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Tom:
How are you enjoying the Galway Jazz Festival?
It’s brilliant. I’ve been down a bunch of times, I’m not
sure how many. I think they said this is the 12th year, but I don’t
know. Probably the last 10 years I’ve been down through friends. I’m quite
close to Matthew Berrill and also Aengus Hackett who have been involved for the
last few years, so I always come down for different projects and to me it’s
always been a fantastic festival. It’s really about the community and you get
that feel. Even Galway as a town has been like that, so it’s a good place to
run a festival where there are a lot of Irish jazz musicians.
Tom:
Matthew you have a very impressive Curriculum Vitae , when did the drumming bug
start?
It really came from my older brother Daniel, who was a
guitarist, he’s 7 years older than me and when I was 12 I started playing
piano. My older sister played piano and my brother played a bit, we were all
getting lessons so I did that for a while. I was quite into music anyway, like
my brother was quite a hero, like whatever he was into, I was into, so when I
was about 12 he started playing jazz, so he basically kind of used me as his
little guinea pig and would play me everything he was listening to. I was just
absorbing it all and he’d take giant steps and I’d be like cool, I like this. I
don’t know how much I was taking it in or I don’t know how aware of everything
I was, but to me I was like, okay cool and so I kept listening to stuff. He
always got me to clap funny rhythms and they were my first musical experiences
really, so I think that it really stood to me. I didn’t actually start playing
the drums until I was about 14 or 15 when I was doing Junior Certificate music
and I had to pick an instrument. The teacher was trying to get me to play piano
because I was playing badly tuned standards at that point. I just remember
always playing Mr. PC (John Coltrane tune) in C minor because that was the only
key I could play in. My music teacher thought it was amazing, that I was
improvising when everyone else was playing Bach, so she was trying to get me to
play piano but I asked my brother what should I do and he said you should play
the drums, so I asked my mum and dad and they said well you can get lessons for
a while in Newpark Music Centre. I was actually in Newpark School so you could
run across, so we did that. My first teachers were teaching privately there, so
I went to them for lessons for about 6 months or maybe even a year before I had
a drum-kit. I proved to everyone that I
was serious, because the teachers said I was developing, so my parents said “okay
we’ll get you a drum-kit” and I think the whole thing was probably a ploy from
my brother to have a drum-kit in the house, so he could rehearse with his band
because he was playing a guitar, so it worked out and then we got the drum-kit
and then it was really helpful having my brother around and we would rehearse
and he was in a band with Sean Carpio, which was a really big influence for me.
I then took out transition year of secondary school and went to Newpark Music Centre
because then you could do these 2 years there. You could do a 1 year music
course for the PMTC which stands for Professional Music Training Course and
then you could do a diploma. So I took transition year out for this 1 year
course, then went back and did my Leaving Certificate. They had it for two
years and made it into a 4 year degree so essentially I had done the first year
of my degree in TY which was pretty handy. Then I went straight into 2nd
year and in 5th and 6th year I continued playing with
lots of people and Newpark was really great and had me beginning to help out
with ensembles. I was still serious, even though I was doing my Leaving Certificate
so I spent a lot of that time, still playing and then starting to play gigs
with people like Matt Berrill, Derek Whyte and Greg Philbin.
I was playing with them quite a lot, with Nick Roth and
my brother, just because I think of the connection through my brother which had
brought a lot of opportunities when I was quite young. I think maybe even
before I was technically at the level to play at those gigs, so there was a
funny situation where I was always experiencing hearing all this music and
maybe I wasn’t quite there yet, but I think that it actually really stood to me.
I was getting that experience because there’s nothing really to substitute for that
and it’s not something you can really practice on your own just being in all
those playing situations, it was great and so then I went back to Newpark and
finished my degree.
Tom:
What did you do after your degree?
I went to
Switzerland for 2 years. I just felt by the end of Newpark it was maybe time to just knuckle down. Thanks to Newpark
I got these new opportunities where I was playing a lot and it kind of meant
that I was playing more than practicing, but then at that point, I knew what I
had to do. It was really important that I wasn’t just practicing everyday
without really knowing why, like having those experiences and then realising
what I needed to practice and what the goal was and not just practicing the
different rudiments so I can play at this tempo because I know that this will
help my playing in these kind of situations and to me that was really helpful.
