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Irish Drummers is an insightful publication into the people behind the drum set. A joy for any music enthusiast (and everyone else).
Welcome to Irish Drummers
This site exists is to showcase the talent and creativity of Irish drummers through the years. The great contribution that this band of musicians have made to Irish culture and music throughout the world.
Welcome to Irish Drummers
This site exists is to showcase the talent and creativity of Irish drummers through the years. The great contribution that this band of musicians have made to Irish culture and music throughout the world.
Monday, 31 March 2014
Irish Drummers; Johnny tell us, what is your current project?
Johnny: I’ll tell
you my current focus at the moment is I have started to work for a college
called BIMM. I don’t know if you are familiar with BIMM but it’s a
college that teaches a four year degree in commercial modern music. I got the job last year as the Head of Drums.
Irish Drummers; Excellent, you must have been delighted
Johnny: I suppose Dave Hingerty didn’t want the job
and Graham Hopkins didn’t want the job because they didn’t want the
administration that goes with it so I was quiet happy because I like the sound
of the title. Last year we had a hundred and fifty students and
this year we have four hundred and fifty. So we
have about between fifty and seventy drummers. They're studying a four year
degree and it’s all based around a live performance. The kind of the
students I am teaching, they study drum techniques, drum
styles, music theory and sign reading. They do artist
development which is kind of jamming with lots of other musicians. They do
music business so basically the course equips a lot of these kids, they might be twenty two, twenty three with their degree. Afterwards they will
have knowledge that we didn’t have I suppose back when I was their age. When I was their age you know there was no
internet. There was no money for drum lessons and you know what you
said to me the other day really struck a chord because you mentioned that a lot of the
Irish drummers have learned their trade basically by ear.
Irish Drummers; Yes, Johnny and you have great experience that
you can pass on to the students.
Johnny: After all the experience I have
had, over almost twenty five years, I suppose to be in a position where you can
try and influence the next generation. Now there is
a syllabus already provided there because they have a college in Brighton,
Bristol, London you know no doubt they will probably open some more in other
places around the world and it’s kind of flattering really to get a job there.
You have Dave Hingerty there as well. You know Dave (Hingerty) teaches there
and Graham (Hopkins )
teaches there and then in the let’s say the bass department you have got Paul
Moore who is Van Morrison’s MD. You have got Keith Farrell who I played with
for years, Keith who plays with Mundy and Cathy Davey and people like that and
Rob Malone who plays with David Gray and I have also been with him in Lir for
the last kind of fifteen years. Then in the guitar department you have Jimmy
Smyth who is like the legendary guitar player, amazing, a great guy and then there is the song writing
department and the vocal department
Tinof Rebecca. She is a Belgian woman who is Bono’s vocal coach.
Irish Drummers; Wow, that’s incredible
Johnny: Yeah, she
is the vocal coach there and people like Ollie Cole. There is a
really great gang like Joe Wall from the Stunning, Joe is in there and I
was only working with Joe the other day, it’s a nice team of people. I
suppose I got a little bit tired of the road so it’s having a job where you can
work during the day and then gig at the weekend and do whatever you’re doing
outside of the college. It’s kind
of nice to be involved because you’re not a professor.
You are kind of like a coach and you try and guide these younger
people in such a way that they will get the best out of their own ability.
Irish Drummers; Obviously students must be keen to learn as
well.
Johnny: You know
some people are, I mean you have different levels of musicianship. You have, like some of the kids are really
talented and they have got all these chops but they don’t know what to do with them
and then you have people who don’t have a lot of chops but they are
very musical. That’s the great thing about drums,
you can be a virtuoso and do great things but you can also be let’s say like a
drummer with limited ability which guys like Ringo Starr were and you know they
have that tag of limited ability which Ringo was far from.
Irish Drummers; Agreed, he is a great player.
Johnny: I think
Ringo was(pauses) like anybody that thinks that Ringo was an average drummer,
you know needs to have their head examined because Ringo I think was a
phenomenal drummer and he is the first guy to put drummers on the map and he
solidified the drummers reputation.
Irish Drummers; So Johnny, how did you get started in drumming?
Johnny: Ok when I
was a kid I remember we used to hang out in this girls house with a few of my
friends and I suppose we were like nine or ten and they put on Cindy
Laupers “Girls just want to have fun” and a couple of the guys would have
tennis racquets out kind of playing the air guitar, but I was never
interested in the air guitar. I was always interested in the air drumming and I
had a lovely picture at home with me with my Mum and Dad at Christmas time and
I am about three or four and I had one of those toy kind of drum kits you know
and something that was very much in me in the sense that I always had an
interest in the drums, in the drummer, whenever I listened to music. I always seemed to gravitate towards what the drums were doing. Growing up as a
child what we had on vinyl you know we had “Abbey Road”, we had “Sergeant
Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band”, we had “Abba’s Greatest Hits”, “The Dark Side
Of The Moon” and “Paul Brady’s Hard Station”, so being exposed to that kind of
drumming not so much Abba really but more Ringo, Mick Mason and Fran Breen who
was playing on Hard Station with all his big rolling tom fills and stuff like
that. You know I really kind of, I was just intrigued by them really and one
Christmas, not even Christmas actually it was about August or September, I was
about twelve years old and my Dad went to this shop to buy a spare part for his
hover and they had a small music shop in the back so we went to this shop and
they had a drum kit in the window and it was a Stryker drum kit and it was a
kick snare, rack tom. There was no floor tom that’s all it was it was a very
basic kind of beginners kit and I remember seeing it and it was like am I
suppose it was like the holy grail I suppose the minute I saw it. It was like
am like wohooo! Like I want that so bad
so it was like you know it’s amazing when you have these kind of awakenings
where you realise that’s where I want to be, I want to be like that drum kit
needs to be in my house right now with me playing on it . So anyway like my dad hummed and hawed about
it well he didn’t really hum and haw about it because my dad plays guitar and
he is very musical so l had already done a couple of years in piano and so
anyway Christmas morning, I came down and got the drum kit and actually my
dad left a note on the Christmas tree kind of apologising for not being able to
get the drums but then of course they were hidden in another room in the house
and so I got the kit and I swear to God I played every day, every day.
Irish Drummers; Right, I think every drummer has fond memories
of their first drum kit.
Johnny: You know
it’s all I have like kick, snare, rack and an arm that came out of the bass
drum and with a cymbal and then a couple of months later I got a high hat and
once I got the high hat stand. At the time it was 1986 and I kind of started
playing cassettes then and I had like “Thriller” by Michael Jackson so songs
like you know Billy Jean which is just pocket playing because it’s all
like four on the floor and just laying it down.
Irish Drummers; Agreed, great grooves, really great
grooves.
Johnny: You know
ZZ Tops Eliminator, you listen to that record and the drums are so, metronomical and Frank Beard you know, so I started playing along to those
albums and basically I started playing along to anything that came on the
radio like, I remember things like Pink Floyd and the songs like
“Alright Now” by Free.
Irish Drummers; Yeah, great songs alright.
Johnny: Which
were very kind of rock beats, a lot of rock beats and I kind
of got into that and I suppose you know by learning by ear I was getting a few
drum lessons at the time by a guy called
Dave Mc Quillan. Dave is a kind of producer now, Dave would have produced all the
Dustin albums you know like Dustin the Turkey but Dave is an
exceptional drummer in his own right like he is a lovely guy and I didn’t see
him for a long time and I met him last year or the year before when
Steve Gadd was in town. What happened was, we spent a year playing my Stryker
kit and then my dad kind of convinced me to go electric so I got a premier
electronic kit which was basically four square pads. You had the snare two
racks and the floor and there was the bass drum and I hated it, hated it and I
was back to having no high hat stand because I sold the other kit.
Irish Drummers: That must have been awful
Johnny: So, I
essentially had four practice bands and it had all this crap like after spending the year being so enthusiastic about drums. I spent the following
year being kind of stuck with this electronic kit that I didn’t care
for. So I kind of it’s not that I lost interest you know so I used to
go down to the guys house that I sold the kit to and I kind of asked
him could I play your drums – Ha, ha!! So I spent a year with this electronic
kit and I lost a year so then when I got to about fourteen I got myself a Pearl
Export. So I got rid of the electronic kit, got a Pearl Export in January of
1988/99 and in April of that year my dad bumped into Dave Brown. He was the
singer in Picture House and in a local pub, because myself and Dave
knew each other when we were kids. Dave was always a great singer, even when we were kids he was able
to hold a tune and so Dave was saying to my dad, well we are in a band and the drummer is not great and my dad said oh my son plays the drums
which can kind of be interpreted as Yeah you know Dave comes up to the house
and I played my few kind of Larry Mullen drum beats.
Irish Drummers; He must have been impressed with you.
Johnny: So, he
brought me up to rehearsals a week later and I met all these guys I was like
fourteen and they were like twenty one/twenty two and ah I think I rehearsed a
bit of Thursday night and then Saturday night. I was gigging and that
was it.
Irish Drummers; So, that was really your first professional
band?
Johnny: Pretty
much you know there was a band called Hidden Faces and like I was in school but
I was still gigging all over Ireland
When I was sixteen, we went to Japan and things like that and I changed
schools at sixteen and I wanted to do my Leaving Cert in a year.
Irish Drummers; How did that turn out?
Johnny: Bad idea,
I ended up leaving this school about a month in because we had gotten this trip
to Japan
and so I went and did that which was amazing and then I came back and
everything went into limbo for a few years.
