BDK Interview - Jerry Granelli Returns

Last year I interviewed Jerry Granelli when he put out his solo drum album, 1313. It was the first in-person interview I ever did and on top of learning a lot myself, I felt it was one of the best interviews I conducted. This summer Jerry put together a trio and recorded Let Go, a shining example of his his progression as an artist, and his keen technical sense. While he was doing press for his album I was given the opportunity to interview him again and I jumped at the chance. We talked about his new album, his approach to drumming, and the death of his longtime friend and mentor, Joe Morello. It's always a pleasure to talk to Jerry, and I'll probably take every chance I get.

You've had lots of experience playing in a trio setting, what gave you the inspiration to put one together yourself?

I'd been doing V-16, the double guitar quartet and we'd done three records in six years. Then that kind of came to a point where it kind of needed a rest. I did the solo record in between, and it's like Ok, well, what do I want to do next? And I've had this ongoing relationship with Simon Fisk. I'd known him since he was a kid, and I'd known Danny Oore since he was a kid. I just really wanted to try something with them, and we got a heritage grant from the province to get together. So those guys came out for seven days, and everybody brought music and we just worked on what exactly the trio was going to sound like. I knew I didn't want it to be another guitar band, or another saxophone trio. Danny plays all the saxophones and Simon plays cello you know, so it was really a luxury to kind of get into it that way, but it was really a hard way to work, because you go "Ok, this isn't my concept, I'm leaving it pretty open" and "we're going to try to work on material but we're also going to try to find a sound". And I think we've got it. I think we got what we wanted.

How do you go about preparing to record an album like this? Because apart from the underlying theme it's very free and organic. Do you just set up and go?

There are written pieces for this. But with V16 the form kept coming up that we didn't improvise on the pieces, but the pieces were meant to be improvised in. So you're not leaving the core material, but you're finding the freedom within the material to make it sound completely formless, but it does have a form. Which is different than the usual jazz technique of playing something, then playing on it. I was thinking last night how I called the record "Let Go", because we had to let go to make it, but now I feel like I should have called it "Cutting To The Bone" because there is really, no fat at all man. It's very lean, and when I listen to it -- the way it's recorded and the way it's played, it's very honest.

Did you find that going from a four-piece to a three-piece left you more sonic room to explore?

There is definitely more sonic space, but it was kind of a loneliness at first. Not as lonely as the solo record I guess, but it's also, you know, a trio is sort of like a really small fast car, It turns really quick. And then with no harmonic instrument, no chordal instrument, you don't have any of that. V16 was about as fast as four people could get and it would sometimes have two or three songs going at the same time, and I think this band is capable of that.

I was really focused on doing a studio album, and not just capturing a live event.You know, there's cello overdubs and we got Mary Jane (Lamond, Gaelic vocal icon) on the album, there is two songs with her. I just love her voice, she's amazing, she's an incredible improviser. She came in and we rehearsed just a little bit, like, barely at all, and she came in the studio and laid these parts down, just improvising with the tracks.

It's really interesting that you brought a Gaelic infusion into this genre of music. I don't think that's ever been done before.

To this day I don't know what the words she sang meant, but I wanted the voice to be a ghost, and to just appear out of the blue. You know, you're listening to the album and you get through the first two songs then all of a sudden this voice comes in, and you go "whoa, wait, what was that?" and then it doesn't appear again on the next track but it's hidden deeper in the record.

"I feel like every band has a life."

Do you have a favorite piece?

It changes. After a record's done every once in a while I'll put it on, but during the process of getting an album from point A to point Z, you know, I've listened to that shit sooooo much. And I really got into the idea of how this record was going to sound. For one, this record isn't mastered. Most albums are mastered and leveled out, but this one, I went to Vancouver to John Rabham, a great engineer, and we spent two days just tweaking it and Really listening to it, which is what you do with a studio recording you know? It's like a painting, you know, this thing needs to be crystallized. Somebody hopefully will listen to this over and over and over again, and all those little things will be what makes it come alive for somebody who is listening to it. It's the stuff nobody wants to know about.

