Interview with Drums UK in 1998.
What's the background to your career?
"The very start of it was playing in a shed, out in the country with some friends who were all into playing regularly. Alongside this, there were weekend hotel dinner dance functions I was doing, also while I was still at school - I'd just pile in there hoping to really let rip only to be told "sorry son, it's brushes all night"! But then they'd play a rock'n'roll medley at the end of the night and people would start to get excited.
They'd had their dinner of course and I'd proceed to give them all indigestion by playing a drum solo that seemed to shake the house, getting rid of all that pent up frustration.
Then, as soon as I could leave school I joined the Syd Lawrence Orchestra, which was like a covers band, playing 30's, 40's and 50's stuff like Miller, Dorsey, Harry James, Basie etc.
I'd had a heavy exposure to big band music from the beginning through my dad who used to work in the Northern Dance Orchestra, so I grew up with the sound of the big band. It was a great introduction, and people still say now that they can hear traces - like big band techniques, and setting up ensemble phrasing where you slightly can overstate things for benefit here and there. But, everything we do affects us and pays off, I think in a positive way."
I know that as well as being a great drummer, you're also a brilliant keyboard player, but which instrument do you regard as your "first" instrument?
"Well, piano, in the sense it was the first instrument I played, but I don't generally favour one over the other in terms of my work, or career. I came through a strict classical training which, on one hand actually made me give up piano for a while only to revert back to it years later under a renewed inspiration.
I can't stand the classical world in some respects, it's almost athletics with them - pure competition - and I abhor that. But on the other hand, and on a practical level the classical training stays with you all your life, so now I can go long periods of time and still be able to play, somewhat, without practising every day - those classical guys practise anything up to seven hours a day or more, which would be fine if I had the time!"
You are a very busy musician, is this because you can get work as either a drummer or a keyboard player?
"No - you'd be surprised, because somehow when people do one thing and they are quite visibly seen to be doing one thing, other people immediately identify them with that. The problem with a lot of people, I still don't know why and in a way I still don't accept it, is that they don't like it when you move around in too many circles. They say things like "one minute he's playing this music and the next he's playing that music, then the next he's playing a completely different instrument and with someone else who's known for one of his instruments!" Just mental!
People have asked me when it is I will figure out what it is I want to do, and I tell them "Well I am doing what I want to do!" and they still say "No, you're playing drums then piano, then electric keyboards" and I say "Well what's wrong with that. Do I have to "give up" an instrument just to please you?!!!" It's that stupid. You see, I don't regard any such divide at all between musical styles or between instruments at all. Many people play two instruments - I just choose to work on both to the same intensity and career level.
As a matter of fact, I have an album of keyboard performances released called "Diary Of A Plastic Box", but even record companies have voiced this pessimism and confusion about me doing a keyboard album. I guess that people don't feel comfortable with musicians who they see as being too versatile!"
Have you ever played recording dates where you've been both the keyboard player and the drummer?
"Oh yes!! Many times. Also on both the Level 42 albums. Actually I played some piano on the first one, and then there was one called "Guaranteed" on which I played more keyboards than anyone else".
Was Mike Lindup happy with that?
"Well he wasn't around. At that time he just didn't happen to be around the studio on a number of occasions, so it didn't even seem he was worried about it. Mark (King) is very impulsive - he'll say "I've got an idea" and suddenly everything has been switched on and you find yourself sitting at some instrument.
Before you know it you're putting something down to tape! You get hold of it while it's still hot - before it's too late, plus Mark had the luxury of having a studio down there (on the Isle Of Wight) so we'd find ourselves putting together a sequence of something, or even solos, even at that early stage. So, on that record, just about every keyboard or piano solo is me, plus a good 60% of the padding work.
There was trouble then though because one person was finding it hard to honour me with a credit for this - something I wanted - so that was a big thorn in the side of that particular project!"
Are you still in touch with Mark?
"Oh, yes - I never really had any problems with Mark - the relationship was always built on something pretty sincere. I have a lot of respect for him."
He's not a bad drummer himself is he!
"No - he's very good (laughs). I should break his hands! He's actually a very, very natural musician - he's just drawn to things - he can pick up anything and make it work! He's one of those people who can do everything without necessarily knowing how he's doing it!"
You were using Yamaha drums back then, and I noticed your toms went from small sizes on the left then got bigger in the middle of the rack, then to small again over to the right side of the kit. It was a strange set-up!
"Yes, well it was a strange period! The "Inverted" rig, I called it. You'll have to bear in mind I was drinking a lot back then! Lots of romantic problems! Anyway, I was playing more with Allan Holdsworth at that time (than in Level 42) simply because that's how it panned out. That's been the most significant, creatively valuable development for me - playing with Allan in his thing - and it actually transpired out of some of that work. With that tom configuration you could play a complete ascending or descending tone row using a hand to hand sticking. That was the beginning of it.