Irish Drummers; So,were your drumming influences changing?
Johnny: Yeah
because when you are twelve or thirteen you are not buying records all the
time. I suppose now with downloading everyone is like let’s plug in my
IPod here is my five hundred albums whereas back then you would have an album
you know and you would listen to it for
six months, you would know every note that was played on it but back in kind of
1990/1991 Grunge started to come out. You
know the whole Grunge scene was very, very influential, but I suppose the
drummers I would really cite as a big influence were Matt Cameron who was from Sound
Garden who is still out there still very prominent you know playing with Pearl
Jam. He is one of the best rock drummers in the world. He is just
amazing. Dave Grohl and Chad Smith from the Chilli Peppers. I
actually was into the Chilli Peppers before the Grunge scene ever erupted. I
was into the Chilli Peppers back in about ’89 you know just before Blood Sugar
Sex Magic was going to come out, which is a phenomenal record. I have
to say Chad Smith is one of the most giving drummers on the planet like
everywhere he goes he leaves his mark. He just can drop into any
college and do a clinic. He just gives so much back you know to people and he
is a really, really nice guy and a phenomenal player. I got to play with him
last year.
Irish Drummers; Wow, that must have been amazing!
Johnny: He came
in to the college and I got up and did a bit you know but ah Faith No
More, you know Mike Patton from Faith No
More a great drummer so that kind of to be honest with the nature of the music
actually I remember sitting in my mum’s house I was about seventeen and “Smells
like Teen Spirit” came on and for me that was like that I was seeing
something that was going to change music
and it did. It did for a long time because back then when the whole rave scene took off
a lot of venues closed down, so there wasn’t a lot of places for bands to play
anymore, it was cheaper for a publican to hire a DJ then it was to hire a
band. But,
definitely the grunge scene you know that high energy hitting the shit out of
the kit, it’s not really based on technique. It’s based on just
kind of laying in to it really. I should have
been listening to people like Steve Gadd. I mean I could play Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover but you know I probably should have listened to more like
musical drummers.
Irish Drummers; Can you give examples?
Johnny: You know
like the Jim Carroll’s and the Steve Gadd’s. I mean guys I was listening to and
people like Matt Cameron and Will
Calhoun like they were doing a shit lot of stuff.
Irish Drummers; Yeah, at this stage I suppose your drumming
influences were changing and I’m guessing you were with Picture House at this
stage?
Johnny: No, I was still a good five years off joining Picture House. I
was still only a teenager. I was only a teenager and I was with a chap called
Keith Farrell who also works in BIMM with me, he plays for Mundy and Cathy
Davey. We played together a lot and we were in to Chad Smith together and we did
the Duckworth Lewis album with Neil Hannon and Dillon Thomas. We did that
record and I met Keith and he was an amazing kind of finger style slap bass
player so we were able to like try and copy a lot of the bands that we were
into at the time but it never really I suppose happened for us. Well we got signed when I turned eighteen but
our singer left us a few months later and we were giving him like fifty grand
which would have kind of paid our rent for a couple of years you know but at
the time being young and being stupid and naive I suppose lots of weird things
happen. But to be honest with you nothing really happened
for me until I was about twenty two, like musically I started playing with a
chap called Andy White a singer/songwriter from Belfast .
Irish Drummers; That must have been brilliant
Johnny: He is a
great singer like a really good singer/songwriter so I started touring with him
and I did about a year with him and around that time I joined Picture House
then about a year later, I also joined Lir as well. I was doing cover gigs
as well and just kind of playing, like for me it’s all about playing because if
you don’t have the facility to practice you know you just take on as many gigs
as you can.
Irish Drummers; Yeah, I know what you mean. So how did a guy at twenty two years of age, end up playing with Andy White, who would have been fairly well established?
Johnny: I was just
cheap – ha ha!! Well Andy I suppose
didn’t have a lot of money to pay proper musicians so he would bring in younger
guys. He was making an album with a guy called Kim Fowley. Do you know Kim
Fowley, he would have been I think he assembled Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.
Irish Drummers; Wow that’s fantastic!
Johnny: So Thomas
from Pugwash sang a lot of back vocals on Andy’s album, but Andy wanted
a band and so he gave me a shout and I showed up, I went out to Andy’s house in
Dunlaoghaire and we had a jam. I remember showing up with a snare drum and a
set of brushes and Andy’s son was only about two at the time and he saw the
snare drum and the sound it made right and the funny thing is he is about
eighteen now and he is a drummer. All
because of that day I showed up with brushes. It just shows you how even at two
years of age you can see something and just have that obsession
Irish Drummers; Yeah, I know what you mean alright.
Johnny: And you
know we keep on touch on Face book and he is a lovely guy and I still keep in
touch with Andy and stuff like that, so anyway Andy led on to Picture House and
then Picture House was about four or five years of touring & mayhem and hit
records and you know we did very well, we were kind of like I suppose The
Coronas now. We weren’t as big as The Coronas because back then we
would never have gotten that big. But we had a very good run and we went around
Europe, opening up for The Corrs and Meat Loaf.
Irish Drummers; When did you get for first endorsement?
Johnny: When
I was in Picture House I approached Sabian cymbals and they gave me an
endorsement so I have been with them ever since I have been with Sabian for
nearly fifteen years you know. A guy called Jackie Lennon, he is a really cool guy and he is brilliant. He is a great support for drummers here.
Irish Drummers; Excellent, at that stage you were fairly accomplished. Were you
reading music as well or was it just all by ear?
Johnny: Well,
most of it was by ear. I had my few drum lessons and I could read music but I tend to figure out
fills and stuff like that with my little cassette player, rewind, play, rewind.
You know you spend days on end trying to figure stuff out. It was amazing when
you’re young because you would have these challenges and you would just really
try to work them out. Regardless of your
limited ability you know I mean, so again just playing by ear and by the time I
joined Picture House I was listening to I suppose, I had gone through my Grunge
phase and I was starting to listen to a guy called Darren Jessee who was from
Ben Fold Five who was a phenomenal drummer, a really, really good
drummer. So, while I was in Picture
House and even though I was listening to Metallica and loads of different
styles of music I also tried to hone in on drummers that influenced the way I
played with certain bands and I think that is very important like basically
what I am saying is I would listen to them to see if there was any stuff I
could nick, that I could use. You know music is all about plagiarism when you
listen to you know when everyone always goes on about John Bonham’s intro to
rock and roll and if you listen to it it’s from a Little Richard song, I can’t
remember the name “You Keep On Knocking” I think it’s from the phrasing is
slightly different but it is pretty much there.
Irish Drummers; When you
were recording with Picture House were you working with a click at that stage?
Johnny: Was I
working with a click? I think I was, possibly but I don’t know. But you know a
lot of drummers have this thing about the click and this fear of the click and
it’s just a case of sitting down and listening and just playing. It’s actually for anyone who considers
themselves to be a drummer, playing to a click is like it shouldn’t be, this huge
mountain to climb. It shouldn’t be, it’s
not something I struggle with. You can play behind the beat, you can play ahead
of it where drummers struggle with the click is when they go around the kit and
they get on to that crash they are
always that little bit ahead of the beat and then they have to going into
chorus pull it back again. I had that problem myself at the beginning and now I
tend to relax more into my fill, I don’t jump ahead.
Irish Drummers; Do you rather playing live or studio recording
and what do you get the most fun out of?
Johnny: Well, I
mean you are never going to beat doing a gig and everything is going well you
know and the singer is doing a good job and everyone I suppose is locked in and
then you have half a dozen or a load of girls smiling up at you and you are
smiling back and nothing could go wrong. You are not going to beat that feeling
but at the same time the studio and the live thing they are two totally
separate entities, they are completely different you know. The studio is quiet laborious
for example doing karma and with Picture House I sat in the kitchen for two or
three weeks working on those songs you know endless from ten in the morning to
six o clock every day with our producer and a band in a kitchen. I was playing
the hot rods and brushes to keep the volume down but it was just playing them
again and again and again and listening and just trying to find good
arrangements and good ideas and under the guidance of we had a guy called Pete
Glenister actually. He was a great producer and
Pete was a kind of a songwriter as well and he would have written songs
for like Alison Moyet and Mary Coughlan. He was the guitar player I think for
Bros and he was a guitar player for Terence Trent Darby and his first album you
know touring guitar player and so
working with those people was really good. It was a real eye opener because you realise how much every now and then
you get a song that comes easy but generally it’s what do they say it’s ten
percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration. There is a lot of that
involved and just going at it and doing it again and again so you know I did
learn a lot from it back then and that was back pre Pro Tools as well you know
and then all of a sudden Pro Tools erupted and then we would go in and do three
takes and some guy would edit you, edit your take to make you sound like the
busiest drummer in the world so I didn’t like that and it kind of made me lazy
for a bit because I would kind of go in and go oh Yeah whatever you know
mistakes and all and they would edit it all whereas now even in Pro Tool I would try to do a full take and if I need
to fix one or two things fine but generally I try to because I mean back when I
was a teenager you would have to rehearse the song to death to get it
right in the studio because there was no fixing things you know there was no
moving a snare here and there.
Irish Drummers; You just had to get it in the pocket every time.
Did you find when you were arranging songs did you have a hundred percent
control over what you played or did the producer or the other lads in the band
say how you should play the song?.