So you're happy with the sound you've found?

It's not a completed journey yet, we get to go out on tour in October, and then we'll really get into it. This is the first step in hopefully a longer evolution. It'll have a life. I find that bands have a life.

I would definitely agree with you there.

Well it's like they go along and they develop and then they need to rest and sometimes you get back to them or you don't. I find this trio interesting right now because we haven't really played a lot of shows yet, we haven't been on stage night after night but we've got a good little tour lined up for October and it's exciting.

At this point in your career you've basically done everything. This isn't even close the the first free jazz album you've played on, but by taking the helm for the first time do you feel a bigger responsibility to guide the music?

Well with V16 I kind of set it up so that it WAS my band but it really WASN'T my band, you know? And this right now IS my band.

Where your band-mates are much younger do you sort of instinctively take on the leadership role?

Yeah, and I hadn't done that for a very long time. I had a band when I was in Germany called UFB, and they were real young, and for a while it sort of felt like a similar situation. But what the trio is hopefully going to evolve into is that it'll be my band without it being my band.

All I've tried to do is say "Alright, here is the direction I really hear and I really want to go in." At first they were kind of like, "hmmm... I don't know..." and I had to say "I KNOW you don't know, I don't know either, really, but let's keep heading there, I think we'll get there." And we did.

There's an awful lot of trust involved.

There is, but they're such brilliant players, such honest players that even though it wasn't easy the first week, and this wasn't an easy album to record, we worked real hard to get to where we wanted. If it has anything, it doesn't sound like any other band.

It most definitely does not sound like any other band.

Yeah! And that's cool! Colin Mackenzie used to say to me, "You're a sonic shape shifter, man, every time you're doing something sonically, you shift shapes." And that's ok.

You know, there's some songs on there where the drums are just totally minimal, like I'll drop out for four or five minutes, but I really love that because to me, what happens is death, which I guess is part of being a leader.

I think drummers have to realize that we're arrangers, you know, and one of the choices when you're playing is deciding when not to play. Drummers are arrangers, man, we arrange the piece, we control the volume level. I was just up in Banff teaching and I told all these drummers, "Look man, with drums you have all of this power, you can make the piece louder, softer, end, begin, where things come in, everything. Even in pop music." So I think when I approached the record it's like, I don't need the drums everywhere. If you listen to A Woman Who Wants To Waltz on the album, all the drums do on the whole fucking track is go "Boom........Chhhhh.........Chhhhhh......... Boom...........Chhhhh...........Chhhhhh" I think I play one part at the bridge where I do one different hit.

How would someone who doesn't have your level of technique go about developing the abstract component to their playing?

Well it depends what you mean by technique. I think there is a certain point where you realize that you've played enough literal or straight time, that the natural evolution of that is to try and find a way to imply that time without playing it. So in one way I'm playing really really straight, but I'm making it sound as abstract as possible. Breaking down parts, playing sections of them, and that's where the real practice is, realizing where time comes from. Realizing that time has to be internalized and then what you hear on the drums is the sound of the internalized time. But a lot of times we get that ass-backwards, we think by hitting the drum we're playing time, but it's not that way. Does that make sense?

Now the last time I was here we talked about your relationship with your mentor, Joe Morello, who has since passed on. If you could sum up everything you learned from Joe back then, what is the stuff that still sticks with you today?

Probably the most important thing he taught me was that the only important reason for having technique is to serve the music. He used to say that over and over. As well as the physical skills he taught me that allow me to be my age and continue playing. I mean he was 81 and he was still playing.

I think he gave me a great gift as a teacher because he didn't try to shape me musically, he let me do my own thing, but he shaped my hands and everything. We became good friends afterwards, and he was always on that thing about serving the music. It's one of those things where it's like, who cares if you're the fastest drummer in the world, big fucking deal. Sooner or later there will be someone faster then you. But just imagine at the time Morello was at his peak, there was NO ONE faster, or stronger than him. He came along and he changed drum technique forever.

