The Time Machine.
Compiled from a Rhythm Magazine interview, (U.K.), April 1986.
"The Time Machine"
"Look, let me play you something - then you can HEAR what I mean".
Gary sticks a tape into a cassette machine...
"This is one of the pieces from our latest album - er, it's only a very rough mix".
Synth guitar, bass and drums boom out from the speakers and begin to chase each other through a series of melodic and rhythmic figures. What stands out immediately is the very raw and aggressive drum sound, contrasting quite oddly with the lyrical quality of the guitar.
"I was very pleased with that drum sound", he shouts through the music, "We spent ages with all sorts of microphones, trying to get it so that the floor toms didn't sound too papery. They really flap around. I tune them right down, you see ..."
The piece is from Allan Holdsworth's fourth album, "Atavachron", named after the Star Trek time-machine.
"I'm generally quite pleased with this album. One thing I was happy about was getting the chance to employ a lot of these funny beats that I've been working on myself. It's rather good how well some of them have gelled with Allan's compositions, too. Basically, Allan writes these pieces and demos them just with a click track, then I listen to them and put a drum pattern to them."
Yes, well I suppose that's fairly logical ... but, somehow I suspect it isn't that simple.
"Well, Allan doesn't think in terms of bar lengths, he just has a feeling for where things start and where things stop! What he likes me to do is link and differentiate the various sections - the verses and chorus's if you like - through the rhythm.
What I do then is listen through the whole track and get an overall impression - where the accents fall, what pays reference to what - and then just try and arrange things around that. I like to get things planned and then be spontaneous from there - all very simple really".
And I get the impression that what does indeed make it simple is the empathy that Allan and Gary have between them.
"Like I said before, it's a very open situation. Okay, sometimes I don't hear things where Allan hears them, but in general he welcomes the way that these funny counter ideas can change a piece of music.
I think maybe the amount of freedom I get would frighten some drummers. Some people like to play in a certain more ordered way which doesn't require too much thinking like this, but personally I've been more interested in inter-relationships within the music - cause and effect, question and answer - and that's the way my own style has been going for quite a few years.
I think this is the best band we've had together too, because everybody is on the same wavelength here. Jimmy (Johnson) is very at ease in the same way that I am. I've always relied on being able to play along with the bassist in a particular way.
In fact, that's what Allan relies on too. It's often difficult to find the right chemistry."
I've read interviews with Holdsworth where he deplored the fact that many would-be Allan Holdsworth clones were studying his technique and learning all his tricks, without realising that the important thing was the attitude which a musician brought to his music.
"Yeah, it's a funny thing that in America, where we do practically all our work, most of the audience are into something that doesn't interest either myself or Allan - technique. It just so happens that what Allan does is so technically ground-breaking and amazing but it's also MUSICALLY amazing.
It's beautiful, really, but there are people there with their binoculars who are only interested in getting a close look at his fingers. What's important, of course, is the essence of what you're doing, the spirit behind the playing.
In a way, that's all I've ever known - to equip ones-self with enough knowledge and "to forget it all at the drop of a hat" I think is what Charlie Parker said. You have to maybe have the technique to forget it, so that when you play you just refer to it, instinctively, without turning the whole thing into a technical exercise. I see it as a totally intuitive thing."
So how does this affect Gary's attitude to practising?
"I work on obvious things like independence, trying to stay in shape, but I'm generally not too good at being very academic about music. The magic happens when I feel I'm really playing with people and if it does so in front of an audience - well, that's the greatest feeling of all!
I really prefer going with the rough edges sometimes, and y'know, this is what attracted me to playing drums in the first place - not the arithmetic, but the fact that I think of rhythms as incredibly passionate things.
I'm thinking of drum tuning in much the same way. I like it to be almost shocking - going from one extreme to the other, from very high to very low."
Gary uses a Tama Artstar kit in the US and a Gretch kit here in England.
Sizes on the Tama drums are 9" x 10", 11" x 12", 13" x 14", 16" x 16", 16" x 18".
Judging from the music I've already heard this talk about extreme and shocking tuning is no exaggeration.
"It's a very complete sound which somehow seems to say more to me. It also, I think suits the nature of this music. I sort of take the same attitude, as well as tuning with me - usually whoever I'm with.
Hopefully I'll continue to be doing different styles often, too, because it's only through doing that I feel as if I can develop my own style.
I have always been inspired by musicians who went out on a limb. I couldn't stand playing it safe ... even if people think I'm making a fool of myself! The trouble is these "less acceptable" people who are then perfectly accepted later on. John Coltrane, who in his time looked as if he was the target of rotton tomatoes or bad eggs is now referred to as someone we should all feel inspired by, as an example. I do hope Allan won't be the same kind of example - people should really know and appreciate what he is about, now.
Jazz, in particular should be radical, shouldn't it? Only, to play jazz these days it seems we have to sound like Philly Joe Jones ... and, I LOVE it but it's already been done! Ok, so even with contemporary music you should feel the tradition behind it, but the "BeBoppers" around at the moment only seem to want to go back to the Fifties ...
Well, my question is, what about everything in between? That's why, I actually feel pop is a much more healthy state of affairs at the moment, because it keeps changing so much, and developing. I can see more of a jazz spirit in what Kate Bush and Scritti Politti are doing now, because there's some progress being made here that doesn't seem to be quite the same in jazz."
Except perhaps in one area - that of rhythm. Despite the potential of drum machines to open up the field of wonderful rhythms, the all too familiar "dum-cha", "dum-cha" still dominates the pop world.
Which is why drummers like Gary Husband are good to have around, always seeking to push back the boundaries.
"I'd like to keep playing with Allan because it's an ever changing thing. It makes me discipline myself. And hopefully, I'll carry on having ideas all my life."