Johnny: Well,
it’s always been collaborative and it’s never been I think when you are in a
band you kind of are in a band because the other musicians like what you do,
they like playing with you. There was an element of trust there
especially in Picture House. I mean Angus was a great bass player, Geoff was a
great keyboard player, and we had Duncan an
English guy on guitar who was a very good musician, so all very, very good we
were all very much in tune with one another. So there was no kind of telling me
what to play, but stuff would be suggested alright as much as I would suggest
stuff back but I always find that some of the suggestions I do and you take
that idea and you try to emulate it and make it better and like ok that’s good
but how about this, you know. So I mean I like working that way, I don’t like
being told what to do, do you know what I mean but yeah I mean if your just
hired to play and people don’t want your opinion it kind of can be a
cold experience. Generally people hire you because of what you do and they like
what you do.
Irish Drummers; I suppose you are one of the few Irish drummers
I know really who take a song like Sunburst and you actually start the song
with your fill and I suppose the only other person I can think of kind of doing
that is Larry Mullen Jr. with “Sunday Bloody Sunday” like where did that idea
spring from?
Johnny: I’m glad
you asked me that because at the time I was listening to ah Ben Fold Five and
their second album and there was a song
called “The Battle of who could care less” and they had this fill like
the drummer plays this la da do do do and
so I remember listening to it and the lads were like let’s start this
song with a bit of a fill and I was like da do do do so I just kind of took his
fill and made it into my own thing so again like the Bonham thing where he took
that, I just took the phrasing of Darren Jessee's fill and it goes on and on
and I just thought I can add something to it but at the time you know I
wouldn’t have been a very delicate drummer. It was all Yeah I love cymbals and
so it was a kind of a quiet full on kind of fill you know and I mean up to that
point the previous album was a very acoustic kind of record . I was always
pushing for a kind of you know one with a bit more balls you know so Sunburst
was probably the ballsiest song I think Picture House ever had and it was the
biggest hit they ever had and to open the song you know with a drum fill, I am
very happy about that and I am very proud of it you know. I suppose it’s kind
of the equivalent of like a guitar rift.
Irish Drummers; Yeah, it’s your signature on that.
Johnny: Yeah,
it’s when you hear a guitar rift at that start of a song you know, it’s the
same thing and it’s nice that the drums can do that you know and kind of stand
out and I think the minute you hear it you know what song it is.
Irish Drummers; You left before the
finishing of the second album with Picture House. Was there a reason for
that?
Johnny: I’ll put
it down to basically, that the album wasn’t any good.
Irish Drummers; Right can you expand on that?
Johnny: You know
Duncan Maitland who is our guitar player was a kind of very important person
when it came to the writing of the songs and he left the band. Now he was a
very difficult person to be on the road with because ah there are some people
you meet that are team players and others that aren’t and I mean I don’t want
to get bitchy like but Duncan is a phenomenal musician and I totally respect
him but he was a tough guy to be on the road with and touring I don’t think
suited him really you know, but Duncan
left so the quality of the song writing dropped because it was left to kind of
Dave the singer to write all the songs on the third album it was Karmarama the
second album and Shine Box the first one after Karmarama we released a live
album. We did five nights at the HQ which is now The Academy. We recorded a live album put it out, it went
top ten did pretty well and stuff like that. It was a real kind of let’s put
that out so we can buy ourselves time to make the next record you know well
that’s kind of how I felt about it anyway.
So, we went to Sweden and we spent a considerable amount of money making
a record and you know the fact that I wrote one of the songs on the album
proves kind of testimony to it kind of being an inferior record than the
previous two you know and it just wasn’t a great record and I knew that going
over well it’s not that I knew that going over but once I had done my drums I
kind of knew that coming home that you know we had booked a studio for six
weeks in Sweden and the drums were done in two days, two and a half days you
know where you might spend a week doing the drums like it was all very quick
and so it wasn’t really I don’t think ,it was something really that I was going
to be proud of!
Irish Drummers; Ok so what happened then?
Johnny: You know
so but at the same time you I had nothing else on the horizon and that’s the
thing about music, unless you’re the singer or you’re the driving force behind
any act, but if you’re the drummer you follow the work. I
mean every band I have been in, I suppose I have been asked to be in. I have never formed a band, not really. I
don’t think I ever have so I suppose there is a certain flattery involved in
that you know. I think I spent four and a half years in Picture House and the
life had gone out of it.
Irish Drummers; Any regrets?
Johnny: It was
the best time of my life with all of those guys, I loved them all and you know
a great bunch of heads but every band has a shelf life and you have a time
where you are creatively at your peak and you move on from that. In my
personal life at this stage I was about twenty eight and I met a woman and she
got pregnant, intentionally not unintentionally. I mean we were like quiet
blaze about things and we were like let’s have a baby because I fell madly in
love, so we had a baby and while she was pregnant the Picture House thing was
kind of fizzling out and I got a call out of the blue and Marianne Faithfull
was putting a band together so I got the call for that. I went to Scotland, met the guys from Glasgow and rehearsed with her. It was like
an audition, rehearsal it wasn’t like there was a load of guys lined up to
audition it was just us four guys, here is your band you either like it or you
don’t. It was very much kind of one of those things and she came in and I
remember she said to me we were about two songs into rehearsal and she turns
around and goes “Why the fuck are you not singing” I was like ok so I had done
a bit of BB’s with Picture House and then all of a sudden I had a mike and am I
sang on nearly every song of that woman’s tour like you know for that tour I
sang on nearly every song and she was great like she is rock and roll royalty. I got to spend a year with her
with a bunch of guys from Scotland ah Brian McFie who is a guitar player. He was in a band called the
Big Dish. There was a guy called Andy May on key boards a talented key board player. He
has gone on to play with people like Lou Reed and stuff and there was a guy
called Garry John Kane on bass. Garry John now
plays with The Proclaimers. He has been on tour with them for the last four or
five years and well those guys were great because I had walked out of this band into a new
outfit. It was my first time out of the comfort zone really and with a bunch of
guys I didn’t know and I remember going to Glasgow and staying in a hotel on my
own for the audition and eating my little Marks & Spencer salad in my room
and kind of going I hope this works out and they were the best bunch of guys
ten years later I am still in touch with them, still friends, like I go and
stay with them and they come and stay with me.
Irish Drummers; So, you got a call to go and play with Marianne
Faithfull so is it a case that before you head over did you have her albums or
like how did you prepare for something like that?
Johnny: You know
I had been to see her about a year or two before, she played in Vicar Street so I
went to see her so I kind of got her vibe if you know what I mean.
Irish Drummers; Yeah indeed.
Johnny: I got
certain songs. I had to learn, went over and she was just lovely and I went
from being somebody in a band that was kind of fading out to all of a sudden
being involved in something where I was getting paid money that I never seen
before you know. I was getting paid really good money. I got to travel the
world kind of luxuriously really. She respects her musicians and looks after
them and I was really well looked after.
Irish Drummers; That’s great.
Johnny: You
know, I can’t thank her enough like the day my first daughter was born I was
playing a gig with her in France
and like again she would introduce her band every night and you know, we would
play gigs and I went to Chicago
and played a gig with Billy Corgan from the
Smashing Pumpkins.
Irish Drummers; Wow, that’s
incredible!
Johnny: Phil Kruzel who is regarded as one of the greatest
guitar players in the world. He did a few gigs he was a really nice guy and you
know sometimes you are sitting there and you’re kind of going what the fuck am
I doing sitting here? You know, some lad from Dublin like just landed on his feet. I
suppose, I am a firm believer in luck but I do believe in making your own luck.
Irish Drummers; Agreed, but of course if you didn’t have the chops, if you didn’t have
the skills, it just wouldn’t have happened.
Johnny: But, you
see I am not a chops player. I consider myself to be kind of a pocket player
you know in the sense that I don’t do drum solos. I am all about the song,
playing for the song and I think that is what my position in BIMM is, like it
is a good position to be in because everything you teach there is all about
playing for the song, simple ideas executed well and you know just as much as I
love Buddy Rich and I love all the guys who run riot around the drum kit. I am
as happy just going like drat, drat you know playing Billy Jean you know
because I have seen plenty of drummers playing four on the floor with
absolutely no feel and I feel it’s very
important. But I was never a big rudimentary guy. I survived on single strokes,
double strokes and paradiddles that’s what I survived on and the great thing
about the college is now it’s really
opened my mind to everything else. Every now and again you need a bit of a push
to instil your kind of enthusiasm of playing because you can get a bit like
sometimes you can hit a wall, you know.
Irish Drummers; Yeah I know.
I agree with you there.
Johnny: I
remember Ringo, saying on The Anthology, he said I have reached a point in my
life where I played every fill I knew. I played every beat I could come up
with. I was dumb, like I was dumb I just couldn’t. I had nothing else to give.
I know what that feeling is like as a player, like when you just hit that wall
when you just think you know Jesus, Christ am I going to get any better, but luckily enough I think technically I was a better player at twenty you
know almost twenty years later I am not far off forty, I think I am more of a
musical player, not so much a technical player.
Irish Drummers; Right Yeah, I know what you mean.
Johnny: All I
ever wanted to be I remember when I heard the opening track of Dark Side of the
Moon, you know Breathe where the bass is going do do, ba bum bum bum and it
almost feels like what a simple, like the simplicity but it’s what is right
because if he went like if he went do, do , do it just wouldn’t sound right you
know so you know, I like simple things that work you know. I am not a show off,
I am not a drum solo guy, I am just kind of all about the song and am I suppose
that is what’s really like. I love guys
like Steve Jordan. I mean Steve Jordan
was in the Blues Brothers band in his early twenties and he has gone on to play
with like John Mayer and that but he is just a killer groover. I do
like guys like Carter Beauford and stuff like that and
Dave Matthews band
well I like the first two albums and after that I couldn’t listen anymore. I
can appreciate it for its technical proesque but ah
Irish Drummers; What is the difference
between Irish drummers and other drummers? What makes an Irish drummer unique?