I wish somebody would go back and take his live drum solos off his records and put them out as a volume of work. Just that contribution of all of those solos, it's timeless. It would be an incredible volume of work. He never did anything of his own, and I think that's a shame. He made a tremendous contribution to the instrument, and to the music and to me personally, you know, but he was always about serving the music.

It's a pretty humble stance considering he had the most technical ability of anyone at the time.

Yeah, but it's because he realized what it was for, you know? He was quite a, uh, quite a drumist, hah.

You can listen to Jerry Granelli Trio's Let Go, as well as many other Granelli releases, on his Banddcamp site. Or click HERE for a current list of upcoming dates.

BDK Dates

photo : Chelle Wooten

I've got various shows this summer with different acts. If anyone is interested in seeing me play here is what I have for the season.

With KUATO

June 11th @ Gus's Pub (Halifax NS) w/ Union Of The Snake, Stalwart Sons

August 5th @ 1313 Hollis (Halifax NS) w/ TBA (Summer EP Release)

*August 12th @ The Capital (Fredericton NB) w/ Force Fields, Slate Pacific

August 13th @ Messtival (Anagance NB) w/ TBA

*confirmation pending

With Quiet Parade

June 23rd - Governors Pub (Sydney NS) w/ The Details

June 24th - Gus' Pub (Halifax NS) w/ The Details, Sleepless Nights

June 25th - Baba's Lounge (Charlottetown PE) w/ The Details, The North Lakes

June 26th - Plan B (Moncton NB) w/ The Details, Colonial Quarrels

With AA Wallace

June 18th - Midsummer Madness Festival (Kingston NB) w/ Scientists of Sound, Three Sheet

July 1st - Folly Fest (Gagetown NB) w/ Hey Ocean, Olympic Symphonium, Paper Lions

July 22nd - Evolve Festival (Antigonish NB) w/ Edward Sharpe, Man Man, Fred Penner

With Sleepless Nights

June 24th - Gus' Pub (Halifax NS) w/ Quiet Parade, The Details

This seems to be the summer of Festivals which is great because I love playing outside. Also, if it rains I wont have to worry about shocks, because I don't have to plug anything in. My biggest problem will be water splattering in my mouth when I rock out.

Amateur Exploits

Still-shot from Lasse Gjertsen's percussive viral video, Amateur.

**Note** Around a year ago I emailed Modern Drummer Magazine some of my writing and asked about maybe writing something for them in the future and they were very encouraging and open to the idea, so I wrote a piece on the growing popularity of abstract kinds of percussion in popular music and some recent examples I found interesting. In the end they liked the piece but didn't think it fit in with the way the magazine is geared and asked if I could make it a little more into a "how to" piece. I got lazy and didn't alter it, and it sat dormant in a folder until I just remembered it.

The big thrill for me wasn't that I got to maybe be published in MD (although it's still something I'd like to do), it was that I had an excuse to interview Chad VanGaalen, whom I am a big fan of and who was a big inspiration for this article.

I thought I'd bring it out because I worked hard on it at the time, and it would be a shame if it just disappeared sometime when my hard drive crashes and I'm too lazy to retrieve it, so here it is.

Throughout the history of drumming, the most talented players have always been the ones to push the boundaries of the art of drumming. When Dave Brubeck came home from a US State Department tour of Europe and Asia, he wanted to write music in the odd time signatures he had heard throughout the villages and towns during his travels. He hired Joe Morello as the man to work these time signatures into something tangible on the drum kit. As a result, Time Out went on to sell millions of copies and open drummers’ minds to a completely different way of interpreting rhythm. One year later Billy Higgins and Ed Blackwell pushed things even further by playing completely out of time on Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz, an accomplishment whose influence continues today in the avant-garde movement.