So then I spent 2 years in a really great school in Lucerne in Switzerland,
with some amazing teachers and there was a guy called Norbert Pfammatter and he’s an amazing drummer and an amazing teacher, like
every single lesson I just came out really wanting to play the drums and that
was unusual for me to get that much out of a lesson. It was great and he was
just like a really warm guy, really supportive and encouraging and they noticed
when I arrived for the audition, it sounds like you have lots going on and you
have lots of ideas and there may just be something missing. I remember 2 years
later, the teacher at Newpark, when he saw me he said I had put on some weight
drum wise, which was what it was all about. In general there wasn’t much
happening so it was perfect just getting my head down and focusing on getting
my music perfect, also meeting different musicians and I played in a few different
bands. I played with a band called AERIE, we met in Switzerland, that’s another
thing about going away, it’s also about the people you meet, like you can be a
great musician but if you stay in Ireland as a jazz musician your just not going
to get those opportunities as the pool of musicians here is just too small.
Tom: For other Irish Drummers you feel it might be
something they have to consider as regards working abroad?
I definitely
encourage all students to think about it at least. They’re broadening the pool
that way. I think you do need to broaden your horizons. I think it’s really sad
how little contact we have with the UK and London, especially London, being
such a huge jazz scene and so many amazing musicians, none of which anybody in
Ireland knows about. I’m always absolutely shocked how few people have really
checked out other musicians, I guess there is history and politics, anyway most
of my generation don’t seem very bothered by it. It takes about as long to get to
London as it does to get to Cork on a plane and it costs the same price as the
train fare. I’ve been trying over the last couple of years to spend more time
there and to really treat Dublin as a base for a jazz musician or an Irish
drummer and you can be based here and you can have all the comfort of being at
home, surrounded by all your friends and family and people you have known and
grown up with but at the same time it’s really easy to travel from Dublin. You’re
always well received by people all around the world and to do that at the same
time and go forth and it’s been going okay so far. It involves quite a lot of
time management and obviously you have
to make a living. I teach at the Newpark Music Centre
as well, so I have to make sure I’m there as much as I can be for the students.
I also know it’s important to be leaving, when you’re a musician to be meeting
and playing with other musicians, playing in other situations and I definitely
think more people should be doing that.
Tom: Who are the drummers that influence you the
most?
From the beginning it was Tony Williams. I guess because
they were the records my brother played me. Jim Black also Paul Motian would
have been a big influence. I guess for me they were the ones I would look up to
the most. Jim Black and Tom Rainey, I would go and see and I’ve gotten lessons
off them. I found it hard to get lessons from them, partly because I wasn’t a
good student and also because they were my inspiration growing up. If you get a
lesson off somebody who has never met you before, you have to be prepared and ask
them very specific things and definitely the 1st lesson I had with
either of them I kind of just turned up and it was like, how do I play well. I
probably didn’t say that exactly but that was kind of the vibe of being in the
surreal moment, of being in Jim Black’s loft, arriving for a lesson and then
just end up sitting behind the drums. So I was sitting behind his drums, he
picked up a guitar and started playing the kinds of tunes that are on his
albums. I basically ended up doing a really bad Jim Black impression. It came
to a point where I knew what I had to do myself, I was developing my own voice
and didn’t want to just sound like them even though I loved how they played. I
just had to work on my own thing, which would involve a lot of time and
practice. I haven’t gotten any drum lessons in the last 5 or 6 years but the
lessons were beneficial. I realised I would get more from listening to people
and even hanging out with them. In New York there is a real sense of community
and people have this idea that New York is very cold and it’s hard to break
into the scene but I didn’t find that at all. I spent months there and it just
felt really warm and people accepted you. I really felt part of a community
which was amazing and especially that kind of music, like the downtown New York
Brooklyn scene of people being improvisers. You’re talking about gigs, where
there is only like 15 or 20 people, amazing musicians, who come to Europe and
then do quite big tours and big venues and they’re playing in bars of like 10
people for 5 dollars so when you go to gigs there people recognise you and
there like oh there is an Irish drummer in town. It’s more like a session but
not like a jam session. It’s like you go to someone’s house and play for 2
hours either free or bringing your own tunes or playing standards. That doesn’t
really happen here in Ireland which I think is a pity because I think that is
the point for a musician or an artist, to enjoy bringing your own tunes or
playing standards and that doesn’t really happen here in Ireland, which I think
is a pity. I think that is the point for a musician or an artist and I feel
that things here are more project based, rather than saying is there a gig and
being like no, we’re just playing because that’s what we do, hang out and play.