Johnny: Well, the
Irish drummers I listened to growing up were like Fran Breen, like Fran I don’t
know Fran much but we are Face book friends. I wanted to send him a message but
he plays on Paul Brady’s Hard Station, that’s an album that has been embedded
in my psyche for many years. It’s an
album I love and I got to play with Paul in Vicar Street about a month ago. It was
surreal, it was a bit of a dream come true because the first gig I ever did my
dad took me to Paul Brady in The Olympia and we snuck in to a box and we
watched the gig and we watched him and it was just him solo. So thirty years,
nearly to play with him and invite my dad down it was very nice you know but
guys like him and Larry Mullen Jr. Like I said to Larry Mullen Jr I said Larry you
have no idea but you have been a big influence on my playing. Like I did the
Meteor awards one year with The Frames and we won best Irish act and we beat U2
anyway and I had only joined The Frames
a couple of months before and anyway, but I met Larry and the band, very humble, very kind like not a lot of people
say that. All they talk about is drumming like I am sure he is one of those
guys who everyone talks about and everyone talks about how great U2 are and
maybe they don’t say how great a drummer he is because you know how many
amazing drum technicians are out there can play all the chops in the universe
but you listen to “Sunday Bloody Sunday” or “Under a
Blue Red Sky” and you know who is playing those drums the minute you
hear it
Irish Drummers; You do Yeah.
Johnny: Those great
technicians you know don’t get the opportunity to come up with something so
simple but it works. Well, I mean there is nothing wrong with you know having
chops or anything like that I mean I think the American drummers are technically, like the guys we all know
about the Travis Barker’s and stuff like that and they are all kind of guys
that ended up in jazz ensembles and stuff like that in school. They ended up in
marching core bands and stuff like that but they are highly trained you know.
Irish Drummers; That’s right Yeah, these guys are technically
brilliant.
Johnny: There are
great facilities for all these drummers you know.
Irish Drummers; Yeah, that’s exactly it.
Johnny: So,
basically Irish drummers have kind of been struggling without any of those
results, we are very much self thought to a degree. I mean some guys went to Johnny Waddem and Mark
Russ teaches as well like they are some great guys teaching out there
like Conor Guilfoyle like do you know Conor
Guilfoyle? Conor is a good friend of mine, phenomenal jazz drummer like it’s
funny because I spent a year teaching music for Conor and I didn’t know what to
expect I thought he might be a bit of a jazz slam like and he was completely
the opposite you know he appreciates guys that are good at what they do in
whatever genre it is so I think Irish drummers you know it’s very much by ear
you know that’s very much talking about we will say the Graham Hopkins and the
Binzers and you know the guy from The Coronas. All of those guys you know they
are very much self thought but now in
the last few years myself I suppose I have gotten more into music notation.
Irish Drummers; So reading music gives you an advantage.
Johnny: What is great about reading is it makes
your left hand do things that your left hand wouldn’t do if you were listening
by ear because you know like Bonham and all those guys all those rock guys in
the late sixties like Ian Paice. You know
people always go on about Dave Grohl, you know Bonham and if you actually study like Ian Paste I
think Grohl got more from Ian Paice than he did from Bonham.
Irish Drummers; Do you feel you were just in to enjoying the
music?
Johnny: Yeah, I know what you mean I was just in to music really you know I wasn’t in
to being the best drummer in the world or anything like that I was just in to
playing what is right for the song and trying to I suppose to realise whatever
song writer you are working for or whatever musicians to realise their vision
or whatever it is that they want and trying to compliment what the other guys
are doing and I think what you were trying to say to me on the phone the other
night, what makes drummers so unique in their own style of playing. It is what
I am saying it is from learning by ear because when you are learning by ear you
are immediately involved in a situation
where you are writing with bass players and guitar players you are listening
and you become a good listener. We are like the psychologists of the music
world – ha ha! Because we are listening to everybody and you know that is
pretty much it and you know you try to be sympathetic to the song you know and
sometimes you try and just that is it really like you try and complement what
other people are doing and you know without being like I know plenty of guys
that are kind of showy but might be over playing like I hate guys who are
overplaying and showy.
Irish drummers; I know what you mean just doing it for the sake
of doing it Yeah. Just a couple of
questions Johnny if there was a time capsule being put together in the morning
and if someone asked you for
three records that you were most proud of and you would like to be
remembered for, what would they be ….
Johnny: That I
played on? Ok
right, well first of all I suppose ah Karmonarma
only because it is probably the most commercially successful record that I have
played on, well to a degree. It brought us around Europe, I mean, I remember
doing you know three and four week arena tours around Europe with The Corrs and
I remember going on tour with Meat Loaf for like two and half months playing
arenas every night and I remember we were the opening act and we only had to
play half an hour every night and we would be done by half eight so I was like
holiday you know absolute holiday like Karmonarma definitely it’s a record I am
proud of because do you know what it is it’s when you are with a bunch of guys
and it just kind of locks in and everybody is looking in the same
direction. Another record which sold
fuck all and it was the Lir live album and probably they had a great drummer
called Craig Hutchinson.
Irish Drummers; I know, Yeah.
Johnny: Craig, he is a bit of a recluse now
and he doesn’t play and he hasn’t played in many years but you know he has made
a massive contribution to music and I met him when I was about seventeen or
eighteen and I thought he was an asshole right and then I met him years later
when I was playing with Lir. He is somebody who I will champion for many years
and because he has influenced me so much and he was a drummer who had so much
style and flair and to get to play with a band like Lir and we did this live
album and you know we just put it out. There are no over dubs there is no
tidying things up. It is what it is and it speeds up in certain places and it
slows down it’s some of the best drumming I have ever committed to record because it kind of stretches me really because you know I have
got to pull out some chops and do what I do and then I suppose other records
woo! Probably the first Pugwash record because that was such a pleasure to
make. Jollity it was called and I recorded the
drums for that in a place down on the
quays called The Funnel and remember this is like you know back in the time
when there was no budget, there was no money, there was no gear but we kind of
got gear in and we did the drums and then a lot of the rest of the album was
recorded in my house like I lived with my dad, lived in the mountains and we had this house where we could make a bit of
noise so you know and it was just a good time because we had spent the day
recording and then we would spend the night hanging out and having a few jars
and a bit of craic. You know I did four albums with Pugwash, the first album we
did the whole album, the second album I did a couple of songs and the third
album I did a couple of songs and then the fourth album I did all the songs. I
mean all the songs after that we did The Duckworth
Lewis album like I am very proud of the Duckworth Lewis thing because I
suppose somebody like Neil Hannon probably felt
I was a very loud drummer you know and guys like him are used to playing
with more delicate drummers. I remember
the last Pugwash album we launched in Whelan’s with Neil on keys and
his keys were set up just to the left of my high hat so he was getting full on
snare right and he basically just said I am the loudest drummer he has ever
heard in his life right and I took the head of him but we had Neil on keys we had Nelson Bragg on
percussion. Nelson has just been on tour with The Beach Boys last year and Brian Wilson he was only in Dublin a
couple of weeks ago, I was hanging around with him and I took him out and we
had Dave Gregory from XTC on Guitar as well. So that was a real start of a
great night but The Duckworth Lewis method thing, I did the song called The Nightwatchman and I think Neil's perception of
me was ah he is to loud, he is too rock if you know what I mean. I don’t think
Neil felt I had that delicate approach and not that he ever said it to me I
just kind of heard it second hand, second hand news and I went in and made this
song which was Neil Road for the album it’s one
of my favourite songs on the record and you know I put A4 pages on all the
drums, the snare and the toms and I put out the frequency and I played it with
very light sticks. It was kind of a sixteen note high hat pattern and I fecken
nailed it you know and it’s something I am very proud of. I am proud of the
fact that was the song that convinced him ok Yeah, he is not just the big rock
hard hitting guy, he can do the more delicate stuff as well so I am very proud
of that.
Irish Drummers; Excellent, you must have delighted with the
album
Johnny: That
album was nominated for an Ivor Novello and it
was nominated for a Choice Music Prize, it was nominated for a Meteor Prize. It
was nominated for all of those things but you know it’s funny because ah Thomas
from Pugwash went to the Ivor Novells and he is outside and Simon Le Bon from
Duran Duran comes up to him and he says oh I love your album he says you know
and me and Yasmin we listen to it on our yacht all the time and I’m
thinking there is Thomas like living in his bedsit in Crumlin thinking fuck you
and your Yacht – ha ha! You know, but
Yeah.
Irish Drummers; Oh
brilliant.