As years went on, drummers always came along and made important contributions to the craft. Players like Jaki Leibezeit from Can and Alan Myers from Devo would influence a whole new crop of drummers, but towards the end of the 90’s something changed. Home recording gear was not only becoming easier to access -- mostly due to a significant drop in price -- but the Internet was also making it easier to deliver your music to a wider audience. The traditional sound of a drum kit on independent recordings was replaced by electronic samples and homegrown means of percussion, something for a bedroom recording artist that was easier to record and manipulate. All drummers at some point have encountered the old adage of “anyone can play the drums”. It’s a statement usually meant as a joke or to offend, but by approaching percussion from a different angle, artists everywhere are proving it to be true.

Chad VanGaalen is a critically acclaimed songwriter from Canada who has taken home recording to a new level. The press photo for his album Soft Airplanes features VanGaalen in front of a Frankestein’ed mound of drums and percussion instruments duct-taped and wired together with various mallets and gizmos popping out at every direction. For people searching for new and interesting sounds, it’s candy for the ears. His songs are often dark and murky pieces with enough structure and melody to attract the average music fan on the first listen, and contain enough interesting sounds and arrangements to keep even the most elitist music fan coming back for more.

“Home recording has changed a lot since I have been doing it, starting out with a couple of boom boxes,” he says. “I was really limited to how hissy stuff started getting. Now everyone has laptops with pimped out digital 24 tracks on them so the sky’s the limit.”

While some artist see the limitations of bedroom recording as constrictive, VanGaalen uses it as a way to re-think percussion.

“If you have a small home studio in a bedroom it’s probably not an option to set up a fully mic’ed kit, so you are forced to use different ways to get approximately the same sound or possibly a better sound if you’re lucky.”

Chad is proof that with a little imagination, you can create memorable parts regardless of skill.

“I have no formal drum training,” he says, “my drumming influences come from listening to Sonic Youth records over and over”.

Chad with his creation

Bedroom recording artists aren’t the only people making leaps in the world of percussion. In 2003 the critically acclaimed, multi-platinum Icelandic rock band Sigur Rós recorded Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do, a 20 minute piece of music to accompany a dance piece by Merce Cunnigham. The piece is littered with the pitter-patter of a percussion instrument composed of several ballet slippers and tap dancing shoes. The shoes are rarely played in any discernable time, and they are the only rhythmic accompaniment in the entire piece. It’s an abstract approach to percussion that has long been around in experimental recordings, but that has rarely been used in popular music.

The popularity of viral videos is also bringing a visual element into the mix. In Lasse Gjertsen’s short film “Amateur”, Lasse used short video clips of himself hitting individual parts of a drum kit then applied his skills as a video editor to create and shape a rhythm, eventually doing the same thing with various notes on a piano and creating a song. Gjertsen can neither play the piano nor the drums, which is what makes this video so remarkable. By breaking down rhythm into sections of single hits and building it into a piece of music, Lasse proves that you don’t need years of practice to develop a keen sense of rhythm. By approaching it from a different angle and using the skills available to him he wrote a song without ever learning an instrument. Despite the title, the video is no amateur endeavor. To date it has received nearly twelve million views.

Other artists manage to take traditional approaches to percussion but with unorthodox objects. In Julian Smith’s “Techno Jeep,” a group of people uses the doors and internal sounds of a standard Jeep to create a multi-layered rhythm. Throw in some snazzy video edits and a little choreography and you have another successful viral video, 2.5 million views and counting.

It’s because percussion itself is such an accessible art form that these advancements are possible. Anything with a surface can be used in some incarnation as an instrument. Once the fundamental notes are learned on instruments like the piano or the saxophone, you are then taught a series of rules that adhere to structure and tonality. These rules are not infrangible, but only the most skilled and experienced players can bend and break them and still keep the music coherent. When it comes to percussion, the only limit imposed on your playing is your imagination; any oddball pattern can be used as a foundation for a larger musical piece.