So it was really helpful for me being in that situation in New York. I
basically just spent 9 months organising sessions with different people, every day
and I definitely learned a lot from being there. The things about the guys I
mentioned, specifically for me was how they were playing quite complex music
which I always had an interest in. They always made it sound like a musical,
not like they were just-rhyming off stuff. I’ve never wanted to play music that
was complicated, just for the sake of it. Its music that’s personal to you and
you can present it in a way that’s unique and special to you. Sometimes music
can get to mathematical and scientific and it doesn’t sound from the heart, or
with any emotion.
Tom: Matthew in your opinion, what are
the albums and music people should listen to?
I think Jim Black’s albums and Alasnoaxis. I was also
listening to Tom Rainey and a sax player called Tim Berne, he has a bunch of
albums. I guess one particular album that stood out for me was called Science
Fiction, again it was quite complex musically and it had a lot of free
improvisation on it. The kind of idea where they would have quite long
complicated melodies and things going on and then there would be a free section
in the middle, that to me I always had an emotional connection with. I always
really liked playing and I liked listening to and it wasn’t really happening
here. There aren’t that many people in Ireland that play in that style, which
was always one of the things that I was interested in and liked.
Tom:
Matthew you also studied in South India
Yeah, even at a young age, my brother and I would also
listen to Indian music and also there is also a strong element of Indian music
in Newpark Music Centre. Conor Guilfoyle had studied it and it was always part
of the curriculum there. I always was interested in it so I spent a summer
there, at a school in Chennai and it was pretty intense. Nothing can really
prepare you for going over there because it’s not really like anywhere else, we
basically spent every day singing and clapping rhythms. A friend of mine, Simon
Roth is also here and he was playing with Lauren Kinsella last night and he’s
from London. He had a similar interest in the Indian theme and we were together
there for 6 weeks. We would have an intense 2 hour lesson and we decided not to
learn any instrumental stuff because in India people generally spend years
studying instruments before really getting anywhere. You would actually just
follow your master around and make them cups of tea and stuff like that before
you would even get to touch the instrument and we were only going for 6 weeks
so we basically wanted to learn the language, the vocabulary and to integrate
that into our music.
Tom:
That must have been fantastic
It was incredible and I learned a lot. I spent the 6
weeks learning and finding out new stuff but it would take much longer than 6
weeks to be able to integrate what I learned into my own music, to really be
fluent in that language. To improvise it into my own music, it would take a lot
longer and that was about 5 years ago, but it’s always been music which has
been important to me and I use more as a compositional player than the actual
music.
Tom:
What’s your kit set up like?
Well I’ll start with the cymbals. When I was in New York
for the year I lived with a drummer called Jesse Simpson, a fantastic drummer
and also a brilliant piano player. He decided during college that he was bored
of the drums so he practiced piano. He got really, really good and he could
play piano gigs. When I arrived in New
York, he had a bunch of gigs and he said to me oh you can play drums, so
instantly I got some gigs out of it which was amazing. He was getting into
being a cymbal- smith and very few people in the world are doing that to a high
level. He had a workshop and he would keep building up all the equipment that
you would need. He was also in touch with some of the other cymbal-smiths and I
asked him to do some modification of the cymbals I had at the time.
Tom:
What kind of cymbal sound do you like?
My preference was always dry and light cymbals. After I
got home from New York I applied to Music Network for a capital scheme grant. They
give you 50% of the cost, so I put in the application and I got it. Jesse custom built two cymbals for me. He made
a 22 inch ride. I wanted it to be quite dry and light. I couldn’t use it for
Jazz music because there just wasn’t enough body and tone so I was looking for
something in between and he did a fairly good job. We would go back and forth,
he’d send me different audio clips and I’d say a bit drier or a bit darker.
With the 18 inch ride I wanted to have the shortest decay possible, that you
could really dig into and then it would disappear. I have them for almost 2
years now and I’m really happy with them.
Tom:
What drum kit do you currently use?
The drum-kit from New York, came from a shop called the
Modern Drum shop. The guy who owned it was a great drummer even though I never
heard him play. He played with Sheff Baker and at some point he got into custom
building kits. He was famous for this stack kit which has got hinges on the bass
drum and floor- tom. It sounded really well. It’s an 18 by 16 inch bass drum,
14 inch floor and a 10 inch tom. At that moment I was thinking, I wasn’t really
happy with the tom. I prefer a 12 inch, just for the kind of gigs I’m playing.