Johnny: But you
know, there are a lot of younger singers up and coming I kind of try and help
them out but to be honest I haven’t even gotten into The Frames thing yet you
know after the Marianne Faithful thing. I joined The Frames and I asked for six
months playing a lot of bullshit covers gigs and then I got a call from Binzer, actually Binzer
actually rang me from Australia and he was like here Johnny Yeah, can you do a
couple of Frames gigs for me over Christmas because I was depping for him at
The Classic Beatles. I had met Glen about eight months before that and Glen was
like Yeah, we will be giving you a shout kind of thing because they were using
Binser and Graham. They were kind of tag team drummers at the time and they
needed a regular guy so Binser put me forward for it and he rings me from
Australia saying can you cover me for a few gigs and then he basically says
look can you do the whole Irish tour and says because he had commitments with
other bands so I ended up doing two weeks Olympia and wherever around Ireland
you know and ah two weeks turned into four years you know and a few months later I
remember we went to and around America opening up for Damien Rice for six
weeks and that was great, Tomo, who is Damien’s drummer as well, great guy, I learned a lot from him especially regarding
playing with brushes and John Convertino from Calexico another brush player he is a kind of you
know goes off camping with his dogs kind of guy you know you start kind of
talking about drums he is not interested. An amazing player, a real kind of
base ball cap wearing Arizona
guy you know but he is a cool guy, he is a great player, a great player.
Irish Drummers; So you were with The Frames for four years?
Johnny: Yeah, but
that was a funny one because Graham was recording the albums with them and I
was there live, I was their touring brother basically.
Irish Drummers; Was that so, where you were kind of replicating
what Graham was doing or were you just putting your own style on it?
Johnny: I am a
firm believer if you hear a song and if you can’t find a way to emulate that,
if it’s ok the way it is, well then it is ok to play it that way and you know I
have seen drummers in the past and I have seen it on records in the past where
I have gone in on the launch like you know and some drummer is sitting in and
playing the tracks I have played on and I remember one night and I won’t say
who it is but the drummer basically changed every single thing I did on the
record
Irish Drummers; Oh God, that must have been weird!
Johnny: And you know for example a song that was just
pocket four on the floor like this guy was
playing like a samba over it and it was just so ridiculous. It was
almost like I felt this guy has made a decision like I am not
going to play like anything he has played on the record regardless of whether
it works or not. Music needs to have space I suppose. I’m all about
playing in the pocket you know I am not on about big elongated fills or kind of
like simple, simple drummer I consider myself to be a drummer of limited
ability to the largest degree you know
I’m not the Larry Mullin, slightly a few more jobs than Larry Mullin but not
like you know I ain’t no virtuouso like I
don’t play jazz, I don’t play Latin but again I just try to be sympathetic for
the song and like again that’s really what it is about and to be honest with
you it’s always about feeding off the guys you are in the room with. I’m always
about feeding off what they do really it’s not like I am ever sitting there
going I am not doing this I’m always kind of listening and to spark off an idea
or something like that and that is important to me as well and being with the
right people that you are comfortable around like Aongus
Ralston who is the bass player with Picture House his brother Gavin has
a studio down in Wicklow. I do a lot of kind of session work for him and kind
of stuff like that you know, when I work with him and his brother like Gav
plays guitar and engineers and Aongus plays bass and when it’s just the three
of us like working with a singer/songwriter it’s nice to be in a position where
people trust your opinion and you can just go ok guys let’s do it this way.
Irish Drummers; Do you feel it’s important for the drummer to
influence the song?
Johnny: I find as
a drummer you do get to dictate the dynamic in the song whereas sometimes you
might say let’s do those brushes where it needs a more delicate approach
whereas if you go at it with sticks it’s going to be too loud and so I mean
working with people and I mean I worked with people I haven’t been comfortable
with either and am it’s been a tug of war where they want things one way and
you want it another way and you are kind of
thinking well ok so have you heard me as a puppet on a string or have
you heard me give my opinion? I had one situation once where I kind of did the
classic George Harrison where I was like I will play whatever you want me to
play you know, not what I wanted to do but felt what was right for the song,
you know but again all I am about the song, that is why I am, I gravitate
towards guys like Mick Mason and Ringo and like John Bonham was like leagues
ahead of those guys but I love watching Buddy Rich and I love watching The
Jazzers and I love watching Thomas Lang or Steve Smyth or Aaron Spears or for
me actually in the last couple of years my big regret is not having studied
Steve Gadd more.
Irish Drummers; Right, you a big fan of Gadd’s?
Johnny: I think
Steve Gadd is like the most musical drummer that has ever lived like he just
plays the drums like it is a musical instrument. I got to
meet him in Xmusic there a couple of years ago
and he is a lovely guy and he is just dead cool and you know I have started to
kind of study some of the back catalogue and
it is just kind of Steely Dan and whatever you
know and Steely Dan is a band I didn’t get
into until later on, when I was seventeen and eighteen you know I was
still in that rebellious phase of listening to grunge and punk. I was never about chops, I was always about hitting drums as hard as you
can and making a racket but at the same time it was always, I don’t
know, it was just playing with energy but whereas I have only in the last few
years gotten more into technique and I have changed my grip a few times and I
don’t hit the drums as hard and I suppose things like that I suppose are
important but you never stop learning. I suppose all you can do is follow the
journey. I don’t want to get to philosophical but ah.
Irish Drummers;So, Johnny if someone comes up to you in the
morning and is just starting out on a drumming career what is the best advice that you could give?
Johnny: The key
bit of advice is to listen, listen to what other people are doing you know I
mean listen to what your bass player is doing actually Jimmy Chamberlin from
The Smashing Pumpkins one of my favourite drummers of all time. When I was with Marianne
Faithfull, we played in Chicago
actually the night I played with Billy Corgan and he was in at the time. So, I
go up to the dressing room like a half an hour before we go on and I walk into
the dressing room and go like there is Billy Corgan and Zwan and there is Joe
the guitar player from Aerosmith. But when I saw all of the Zwan guys I saw Jimmy
Chamberlin I went straight over. I was like you know a total fan and he was at
the gig and we swapped emails and like you know for example I said to him look
can you give me any pointers or can you put me on to the George Lauren Stone
book stick control, do you know that book. It has
endless amounts of rudiments and he put me on to that and he was very
supportive and we sent a couple of emails back and forth
Irish Drummers; Wow that’s amazing!
Johnny: I bumped into him because Rob the guitar player from The Frames, he
was from Chicago and knows me from
Chicago so I would be playing festivals and I remember being at South by
Southwest Festivals and I was standing, like I was that close to the kit I was
standing by the bass amp just watching him play and another time I was
basically behind the kit and we were doing some festival like the V Festival or
whatever and you know I remember walking up to him and he was like Yeah it’s my
little Irish friend you know and it’s all hugs and high fives and I stepped
behind and I just literally like step behind at the curtain kind of like
watching him play like he is quiet a light player but man he is just ridiculous like he is one
of my favourite drummers ever. He is a guy who brought jazz into the same way
Mitch Mitchell brought jazz into kind of rock with Jimmy Hendrix you know. He
was very much a jazzer you know like guys like that I really like you know and Wilco, Chad Smith, Ringo and God who else, I mean
there are so many drummers you know from teaching, Stewart Copeland who could
leave him out.
Irish Drummers; From The Police yeah, brilliant drummer.
Johnny: But again, they are all drummers that have
played on great songs you know like for example I don’t say Dave Weckl. Dave Weckl has never played on anything
like I would be in to but I appreciate the genius that he is and the
technically brilliant drummer that he is but you know Thomas Lang? Thomas Lang
came in to the college last year but in fairness to him you know he said I am as
happy playing Ticket to Ride as I am playing Buddy Rich. He is as influenced by
those guys so like he is very much another drum technician where he is a genius
at the drums and he was like a really, really nice guy and I took a lot from
him and he gave a lot of advice to the kids and you see these guys who are on
top of their game and even from their playing you learn so much about them just
hanging out and talking about their career you know. Because I think you know
I’m still working, I’m still doing it I can’t believe I am still doing it after
all these years you know at twenty, I was thinking at twenty five if it hasn’t
happened I am done you know.
Irish Drummers; So, what’s the five year plan?
Johnny: There has
never been a plan that is what’s great about it the plan is just to follow,
follow whatever comes up. Am, I have
never been proactive in setting up bands like I have talked about it and I have
talked to people about it and we always go let’s do this and lets to that and
you know I had a few ideas but I mean I have got kids and a lot of the
musicians I play with have kids now and we kind of tend to do whatever we are
doing like gig wise, recording wise and we go home we kind of hang out at
home. So, I got sick of touring and you know twelve years of touring and then
when my kids were born, I found it harder and harder, I didn’t find it harder
to go way. I found the flying, I found
flying to be a nightmare.
Irish Drummers; That must have been tough.
Johnny: Yeah,
actually flying. With The Frames I did a tour, with the last year I played with
them we opened up for Bob Dylan around New
Zealand and Australia for three weeks. I was
taking all these obscene amount of flights you know and I wasn’t a big fan of
flying and then we came home after that and we had about a week off and we went
to America and we spent about three weeks flying around America and it was like
ah you know ah but with The Frames I knew once it came out the Oscar thing was
on the horizon I knew even before it happened.
I thought Glen is going to go to London with Marketa because they were making the one album anyway
regardless of the one soundtrack they were doing a thing and I saw that going
that way and I thought The Frames is going to be put on the back burner and I
was just a hired guy anyway so I knew that was going to go on the hiatus for a while so we did New Years Eve in
Vicar Street in 2007/2008 and I kind of thought Yeah I knew it was my last gig.
I knew it was my last gig even probably before they did and that’s ok I mean I
got hired to do a job, I got paid for what was requested of me and they looked
after me and they were a good bunch of
guys and you know Glen was really talented and I really enjoyed playing with
him you know, really, really enjoyed it. You know when they are a band and you are not really in the band if you know
what I mean?