An art form needs to always be re-inventing itself in order to stay relevant. If advancements in our craft by others who aren’t traditional drummers by are ignored, we run the risk of rendering ourselves obsolete. Drummers need to find a way to approach their instrument with the right mixture of technical ability and abstract thinking in order to push forward. If a homemade instrument played by someone with no training can be used as a rhythmic base for a song, imagine what someone who has in-depth knowledge of dynamics, rudiments and complicated patterns, as well as the ability to play them could do. Amateurs have proven that there are unlimited ways to interpret rhythm and structure; it’s up to drummers to apply it. Anyone can play the drums it’s true, but a drummer with the correct sense of creativity and ability will never have to defend himself, their playing will speak for itself.

You know what they say about guys with big drum kits?

Small Toms.

I’m going to go on a bit of a rant here for a minute, but before I do I’m going to tell you a little story.

When I was a kid I had a drum kit. My best friend Andre, whom taught me how to play lived just a few houses down the road and also had a drum kit. Sometimes, on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon when we had hours to kill, he would show up to my house with his drums crammed into his van, and we would spend an hour or so mashing them together into one monster hybrid of a kit, and then spend the next three to four hours taking turns playing the shit out of it. It was interesting, it was creative, and it was fun as hell. The idea that maybe you would find a unique combination of items placed in a unique way so as only you can play a one of a kind rhythm or pattern is intriguing to say the least, sometimes I would just flail my arms around back and forth and just see what I could hit with no concept in mind. It was a hell of a way to spend an evening.

Putting the thing together was half the fun. Constructing a percussion shrine that loomed over you as you sat down to it. Searching for the most correct position for pedals and trinkets was a challenge you had to keep them within reach but out of the way. Thousands of variables for optimum performance, these are the things that make Neil Peart’s jeans tight.

Well, that and space-robes.

So before I get going, please know that I understand the desire to build the dream kit. A shining example of one mans lifelong creative pursuits and financial independence. A kit that speaks volumes about you and your talent by just existing, a kit that will make the local drummers that open for you on tour wet their Lars Ulrich mini-shorts in fear -- A behemoth of your own creation. I know, I’ve been through it.

You used my name bro, that's fifty cents.

This isn’t even about the stay at home guys that have a huge set of mid life crisis DW’s in a sweaty man cave in the basement where they bang along to old King Crimson albums on Sunday mornings when the wife’s gone to the market. Whatever those guys want to do is their business. This is for the guys that are really serious about wanting to get out there and play, and balk at the idea that anything other than talent could play a factor in why their phone isn't ringing.

I don't care how you have justified bringing a giant hulking drum-kit on the road up to this point, but from now on leave Drumzilla at home please and thank you, because it makes you seem like a jackass.

Fuck you buddy, I look cool as hell.

Here are a bunch of reasons why having an oversized drumkit is suicide for anyone wanting to be a gigging/touring musician. You might not agree with me, but this might just be why Thom Yorke hasn't called you yet.

First - Practicality.

Look drummers, let’s face it, we’re already on the shit list for having the most amount of stuff to carry in. Everyone else can get their shit into the bar in two trips while we’re on our fourth trying to not pinch our thumbs between two pieces of hardware. Add that to the fact that they will resent us when get way more chicks at the show (you know, because we're drummers) and all of a sudden we’re prime candidates for getting stuck sleeping on the floor and sitting in the bitch-seat at every chance.

What I’m saying is, travel light my friend. Having 6 cymbals and a set of blocks might be fun to plink around with at home, but when you bring all that stuff along you’re just making way more work for yourself. Not to mention you're upping the chances you’re going to leave something behind on those nights where packing up is the furthest thing from your mind. Be real, no one is going to be happy when they have to turn around and go back to the venue because you left your djembe behind the soundboard. It’s also downright inconsiderate and rude to your fellow passengers. It takes up way more extra space in the van/trailer, which could be better used for stuff like merch or booze (or if your band is creative, merchbooze).