So you'd come from the centre and branch out like a tree. You could simply play phrases around this instead of having to use double strokes and play a conventional tone row down or up the drums. In this way I had a completely different opportunity - and it paid off - there some compositions that came of that. But eventually, it started getting "bigger" than me! I don't know what happened, because it started to hinder me, in the sense that it was sort of starting to play "me". I couldn't seem to think any more with it, I don't know why. Peculiar. Anyway, plus there were a couple of people around me hassling and constantly barking "Why don't you play these things the way they're MEANT to be set up?" and I'm thinking "Oh no - here we go again!" Like I said earlier, people do not like change!"
But the rules are there to be broken aren't they? I mean, where would we be without Stewart Copeland and Ringo Starr for instance?
"Oh yes, exactly right. We have to try new and different things."
In terms of your drumming style, did Billy Cobham and Simon Phillips have any influence on you?
"Yes, they all are. All of them, but Billy, are you kidding? Absolutely. With Simon, of course, I'm only three or four years younger than him, so it's pretty safe to say we were both under that particular spell I should think. I would imagine also that we'd both have seen Billy on "The Old Grey Whistle Test" around early ''74 I think, and I remember thinking "I've never heard or seen anything like this". I don't think anybody had. And to see somebody so comfortable, with their left hand just laying down very naturally playing the hi-hat with right hand reaching snare and all the rest of the area, well it just looked so logical, and comfortable. Plus, of course, he was so hip to look at too - a real "soul brother" in those days! The whole thing was just so modern and I decided to pursue that line myself, and I worked with it for a long time in the later seventies, only to go back to the right (after a brief spell in hospital), then only to take it up much later in Level 42 for a while!
The difficulty with it is trying to teach a "leading" instinct into the left hand, but it's like anything and will come with work. The technique may already be there physically but you have to develop your mind into accepting your right hand supporting the left instead of leading it. That's the hardest thing. Now, I switch between the two sides, keeping both open for different things. Simon, as far as I know pretty much adopted this left leading posture straight away and kept with it. He's such a craftsman, ...one of the greatest rock players to come out of anywhere."
What sort of drumming do you listen to for inspiration nowadays?
"Well look, anything real! Soulful. Meant! A lot of things, some "jungle" too! I've been enjoying what this guy Squarepusher does, on that "Hard Normal Daddy" record. I've also been doing some of that stuff recently, live! Some with Lemon "D", and others for a guy called "Dillenger."
What else have you been doing recently?
"I was recently on tour in Canada, once again with Geoff Keezer, (a great pianist) and Christian McBride, supporting Diana Krall. Before that I was working with Billy Cobham and Randy Brecker. In between I went to Japan, and the US with Allan Holdsworth. The whole thing with Allan has been going ongoing since 1979! Somehow, we have an incredibly natural, organic sort of musical interaction between us. I'm also doing a third album with Gary Moore - I was quite pleased with that last record we did, "Dark Days In Paradise" - and I also recently did some clinic stuff with Dennis Chambers. It just keeps going on.
When I'm not out doing something, I'm here at home working on my own music. There's an album coming out by a guy called Anthony Hindson, an unknown guitarist and writer. He has worked in the record business with a lot of major Indian musicians, and this album features (as well as myself) Zakir Hussain, violinist L. Shankar plus many others. I play a lot of the keyboards and most of the drums. There's Jack Bruce also on there, Tony Williams featured on one track, ...great experience. I also made an album recently with an old friend - well, he's not that old, but the friendship is! - Steve Topping, a major composer, guitar player of these times now, in England.
The album's called "Time & Distance" and it's out on Black box Records. I'm very proud of it, and HIM for undergoing the usual fight and struggle necessary just in order to get some very important music out."
What are your future work plans?
"In the immediate future, finishing up this Gary Moore thing, maybe touring more with it. I'm also just finishing up another album I've been doing for Jimmy Nail, the singer and actor. He wrote some very nice songs, and I've been enjoying the challenge of getting the drums right for each little treatment. That will be out soon I guess. There's more work with Billy too, as we promote this new "Focused" album, and I'm proud of that too.
That leaves work with Allan, for which I become actively involved in the booking and agency side of things, too. We've got to, or I've got to, because the music's too important and the business side so bigoted and bullshit that unless you get behing the full picture this important stuff doesn't happen and music doesn't get heard.
Look at me; I've been trying to an album from the drummer/bandleader/ composer angle for about 13 years! And I've been READY to do it for 13 years too, y'know? ... and I just can't get anybody interested enough to return my calls or put a little money up to pay for some recording.
What's the result? The next album I'll now do will be of all the work I'm doing at home for a new trio I lead, playing piano/keyboards because I have a little more room, it seems, for me to manoeuvre THIS way. So the drum album I'll be trying to construct slowly, under my own financing, eventually, somehow, but I'll fight to do it. It's a good lesson actually.
The "Interplay & Improvisation" video for example, only got made because of the regular sound of my voice on the phone to people! I told them to get it together and let me do it, because it's got (or was supposed to have) some badly needed messages about just connecting to the source inside, drawing from it and playing some music from it. As it is, I still lost out to them editing just performance together and not including any informative material, but at least I got what I got. It's the only way. To get behind it all with vigilance. Anyway, the fighting man is a beautiful thing. On top of this I've got some clinics in Europe to do."