It’s nice
to be in a band you know but that’s nobody’s fault, it’s not my fault, it’s not
their fault it’s just kind of the way it is really but you know everybody I
have played with it has been an amazing experience. I mean for example I play
with a band called Spring Break now. Spring Break is a wedding band they do American eighties, they dress up in the
gear and you know I remember back in the kind of the late nineties there were
bands like Boogey Nights and Abbaesque and all those tribute bands and it’s
kind of like a show band but what those guys give me is they give me the
security of having a regular gig and bringing in regular money and that’s kind
of important you know. I mean I am no spring chicken anymore, there are certain things you don’t do anymore I mean
there are certain things you do when you are in your twenties that you are
prepared to do that you are not prepared to do in your thirties you know.
Irish Drummers; Yeah, I know what you mean.
Johnny: And a lot
of the guys I know out there are playing in wedding bands or cover bands or
whatever and then you are trying to fill in the gaps with playing with various
kind of solo artists or whatever then.
Irish Drummers; I suppose things are different to when you were
in your twenties.
Johnny: They are
yeah, like I can’t spend a lot of time like working with people, like nowadays
you have a car to run, you have to tax and insure it, you have got to put
petrol into it, so if people want you to show you know well years ago with
Picture House we had our own van, we had all of those things where you get
picked up and you get dropped off I mean you know. But am, yeah do you know
what I feel very privileged, I feel very lucky, I have made my own luck, I have
been incredibly nice to people, I am a little bit grumpier now the older I am.
You know I am a probably less tolerant but am I mean working in the college has
been a real kind of step up for me because it kind of makes you feel
appreciated for what you do because as I say like I am a half decent talker.
But I am not I don’t think I am any great shakes as far as drummers go, I see a
lot of these drummers now like a lot of the young kids they have got You Tube
and all these facilities and young drummers are learning so fast now and you
know you are trying to keep up with them and I think the whole gospel kind of
drumming style now all of the mad triple d paradiddles induced fills have
become very popular with drummers now. I would
like to learn a few but I still like to I don’t want to start playing
like everybody else, I just want to play the way I play.
Irish Drummers; That’s your style, that is why you made it you
know.
Johnny: Well, I
think I have resigned myself to the fact ok I am this kind of drummer and I am
not going to spend a lot of time practising anymore because I don’t have the
time you know and I suppose there is that balance of trying to maintain your
own professional job and then kind of you know do the family thing as well, you
know what I mean? So, the college thing
for me works very well but I am still gigging like I still do close to two
hundred gigs a year, you know.
Irish Drummers; Incredible
Johnny, that’s phenomenal.
Johnny: Do you
know what I mean and I have gigged for the last nearly twenty years. I have
done easily you know a hundred gigs a year like you know I have done a couple
of thousand like two or three thousand gigs at this stage under my belt and
that seems to be where I mean that I am not so much a studio drummer. I mean I
do studio stuff with lots of people and I consider myself a live drummer I suppose
as much as I love, I love working in the studio with people because if I find a
competent songwriter the song just plays itself, you don’t have to think too
much, you don’t have to maybe that is a case of I found with the Pugwash thing.
I would go in and I would record the Pugwash album in a day or two you know and
then it was just done and Thomas’s songs were very complete and very easy to
play along to and a lot of the time you were just doing the Ringo fills and
playing too but it’s a feel thing and it’s whatever is right for the song and
now and then a couple of times you might get to do something a bit out there or
a bit quirky or whatever you know. So yeah like I just mean I just suppose I feel
I’m blessed really you know. I mean I suppose would I have a reputation that
precedes maybe in Ireland .
I do to a degree really from the people I have played it and it’s kind of nice
to know really.
Irish Drummers; Johnny what kind of kit are you playing with at
the moment?
Johnny: I have been playing for the last few years a
reference, a pearl reference.It’s not my favourite kit that I have played, I
had a BLX for years which I would have recorded the Picture House album on
which is Birch, BLA Birch,
Pearl Kit you know which served
me well. For gigging now I use a twenty. Well it’s kind of handy for throwing in the car
and I used the twenty two for years you know but I have always kind of gone
between a twenty and a twenty two. But, I also
play you know between a twelve and a fourteen.
You know the fourteen inch floor tom is fine for doing gigs but if I am
doing a rock gig I will break out the twenty two or twelve and then sixteen.
Irish Drummers; So like
yeah, let’s run through it ok, so you have played with Picture House, The
Frames, Marianne Faithfull, Pugwash, Duckworth Lewis, have we missed anyone?
Johnny: Well, I
mean I got to do a lot of TV work as well over the years. I got to play with like Elton John & Westlife and
as much as I hate fucken Westlife you know you get that call on the Wednesday
you know, do you want to be on The Late Late with Westlife and as much as I
hate Westlife, Sophie Ellis Baxter, Atomic Kitten and ah God who else but do
you know I gigged with Mundy there back in June. I played with the classic
Beatles, who else to be honest with you, there are a lot of things that if I
don’t write it down it gets deleted from the memory banks you know. Damien
Dempsey you know, like that I did one gig with Damien Yeah, Damo is a great
bloke you know.
Tom: That is brilliant yeah. As a matter of interest
what Elton John song was it?
Johnny: It was
“Your Song” and you
know Ronan Keating was doing a duet and it was the Meteor Awards or something
and that was only miming. But you know these are things you can stick on your
CV. But the next day on the Evening Herald there was a picture of Elton John
giving Ronan Keating a big hug and I am sitting behind the kit clapping so it’s
the two lads and me in the photo so I was like – great you know that will be
one for the books and that will be one for the album book, yeah.
Irish Drummers; That’s brilliant Johnny , thanks.
Date; 30/10/2012
Location; Just ofGrafton Street , Dublin .
Location; Just of
Saturday, 22 March 2014
Dave Hingerty is one of Ireland ’s best
known drummers. He has played with The Frames and Josh Ritter and has a
fabulous drumming C.V
How
did you get started playing the drums?
I remember being bought an old Tama Blue
Sparkle kit and given a book about snare drum exercises but there were two
brothers living across the street who were in a band and the older brother was
a drummer but he only had dustbins, chair legs, things like that and he wasn’t
really any good and I was about to go off to get drum lessons and they said
they would like to have me in the band as a possible drummer and the key was
whoever had a drum kit was going to get the job and I took over from the
brother with his dustbins and stuff and that was the first local band that I
was involved in. I stuck close with that and there was a really brilliant
guitar player called Diarmuid Ryan and I stuck close with him and we used to
jam together for a couple of years in my bedroom and we were like a two piece
Led Zeppelin cover band. That was great, really good early memories.
Did
you play in many bands in those early years?
I was always fickle by nature and I tried
to play in as many bands as possible, through school including college and
after college. I did go to University and I got my degree in psychology and
that was in University College Dublin. I never really felt like I was going to
use it but it was something to fall back on.
Are
you glad you obtained your degree?
I
have to say it was a good decision because the music business isn’t a secure
business and I find that a lot of musicians come across as being very insecure.
Gigs are like gold dust some times and some musicians can be really nasty in the
way they get them and try and hold on to them and it can be quite tough out
there. I always felt more secure because I had some thing there to fall back on
but my vocation was drums and I knew that by the time I was 14 years of age.
But having that university degree behind me did make me feel more secure. I
would say to my own kids now to try and do something in their social life to be
cool and to try and move up the social ladder and I never felt like I had to do
anything, or do anything out of the ordinary, or do anything that I didn’t want
to do because I already had the cool cred by being a drummer. It made me feel
that I didn’t have to do anything that I didn’t want to do. I got great
confidence out of that and I was getting pats on the back socially because I
was a drummer so it was great growing up at that time and not having to prove
myself all the time not like a lot of kids do in their formative years but
anyway getting back to after college I was always working with five or six
different songwriters until the time I got in to The Frames and then I suppose
I more or less dedicated my time to them
whatever it was for five years I think from 1998 to 2003.
Looking
back was there a history of music in your family?
No, although my grandfather was one of
three brothers that played in the Liberties brass band and his wife, my
grandmother played piano so yes they were the musical side of the family and
the funny thing is that I’m now working in the Liberties with BIMM College .
There’s a new BIMM College
which is supposed to have the best of Rock & Roll musicians. Myself, Johnny
Boyle and Graham Hopkins we’re teaching in there so it’s a nice full circle to
be hanging out in the area where my Grandad was reared. The BIMM college is a rock & roll degree
course. This summer they asked me to
write and develop a second year course. I was really delighted to be asked and
they asked me to put a little bit of an Irish twist on it. So this is probably
interesting for you. They asked me to include as many Irish drummers as
possible. So I was picking stuff from The Frames, U2, Thin Lizzy just to make
sure I represented the Irish side of things as well. Third year or fourth year
courses – they were developed by English/Americans teachers and there weren’t
any Irish drummers. So I like to think I added a little bit with lots of
references to Irish drummers.
From
the start of your career did you feel it was important to be able to read
music?
No, that kind of evolved. In order to
survive in the music business I found it hugely important to be able to read
music. I was very conscious and thinking to myself if I could play drums and
play percussion I would be twice as employable and that’s the way it works.
Then I ended up at the most ridiculous and embarrassing gigs – we could be
playing rock drums one week and the next week I remember we were down at Kerry
airport playing with belly dancers and ankle bells and playing a tarcucon drum
with coloured trousers. It was such an embarrassing moment, no rock and roll
cred there at all. So anyway I was open enough to do pretty much anything. I
never had to do gigs in the long term that I wasn’t interested in. I knew I had
to be available as a drummer.
How
did things progress?