Or shit, how about just having somewhere to put your legs up? The space you get is small enough, nobody needs weird hardware arms poking them or tambourines jingling around when you're trying to nap.

Try this -- When it’s time to leave, start with your standard kit (kick, snare, rack, floor tom, high hats, crash, ride) and then, granted there is still lots of room, maybe take one or two things you like to play around with (an extra snare or cymbal, or a electric drum pad, etc..) and leave the rest at home. Let HOW you play define your talent, not WHAT you play. You're band-mates won't thank you I'm sure, but you can act a little more smug knowing you sacrificed for them.

Bad for PR

Here’s a scenario. Your favorite band is coming to town and when their support act broke up and dropped off the tour, your band got the local slot. You’ve never been so excited. You guys have been practicing all week to get real tight in order to impress them. If you play well and schmooze well enough, you might be able to finagle your way onto a couple more shows.

Now, how do you think that band will feel towards yours when they show up to sound check only to find it’s been pushed back an hour because they haven’t gotten your drums checked yet? You’ve already put a sour taste in their mouth and you haven’t even met them yet.

Really? You saw Vedder backstage? Did he ask about me?

Big kits take longer to load in, set up, and to sound check. It’s just logistics. You give me the fastest drum setter-upper in the world setting up Mike Portnoy’s kit and some sixteen year old neophyte setting up a standard one, and the kid will win every time. You want the respect of your fellow touring bands? Set up in a timely manner, don’t dick around during sound check and keep things running on time. Then if you blow them away during your show they will be a lot more likely to talk to you about it.

Bad for the show

I’ve run into countless drummers using oversized kits on shows with three or four bands and there’s one trend I noticed that makes things worse than they already are. Most often these guys are both insistent that they use their own drums, and very hesitant to let anyone else on their throne.

I dunno man, these high hats are vintage.

Let me put it bluntly. If you’re going to be a big enough dick to fuck up changeover so you can get your heap of a drum kit on stage, you should at least be prepared to let the next few bands use it so the show can remain somewhat on schedule. Taking thirty to forty-five minutes to set up between bands can really make the crowds decision to stick it out for the rest of the night or call it a night, go home and stream TV until they pass out. Ideally you want each band to be ready by the time the smokers saunter back into the venue from the previous set, because unless you’re AC fucking DC people aren’t going to stick around while you place your chimes.

The best rock shows aren’t just a series of sets, they are nights that flow perfectly with the will of the crowd. The bands start when everyone wants them to (and finishes when they want them to as well). Everyone has good sets, but good shows are a little more rare, so don’t ruin it by wishing everyone to indulge you without giving them something in return.

This isn’t the O2 Arena

Stage size at most venues is sometimes passable at best for even one full band, but indie rock shows will hardly ever have just one band, so the stage usually ends of a mess of chords, amps and pedals. Sticking drum add-ons all around can start to take up much more room than you are allotted, with cymbal stand booms and legs sticking out among the periphery you’re just begging for someone to kick over your Octobans.

I always laugh when I see a drum kit so big that the rest of the band has to set up and play on the floor in front of the stage. All I can think of of is how indulgent and egotistical you would have to be to not see how ridiculous it looks. I have no problems judging clueless musicians.

I think the go-go dancers can fit in front of the Marshall.

What it comes down to is this. If you have the ambition to really take drumming to even a semi-professional level but you can’t represent your playing unless you use your super customized mega-kit 2000, then you need to take a step back and sort out what’s actually important. Versatility is an asset, take yourself out of your comfort zone and minimize as much as possible. Use a little to say a lot. Or if you’re going to lug your 12 piece monster to open for my band and insist you use it, at least let me take a crack at it. You can’t bring a grenade launcher to the gun range and not expect everyone to ask to shoot it.