Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I started drumming around the same time I came across this part of American history. But there seemed to be a way forward playing drums. There didn't seem to be a way forward being fascinated by a piece of history.
You need to have spent your time from playing Top 40 pop rock in order to know how to play a song like 'Ritual,' a song like 'Absolution' or 'Idolatrine.' You need to know your classic drumming and your classic guitar.
Everybody is always raving about the Rolling Stones, saying, 'The Stones this, and the Stones that.' I've never cared for the Stones. They never had anything to offer me musically, especially in the drumming department.
In 2007, I studied with Peter Erskine because I was doing a Buddy Rich tribute concert, and I wanted to take my big-band drumming up a level. I went over to Peter's house with my sticks, feeling like a 13-year-old again.
According to my parents, I just started drumming when I was two. I traveled with them from five to seven on the road, playing percussion. Between 8 and 12, my dad sort of prepared me by teaching me every aspect of road life.
In the early '70s [the late] Ras Shorty and I took Indian dholak drumming [from chutney music, another Indo-Trinidadian creation], fused it with calypso's African rhythms, and soca was born against the wishes of the purists.
When I first started drumming, when I was 14 or 15, I started writing songs. I wrote for a couple of years, but when we started 'Radiohead' it became very apparent quite quickly that I just wanted to concentrate on the drumming.
I have to have the reasons to make the record. There are just too many records out there, especially when it's something as audacious as a solo percussion record with solo drumming music on it. There better be a reason behind it.
I miss the physicality of drumming. There's immediateness about it that I'm always striving for in my acting. Maybe I'm in the wrong profession. I certainly wish I could spend more time pursuing music. It feels like a part of me I'm neglecting.
Egyptian drumming happens to be a favorite of mine. It's a really simple instrument, but it's really difficult to play. You can take it anywhere with you - you can play it in your room, in an airport. It's very quiet, so you explore the quiet side.
With the Neal Morse Band, we're doing progressive music with a harder edge; it's a little more in Dream Theater territory for me. Flying Colors is a little more poppy, it's more Radiohead, Muse, and Coldplay territory, so I approach that drumming in a different way.
Because drumming was recognized as an ancient source and symbol of the power of female technicians of the sacred, drumming was banned. Henceforth divinity was to be exclusively masculine. The suppression of women was directly linked to the suppression of the goddess.
It was actually drumming that gave me the stamina to get into sports later. I started playing drums at 13, and when I got to the international touring level... I got interested in cross-country skiing, long-distance swimming, bicycling... things that require stamina, not finesse.
When you're writing, you're only a brain and some fingers, but drumming, you're involving all four limbs, and you're hearing stuff and you're converting your ideas into physical motions, getting physical feedback from things you are touching - it's pretty cool. It's a really a nice contrast to writing.