Some time after that I got a good run of
things with the Frames and Josh Ritter. I also did a tiny bit of teaching
especially in the last ten or twelve years. From the time I was with Josh
Ritter I had set up a drum school, The Irish Drumming Academy. I think it is
the biggest drum school in Ireland .
There are more competitors now but it is still the biggest drum school. It took
three days full of students per week and I do one of those days there and
another day in BIMM in the new college. The rest of the time I do gigs and
recordings.
Given
your own situation are you allowed to come up with your own drum patterns or do other band members make suggestions?
Initially I was pretty spiky about it
having to be my idea, then I realised that collaboration is the best way
forward. Even though I didn’t react initially well to it, someone like Glen
Hansard, although he’s not a great drummer but a great musician, he would come
up with something quirky on the drums that doesn’t quite make sense but what he
thinks might work in the song. I might sit down and try a version of what I was
doing before plus what he was doing and then put the two things together and
then he’d say yeah that’s exactly right. Initially I wasn’t too happy with some
of those non drummers behind the kit and not telling me what to do but
suggesting stuff. I realised that the best ideas could come from other members
of the band or producers. Some of them would be very resourceful that way. Now
I work quite a bit with David Odlum. I was over in France in his studio collaborating
with him because we never seem to be stuck, one of us always has a good drum
idea and we work forward from that point of view. I’m happy now to collaborate
and I tell my students to be ready for that and not to be too possessive about
their drumming.
Did
that ever develop in to an awkward situation?
The weirdest situation I was ever in, we
were in France ,
in David’s studio recording a Josh Ritter album called Animal Years and the
manager who used to be the drummer is more manager type who was only filling
in. He was a good friend of Josh’s in college. His name was Darius and he, for
practically the whole set sat down beside me while I was recording. The whole
time he sat there. So I was sitting behind the kit, headphones on and he was
sitting right beside me playing tambourine. Sometimes he would just watch
me. After a take he would go ‘cool’ or
he might say ‘do you think we should hit the cymbal on the chorus for that?’
Initially I didn’t mind but after a while I was going I wish he would sit in
the control room. He was a little bit possessive you know. It was a strange
situation.
You
play open handed, do you find that challenging?
Yeah, I do find it challenging. When I
first started playing drums, my kit was set up like a normal right handed drum
kit. I play open handed and I went down
to my first teacher, Johnny Waddam, a famous Irish jazz drummer. He’s passed on
now but he was such a brilliant drummer. I used to go to his house in Dalkey
for lessons. It was close to where I lived. He had me in the middle of his
schedule and he was too lazy to change the kit around –he didn’t want to change
for a leftie. He just set up and I just played it as a right hander or open
hander. He said a lot of famous drummers played
in that style. People like Carter
Beau Fourd and Billy Cobham. He was saying Billy Cobham used to be right handed
but he learned to play left handed. It was so that he could play open handed.
Have
you a preference?
There are advantages and disadvantages you
know. I realised I wasn’t that left handed drummer moaning and groaning but
technically I suppose as a teacher I would have to learn everything as a right
hander. I definitely think it gives you more of an unusual style and maybe my
bass drum isn’t the best but it’s good enough to go. I meet a lot of right
handed drummers who say I’m thinking about setting up to play open handed. I
don’t know if many have done it but I know Graham Hopkins said “it makes so
much sense, your open, your lefts your left and your rights your right, go for
it”.
Who
were your influences when you started playing?
Funnily enough, when I used to hang out
with my friend across the road, when he was selling a kit, Brian Downey called up to his
house and he tried a drum kit out for his son. It was great to meet him at that
point and I was a huge Thin Lizzy fan. I was a huge Led Zeppelin fan and I was
into stuff like Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, the heavy side of things. I got
fixated with Neil Peart. I was really mad about him. Then I got into Genesis,
Phil Collins. I loved that so they were the main men until I started to listen
to more tasteful drummers like Levon Helm, Kenny Buttrey, Jim Keltner, Steve
Gadd of course, these were the people who took over when I got sick of the
heavier complicated style of drumming. I just store it all up and it comes out some
way somehow. Like I said I was mad about Bonham, mad about Peart for about four
years.
Were
you aware of Irish Drummers?
I wasn’t too aware of Irish drummers. When
I was growing up there were shows like ‘Lark in the Park’. I wasn’t too aware of who was playing or what
bands. I wasn’t following other Irish drummers. I was going to gigs. I remember
Robbie Brennan, he played with Mary Coughlan and possibly the Fleadh Cowboys.
So I like him and I remember seeing Fran Breen with Stocktons Wing and I loved watching
him as he was like Bonham as regards chatting while he was playing. I think he
was a leftie as well and he was a real Dub, no nonsense and he had all these
sayings. My friend Paul Cantwell, he is a drummer and is always quoting Fran
Breen. He is a real hard working drummer, like a tradesman gets the gear on and
plays the gig.
Do
you find it difficult switching from session work to playing live?
At this stage I think I find it hard to do
the live drumming because I’m doing more recording. I prefer recording because
I have a young family now. I haven’t been touring as much and I haven’t been
out on the road apart from going live with the ‘Swell Season’, two years back.
People are gigging less and I find I record with people and then they don’t
bother touring. I love the studio and I love the pressure of the studio. You
have to get a certain amount of songs, there’s time pressure and you have to be
creative. You have to play well, the arrangement, you can’t waste anyone’s time
and live I suppose is less challenging in a way because you play the same set
every night over and over and then going back to my fickle nature it doesn’t
suit me as I get bored easily so the thought of playing in a band for fifty
nights in a row, the same set well after about 20 nights I would be cracking
up. People who like to get the security from knowing the stuff well I take my
hat off to them.
What
was it like playing with the Frames?
The Frames was a particularly exciting time
because the live shows were so good. Because there was an element of jamming
involved that always kept you on your toes because you never really knew where
Glen was going. You had to try and read his mind. When was he going to stop the
song. Is this going to go into another cover version, part of another song and
that was really exciting, you know. Switching from studio to live is a little
bit harder now.
Do
you find that playing live has any physical challenges for you?
I don’t find it too bad now. I think I did
when I was travelling a fair bit. When you are travelling and drinking and
you’re not looking after your body too well. I used to be mad in to photography
and when we were in a new town I used to walk and walk and walk and probably
didn’t get enough sleep because I was always to discover everywhere. The rest
of the band would all chill out and hang back. I would go out with my camera
and start walking the streets of Barcelona or Seattle or wherever we
were lucky enough to be. I couldn’t believe we were in such amazing places. I
couldn’t get over the fact that the lads would be sitting in the tour bus or
hotel being all lazy. They were probably the wise ones because they were
recharged and I was probably tiring myself out. Then by the time of say the
tenth gig I may be tired and the beat may slow down slightly but now because
there isn’t that many gigs it isn’t a problem. I think I’m reasonably fit at
the moment. I play football. I try to eat reasonably well.
How
often would you be practice your drumming?
I used to be really diligent in my twenties,
practice all the time knowing that I had to keep learning my trade. I’ve gotten
lazy since then so I would say roughly since I was thirty the only time I
practice is when I have to learn a set.
When
you play your drum part for a recording and then you hear the finished product
with instruments and vocals do you ever think back and say I wish I recorded
the drum part differently?
No, I don’t really like some of the stuff
I’ve done and I’m always critical. I don’t think it’s ever good enough. I’m
always picking and I always seem to find something that I’m not happy with. I’m
relatively happy with some of the creations in terms of the drum parts I’ve
come up with but maybe in terms of the overall sound or feel I always look at
it from start to end of a song – does it groove well?, is it flowing? And you
can compromise a little bit but by the time all the instruments and effects are
added the whole song can end up feeling strange. But really it’s your job to be as solid as
possible as a drummer from the beginning because you are laying the foundation
so if that is loose and wobbly then the track doesn’t sound good. It’s
definitely challenging.
Are
there three songs that you drummed and that you are happy with, that
represented your style?
The one that comes to mind immediately is
‘Lay me Down’, the Frames song just because its quite unusual I suppose and I
played it with my hands on the drum kit. Other than that I would have to say
that there’s about four or five records that I’ve done in the last six or nine
months that I’m really looking forward to hearing. I think that for the first
time ever that I’ve started to feel good about my drumming in the studio. So
hopefully there’s going to be some good work out of those sessions but they are
not out yet as the finished product so we will see. I did a record with Adrian Crowley and I did
a record with Roisin O, she’s Mary Black’s daughter yeah and also Richard
Shaughnessy? I’d have to go back and listen to the stuff I’ve done but I’m not
really mad about it. But that’s good I suppose because it propels me to do
better drum tracks. There are really eight or ten albums that I’m really
chuffed to have been involved on and I’m proud of them but I always think I
could have done a better job.
What
kind of drum kit do you own?
I’ve always liked the vintage kits. Tama
was the first. I don’t really buy new kits. Yamaha was good enough to give me a
kit as an endorsement. Zildjian gave me cymbals. I love old drum kits, I have
practically a kit from each decade, from the 30’s. I have a WFL and I have a
Roger 60’s kit and they say that the Roger 60’s kit is one of the best kits
ever made so I’m really proud to have one of those. I have a premier kit similar to Pink Floyd’s
drummer. I would love to get the 60’s Ludwig kit. I like the new DW kit not the
classic kit, the collectors series which is a vintage copy.
What
advice would you give someone starting out?
