hit. The band eventually called it quits in 2001.
In 2015, they reformed the whole band, including both Kirk and Clay, and since then they have continued to tour and put out new music. Looking back 30 years later, they remain grateful for the song’s success.
Toby Pipes: The song is still around. We can play anywhere, and people lose it when we play that song. It’s great.
Clay Bergus: It’s awesome! It’s been played so much. They used to call that “puke rotation,” because you heard it so many times that it made you want to puke. That was your goal back in the day, to get into puke rotation–to get spins on radio stations, when that mattered. And we all worked so hard for it. That song is now part of my DNA, I would say.
Kirk Tatom: Man, I am so thrilled to be a part of it, and I’m so fortunate. I mean, you talk about winning the lottery. The odds are astronomical. I’m not the best guitar player in the world. There’s a million dudes that can play circles around me, you know? And to have that song happen, I’m very humbled by it. I can’t believe I got to do that, and that I get to keep doing it into my 50s.
Todd Pipes: The people that distance themselves from their hit song–that’s awfully ungrateful. You know what I’m saying? I can’t get with that kind of mentality. The idea of not being thankful, I can’t fathom it.
Deep Blue Something have a new album out now called Lunar Phase (Flatiron Recordings, 2025). It is available for streaming or purchase. The band also continues to tour regularly, including dates in the DFW area and beyond. For more information, see their website.