They weren’t really cutting it, so I’m going to try and find a 12 inch
somewhere, but otherwise I’m really happy with the kit. I find that the kit
sounds really nice with aquarian modern vintage skins but I have a really hard
time finding them, like the shops don’t sell them and some of the biggest
online music shops don’t have them. I contacted aquarian directly and I’m still
trying to get them but that’s my preference which really works with the kit. Also
the kit is in a slightly older style, it’s about 12 or 13 years old, but that’s
what gives it it’s jazzy bobby sound. I’m using the really cheap Yamaha fold up
pedal because it’s really light weight and it doesn’t have a base and I find it
great and easy to use. I can’t really use the big ones. Jesse (Simpson) also
collects a lot of vintage gear. He has this fascination for buying hardware and
I got him to give me a lot of hardware and I keep all my kit in a bag because
it’s so flexible and that bag has Rogers cymbals. I can fit all the kit and the
hardware in the boot. My stick preference is ProMark.
Tom
: Matthew, you were the Dun Laoghaire- Rathdown County Council inaugural
Musician in Residence. How did that come about?
I was from around that area originally, so I’m on the
arts mailing list and a few people had also forwarded it to me. My parents were
supportive, my dad especially, he looks out for opportunities and he sends me
emails. It’s always nice to have the support. It was just an open call out. It
was unusually open for an obligation like that, especially with Irish Councils’
they would usually be looking for more specific in terms of what they want you
to do. This was basically an open call where you could work on whatever you
wanted to do, for 3-4 months, so I suggested this idea of 4 duos with artists.
I had already been working with some artists and others I wanted to work with. I
said I’d put on concerts at the end with each duo and they went for it. It was
one of the most productive periods in the last 10 years and to have the space
like there, it was a beautiful theatre. I left a drum-kit and some gear there,
it was free. I could go in and use it and put together 4 sets of musicians, 3
of whom were from Cork, such as Linda Buckley, who is a composer and has a Sean
nos singing background, she’s someone I always wanted to work with. It was a
really great period for me and to just have that opportunity. I always
appreciated that time and space I was given. When you don’t get those kinds of
opportunities it’s easy to float. I was talking to the bass player about this
yesterday like when you get busy it’s easy to go from one project to the next
and at no point do you really stop and evaluate what your doing or have the
time and space to be creative and work on your own thing. You start giving a
lot of yourself to everybody else and I think it’s really important to make
sure you keep some for yourself for your own creative energy. It’s easy to get
in a stroll and move from 1 project to the next and all of a sudden you’re in
the last year and you’re like I don’t know what I’ve been doing and when
someone asks you what you did last week and you don’t really know because it’s
like a blur in your head. It’s kind of a pity because I think then you become
less valuable to other people as well. Things can start happening a bit on auto
pilot for me, I never wanted to be like that, I wanted to be present in
everything I do.
Tom:
What’s next on the horizon?
Well I just started a PHD, in the University of Ulster. The
general area is downtown New York music, which is actually their research topic
and it’s kind of what I’ve built most of my musical career on, so that would be
great for me. The subtitle is kind of exploring improvising musical stages, on
small scale compositions, so again kind of what I was talking about earlier
with Jim. The idea of writing music and compositions, for the idea of
improvising, but not in a way to say jazz standards where it’s like the form is
all quite prescribed and where it’s when we play a melody and then we improvise
over them and also not in an improve way where it’s completely free but
somewhere in between which I find is not really discussed about a lot and
hasn’t really been written about. I felt like it would be a good strong topic
for a PHD. So the PHD is performance based, so I have to create a major
portfolio of work in compositions of work and recordings. It doesn’t have to be
a professional quality, like a video clip of a gig or live or private
recordings and then I have to write a 40,000 piece word so we’ll see how that
goes. I only officially started a couple of weeks ago and I haven’t had a huge
amount of time yet but I’ll try and just go up to the campus. I’ll try and get
up there every couple of weeks and have a day or 2 to just be in the library
and be in that situation. When I’m at home in Dublin I find it quite hard to
just sit down and work in it. So that’s
going to take up a lot of time in the next few years and most of music will be
aimed for the PHD which is kind of lucky for me because the PHD is kind of what
I work towards and do anyway. I just have to be focused on it and again make
sure I don’t just float. The PHD is a way for me to be more focused, just even
being slightly more qualitative about things. Sometimes people have a tendency
to do things and forget about them and then go onto the next. So that’s the
plan for the next few years really and I’m still involved with lots of
different projects and they will all feed into it as well.
Tom:
What other projects are you involved in?