Just to remind them that it’s all about
music and not to get too hung up on the technical side, you know, sitting down with
a book and getting too concerned with the technique. I encourage them to listen and apply what
they’re learning, to music. My lessons tend to be very practical as early as
possible and I try to get them to enjoy themselves. I do get them to practice hard, work hard on
the techniques but as soon as possible to put it in to practice and try and jam
with their mates. Some of the students come in and they could spend a year or
two, three or even four and they still haven’t played with anyone despite my best
efforts and they are a little bit nervous. They like music but they don’t
really listen to music that much. You would wonder why they are even bothering
to learn when they obviously don’t have the passion. Other students would be
just eating and drinking and living music so that’s it so I suppose for me and
for a lot of drummers it’s kind of a love affair that starts when you’re young
and when you want somebody to sort of feed that that I would do that to give
them more drummers to listen to, to give them more tricks of the trade and to
facilitate them to go out and play with their mates.
Any
other advice?
Other advice would be timekeeping. In a
room full of musicians you have to keep time, help the band, that’s your first
priority as a drummer whether you’re playing a simple beat all the way through
or if you’re playing complicated patterns you have to keep your ear open
because you’re helping the band keep together, keep time. You’re driving the
train so keep it on the tracks. It’s a big job, a big responsibility.
What
are your drumming highlights to date?
Yeah, some of the low key gigs have been my
favourite. Some things have stood out when you say ‘Oh my God this is great
that this is happening. Lots of stuff really, like I was playing at the main
stage at Oxygen and I think we were sandwiched between the ‘Foo Fighters &
the Pixies and I don’t know who was backstage, Dave Grohl or Taylor Hawkins,
sorry it would have been Taylor Hawkins warming up backstage and the Pixies
drummer on stage, it was such a thrill you know.
You
must have enjoyed that gig?
Funnily enough I didn’t enjoy that gig. It
was a sea of people, maybe 60,000 and musically there was such a distance
between us and the audience that made it hard to connect. We kind of felt a
little bit isolated. The Frames, in particular was very much a home based band,
come all into the room, climb all over the drumkit, sit on a chair beside us if
you like. It was all about being intimate with the audience. We felt a little
bit stranded on that huge inland that was the stage, so far away from the
crowd. It was a sea of people and it was a massive thrill. Other things like
working with Steve Albini and working with Trevor Horn, that was really quirky
and an unusual situation. I was with The Frames when they were trying to get
out of their record deal. Not a lot of bands would say that they were trying to
get out of their record deal. They were with Trevor Horn, famous 80’s producer,
they didn’t see that it was going well and Trevor Horn passed them over to his
famous farm studio. It had a swimming pool and it was a really posh studio. We
went over there and the song we went to record was the pavement tune. The band
being uncomfortable with their record company and wanting to get out, wanting
to change their life professionally and ironically he was there recording us.
He was helping us finish the lyrics in the studio even though the song was
about trying to get away from that particular situation. He was there helping
us with lyrics writing that song. It was the wackiest thing.
Did
he realise the song was about his record company?
No, he didn’t know that, No. He was funny
because he was the type of producer who would come in and make you play the
song 40 times in a row and he would say “grand”. After the recordings they
would head off on speck, arrive back two days later , chopped and spliced, he
would do what he does, come up with a great arrangement and have a kind of
chopped up sounding song. It didn’t sound like it was a real drummer if you ask
me. He had a very curious way about him, very different from Steve Albini.
How
was Albini different to work with?
He’s a socialist you know. He made
everybody in the studio in Chicago
wear the same grey suits, overalls. Everybody had to be the same. Every band is
charged the same. Every band is welcomed. There is no big hierarchy. It is all
about allowing everybody the chance to record. He keeps the price really low.
He’s great, a real quirky guy. He was a
big hero with all the lads but not a hero of mine. The lads were really kind of
licking his boots. Anything he said, they thought it was amazing. He used to
like taking these sonic breaks so every say three quarters of an hour he would
like to stop and have a chat. It was his opportunity to philosophise on music.
He would sit there and he would listen. That was entertaining and a good chance
to chat with him. I always felt that he didn’t really like the music, which was
a strange feeling but it was Glen Hansard’s dream to record with Albini and it
was a great privilege to be there.
What
was the highlight of being there?
The highlight of being there and you are
asking me about highlights I remember at one stage during these sonic breaks he
said we are going to play you something of Nirvana. We recorded in Utah and he said the
record that ended up in the shops even though I recorded it wasn’t the one that
I would have put out in the shops so he put up the real and the masters of the
album and he played the whole thing the way he would have envisaged it. It was
really amazing getting to be in that situation. A part of rock history had been
made and bringing it back into that vault he was showing that this was the
version that he thought should have been brought out and the band probably
would have liked as well.
How
was it different?
It was really an aggressive version. The
record company didn’t like it and they asked someone else to fix it in the end
and they were going for something more poppy. They were trying to push the band
into the mainstream. It was a great insight but you know festivals and radio
shows there have been so many things that have been a ball and it has been
great. TV shows like Conan O’Brien with Josh Ritter. Still, funny enough it was
probably smaller old style gigs with the Frames, that we used to play for about
3 and half hours, hang loose, get drunk while playing at the end of the gig. I
used to love those gigs.
We had a lot of great guests up on stage
like Charles Thompson IV from the Pixies. He was there and he was complimentary
towards me. So there was lots of stuff playing all sorts of festivals like Glastonbury – such great
memories.
You’re
teaching now so any other plans for the next five years?
Eh, no not really. I suppose I’m in a hurry
to get as many recordings as possible that I really like. It’s just to leave
something behind, recordings that I feel I’ve played well on and I really would
be proud of that. I’m not really pushed
about the live thing as I feel as though I’ve had some huge thrills and that I’m
spoilt and it’s like I’m slightly deconditioned to gigs and large crowds. The
thrill that a younger drummer would get I suppose but I’m spoilt. I have been
there and it’s not a huge thrill anymore. I like to be creative in the studio
and come up with the goods but at the same time I probably need to get back and
prove myself live again because it’s the other side of playing and I’ve gone a
bit rusty and I need to get out there and let people see that I can still play
live.
In
relation to Irish Drumming, what in the future will gives Irish drummers their
unique style?
I think Irish drummers already have a
unique style. Irish drummers are lazy compared to the Americans, technically,
really lazy. The cliche is the American kid drummer seems to be much more
dedicated and I don’t know if is pushy parents attitude towards life. They say
that certain young American jazz musicians or other musicians practice six
maybe eight hours a day. Irish musicians would sooner be down in the pub
practicing no hours a day. They hope to get by just on their talent alone,
chase the chicks, drink the beer and have a good time. That seems to be the
priority of the Irish drummer over the decade and I think it possibly is
changing already because you see a course like BIMM, the new rock college and
it’s a degree course, a four year degree course and you can see all these
talented drummers coming in because I’m auditioning them and you can see there
are a lot of great drummers, their technique is better than what I’ve seen in
the past and their focus is a lot better. Parents are starting to see music as
a realistic option for a career choice and also there are countless times I
thought during the recession that drum lessons were going to be hit hard but
actually parents see it as education and not a luxury at all. For me there
hasn’t been any decline at all with all the stuff going on with the economy and
I think it’s more of a serious career option now. There isn’t enough work for
all those great drummers that will come out of Ireland in the next few years.
They’re more focussed and just that they have more access to the web. They can
see and they know the bar is higher and they know they have to get up there to
reach that in order to compete with their American and British counterparts and
get work with the likes to Beady Eye, Beyonce etc. Those big drumming gigs are
out there and those artists don’t care whether the drummer is Irish, Swedish or
Mongolian. They just want a good drummer who can do everything technically, is
good to hang out with and is on the ball and that they can network away and get
up to the top that way.
So
the future is bright for Irish Drumming?
Yeah but I think it’s not just about
technique. There are other factors that I think are important. Graham Hopkins
is probably the most confident drummer that I met in my life and he gets work
from that because when he’s in a room with the drumkit and when other musicians
walk in to the room they can feel his confidence and therefore cope better. It
feeds and I think it’s a great thing to have that self belief. You also need to
be good to hang out with because as an Irish drummer heading off with your BIMM
degree or whatever and you’re a great technician well if you’re a pain in the
ass and you’re annoying everybody you just won’t last. Hopefully we will see a
lot more success stories of Irish drummers. The talent is there and that unique
style is there.
Will
BIMM encourage that fusion of Irish music and rock?
That’s a good point and maybe BIMM should
insist on some traditional drumming, Irish drumming perhaps, a course on
bodhran playing or at least part of the course where you listen to aspects of
traditional music. You bring those flavours in to your international drumming
because it would be a shame if we became pan European clones or American copy
cats. We need to hang on to that Irish ism. I got one of those ol’ visas with
Josh Ritter supposedly because I had a skill that no American drummer had
because of my unique style of Irish drumming, no American drummer could do what
I could do. Now I don’t know what that was, that certain je ne sais quoi. Maybe
it was all bullshit to get me a Visa but it was interesting they awarded it to
me and they recognised and said that
okay this guy has a unique Irish style that they wanted, let him go there.
Maybe if you ask Josh Ritter he might say I like Dave because he reminds me of
traditional Irish folk something I don’t know who knows. I play a lot of trad
and I can’t say if it comes out in my playing but I‘d recommend any Irish
drummer to sit down and play trad.
Can
you play other instruments, apart from drums.
No I can’t and I couldn’t play a gig with
another instrument and that is the test.
Date; 15th August 2012
Location; Christy’s in Arklow, Co.Wicklow
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