Talking of clinics, what sort of things do you feel are important in a clinic situation?
"I try to put over the messages I believe in most, as well as attempt to introduce young players to "themselves" a little more, trying to encourage confidence in them to pursue their own motivations and aspirations. A lot of the questioning that comes at me reveals somewhat of a "lost" outlook.
More youngsters nowadays don't seem to even know where to turn or direct their efforts, and they seem locked into dutifully trying to sound a certain way. A lot of this, in my opinion comes because there are a terrific number of instructional videos out there featuring all these big and revered stars. You know, the hot stars of the moment, and a whole generation of people fast forwarding and rewinding these films, studying stick patterns up the ying-yang, and oh, God knows what. Studying actual sticking patterns and things to do with somebody else's phrases right from the beginning disturbs me.
I believe in the inspiration of things, being inspired by something to the point where you're left with an essence - I mean that you've been sufficiently elevated somehow, by hearing somebody play something, and you've been left thinking "Wow, that's so exciting, that's fantastic".
To me, the answer isn't to go inside to completely clone some lick or something - the term "lick" just offends me so much anyway. If we're thinking licks and configurations and stuff we're not doing too well - we're thinking when we should be concentrating on something far more fundamental and constructive. I don't believe that has any beneficial quality in terms of what makes for the ideal state of playing which is, I feel, one simply out of adventure, discovery, concentration, refinement and LISTENING. That's all, and in a way the rest of it just starts to come."
If I understand you, what you're saying is that the video enables you to see how something is done, whereas just hearing it and saying to yourself, "I think he does it like this; as we would with a recording, means that the resulting effort becomes part of you, because it's your interpretation of what they did. Have I got that right?
"Yes, exactly - you have to find something inside of yourself. Like for example the idea of an old blues artist sitting on his porch, not having a record player or radio, just dragging up from inside of himself an expression through his instrument or voice, and the emotion he's expressing. This is entirely his!. And of course he's just drawing on his own experience, or loss, angst, heartbreak or happiness. That's what music is all about."
So even the tape deck and record player have done some harm?
"I'd hate to say that really, because they were my most significant teachers. Of course you're bound to have such a totally unique voice if you hadn't heard any music from anyone, but that's obviously just fantasy in modern life. Impossible. Couldn't be. I'm not actually saying that the object should be to singularly be totally unique, I just want to try to promote the idea that we should look in and explore our own adventure, discover it and deal with it, and express it in the most poetic way we can make it happen at that moment.
You know, I think of a singer, and one that believes and identifies so much with the lyric of a song they manage to put over such a definitive version of it you could swear that artist wrote it. You feel so totally drawn in, tuning into the almost visceral state of heart existing in the singer herself or himself. So when I hear the term "lick" I shudder and try to get as far away as possible. It's cold and scientific and I'm really not interested at all."
Tell us if you will about your video and the thinking behind it?
"The thing has been out around thre or four months now. it was made very quickly in just two short afternoons. All the tracks were first takes, and I had put together six to eight different musicians, purposely from slightly different bases and areas of music. One of the things I hope the video will show is a guy who doesn't really have stylistic problems.
I listened to Mitch Mitchell with Jimi Hendrix as much as say to Max Roach or Tony Williams. I also like the "free" players. Then there's funk, soul and R&B players. I think what the video says is "there's one voice in every one of these situations, and it still sounds like the same guy playing drums." That's a very important thing."
What's your favourite piece of your own drumming?
"There are a few things I'm fond of, although I can't say there's any one thing I'm especially proud of. Actually, there are some nice bits of playing on the video - there's a nice thing with Allan, and things with Steve. I enjoy the album Steve's made, also an album called "Southern Reunion" I made for Mo Foster.
The Holdsworth record "Metal Fatigue" features a track called "The Unmerry-Go-Round" which I always was quite fond of, but by and large it's very difficult to be pleased with anything. it's nice to go back occasionally and think "Oh yeah", but mostly it's because it reminds of a time and place which of course is what music does. It has an amazing way of transporting you."
When you listen to albums that you've played on, do you often think, "I could've done better?"
"Oh my God, yes always, really. There's no getting around that one, but, I'm getting better with all of this. I can live seemingly better with a lot of that stuff now. Those first or second takes really do have something over all the subsequent ones. Of course, if there are bad mistakes they may need fixing and if that's not possible another more exacting take may be the only answer, only then you haven't got the spontaneity. I like accidents - I don't like perfect slick performances - I like "edge", somebody going for something and they're not quite sure, and it gets to a point and they have it, and then they don't have it!!
But this is what it's all about. An audience will know it, too. When you hear someone playing really close to the edge, really trying to grab it, chasing something, and then they lose it and the audience go "Aaah", because they felt part of that.
There's a story that Tony Bennett once told Frank Sinatra that he was terrified of going out to face an audience, and Sinatra, who was a big fan of Bennett, apparently said "Don't worry about it - that's what the audience wants to see - if they see you going out there so blas�,' appearing as if you hardly care, THEN you'll lose them."