I actually came
out of the Dun Laoghaire residence with Insufficient Funs (a drum and bass
saxophone duo) and I’m going to try and book some tours with that. Hopefully,
Laura Hyland and I are going to be releasing an album in the next few months. Also
Umbra, which is Chris Guilfoyle, it’s kind of more of a rocky vibe. I’m going to Australia at the end of the month
with Ronan and Chris Guilfoyle, for a jazz festival and some other concerts. It’s
going to be busy.
Tom:
How do you approach a piece of music for the first time, particularly around
the creative process?
I don’t think
there’s any fixed rule or specific approach or techniques. I mean trying to
interact with the music is my approach. On a musical level I try not to
approach things by just the drums. I don’t know if that makes sense, but I
don’t actually even think that it’s a good thing always. Listening back to my
own playing sometimes I might think I could’ve been more drummy there. I have a
tendency to play through more and provide more colours and textures. I’m
interested in all the parts and think what’s the bass doing, what’s the piano
doing and what’s the sax doing and then also as a drummer who composes music I
find often when I’m playing my own music it’s really clear and I play
everything over in my head. I haven’t really written drum parts for my music
only really everyone else’s parts and then I play off them which I think can be
really good at times. I play on a bunch of projects and the reason they ask me
to be there is because I can provide this more textural approach. It’s more
about colours and dynamics. Dynamics are something particularly important and
for any drummer I feel like it’s completely overlooked. Like you don’t really
practice the dynamics and to me it’s often the difference between playing the
drums and playing the music and the drummer can fall into the habit of playing
just 1 volume or playing to loud or to quiet but the bigger range you have the
better it will sound. Tempos are also really important and creatively it’s
really important to feed the dynamics and tempo into your music.
Tom:
In a band situation do you feel other musicians try and dictate how you play?
The funniest thing happened yesterday actually. We were
rehearsing and the leader had brought some new material. He usually doesn’t say
anything to me specifically because for the part when I play the drums I’m
given a bass part. Anyway I was playing along and he told me he wanted it rocky
and there was another section where he was looking for older jazz style. His
communication wasn’t very clear and I wasn’t really doing what he wanted
because he told me he wanted me to play in a jungle style and I think by that
he meant old jazz style. There was just no solution and I was saying for now,
let me do what was natural to me, or send me a recording or write down how you
want me to play. One of the advantages of being a musician who can read music
is when you’re in these kind of situations, if they want you to do something
specific and they can’t articulate, then they can write it down. It’s easier to
say okay look here is what has been written, I’ll interpret that and it will be
closer to the style you want so yeah at that point reading is really helpful. Often
it’s quite difficult for musicians to articulate what they want the drummer to
do but because a lot of people are playing with the drums all the time it’s
easier for them to get across exactly what they want done. Even just, I want
this to be more dry or have more cymbals, like it’s amazing how many
professional musicians wouldn’t be able to give you that. I think I’m always
open and diplomatic to someone, to give them what they want, especially if it’s
their music.
Tom:
Today, during your performance as part of the Galway Jazz Festival, the trio looked
like you were all really relaxed and enjoying the occasion. As a drummer do you
ever experience stage fright?
I wouldn’t have gotten or get stage fright but I would be
a bit more aware and a bit more conscious if there are particular musicians
that I want to impress, but it’s not a good feeling because I don’t want to be worrying
about what other people are thinking. I just want to be present in the moment,
so I try and avoid that. Playing with Cormac (O’Brien) and Greg (Felton), there
great musicians and I’ve played with them for so long and we’re friends so we
all trust each other and it’d just be comfortable and easy. I’m really enjoying
playing in this project and I don’t really play in projects I don’t like. I get
a lot of people coming up to me and saying “ wow you look like you really
enjoyed yourself” and it’s terrible that people think that I wouldn’t be
enjoying myself or they’re surprised that I actually enjoyed myself. Why aren’t
more musicians just enjoying themselves?
Tom:
Matthew, in your opinion, what makes Irish drummers unique as opposed to drummers
from other countries?
I’m not sure. When I think about all the Irish drummers I
know, I think we are all quite different. I grew up listening to Sean Carpio,
Conor Guilfoyle and Shane O’Donovan and I think we all sound very different,
especially with jazz drummers as we never really had a big scene. So it wasn’t
like Irish drummers had a lot of people to look up to, or to listen to, so I
think we all ended up sounding different because we were like influenced by
different things. Shane O’Donovan is very interested in electronic music so I
think we were all influenced by different things. In other countries, there is
maybe more connecting drummers, so they probably all sound somewhat similar. I
think we are missing the connection but I do think that the drumming scene is
changing and there’s a gap in jazz music because I don’t think it’s very common
here in Ireland.
