1998
M: Percussion is only just beginning to come of age as a social activity for western culture, why do you think this is so?
J. McG: It's because urban people feel that they have lost touch with
mother nature and their own bodies. Western ideology has been so intellectual.
Dance has been so rigidly structured. But contemporary dance and formal and
informal drum circles have begun to introduce free expression which is still
striving to become less intellectual. The concept of "going with the flow" is
an expression of this new found freedom. Drumming is one of the first steps
in releasing this pent up energy. Many people are at an age of being reborn
culturally, while getting in touch with their roots.
M: Why did you become a percussionist?
J. McG: Mostly, it's just to please myself. Because that's what I love
to do, play drums and make noise rhythmically. I've always loved to play drums.
I've always been fascinated with noise. Whenever I see something that is new
to me, beyond taking a glance at it first and foremost I'll hit it to see what
it sounds like. I have always been like that, ever since I was a little kid.
M: You're saying that you are sharing your pleasure in making noise in
a rhythmic way and you would like people to pick up on that feeling.
J. McG: Oh! definitely. For my first CD, Percussive Environments, I needed
a concept for recording. Back then, it was a hard thing to come up with a concept
that was strictly percussion. And part of my concept was to reach the listener
on a deeper level, beyond the sonic level.
M: You started way back before it became a big social thing. What was
your inspiration? Who were your models?
J. McG: When I first started playing percussion I listened to Olatunji,
Mongo Santamaria, Santana, the standards. At that time I was always playing
in rock bands, so my only outlet was to incorporate the traditional African
and Latin rhythms into a non-traditional format, which led me to be more creative
and mix and blend the rhythms to be more of my own thing than a traditional
thang.
M: When did you branch out into percussion?
J. McG: In the early 80's, when I was around 21, I started getting into
percussion. As a matter of fact, in 1980 I was playing with BonJovi, at the
beginning of his career, with his first solo projects. I got axed from those
projects mostly because of my looks. I didn't look the part - I was too tall
and my hair was short. It was an image thing. From there I was listening to
Talking Heads and Peter Gabriel. They were incorporating a lot of percussion.
I'd been listening to Bob Marley and started tapping in more to the percussive
end of the music as opposed to the drum kit. I went to a drum clinic to see
Billy Cobham. He is a jazz/fusion drummer. He played with the Mahavishnu Orchestra,
and Return to Forever, with Chick Corea. He is a monster drummer. I think he
had three snare drums and three kick drums in his kit. Back then I used to go
to see Buddy Rich, Carmine Appice, Simon Phillips and Bill Bruford. But at this
particular clinic they had another clinician opening up, Glen Weber, who ran
the New Jersey School of Percussion. That was my first exposure to percussion.
He played Congas, Bongos, Timbalis, Cuica and a bunch of little toys. I was
very, very intrigued and very excited about it. This was something I had never
been exposed to. He had an ensemble of percussionists with him and they played
Latin and African rhythms. I grew up in an all-white suburb of New Jersey and
I had never seen this before. I was mesmerized because he was taking little
instruments that I had never heard before and some that I had heard on records
but had never seen. Yet, I heard the sound and thought that is how they did
that. Here is this guy making noise in a rhythmic way, which is what I always
wanted to do. After being axed from the BonJovi project I was looking in the
papers and there were tons of drummers available but there were no percussionists
available. I was intrigued by that. The day after I went to that clinic I went
to see Santana and they had the most awesome rhythm section. It was on that
day that I said "that's what I want to do."
I was very excited. I went out and bought a Conga and I studied with Glen Weber
for a little bit. I started playing around town in some bands. Moving to hands-on-skin
was totally different. It really helped me get deep inside myself. Playing a
drum-kit first is really a completely backward approach to drumming. Having
all your limbs doing something completely different is a very complex thing.
The drum set is designed to sound like an ensemble of hand percussionists. It
was originally called the "Trap-set". The idea that they kept adding to the
collection of percussive sounds to create a "contraption". So, going from the
drum-kit/ ensemble sound to a single drum, getting to know and feel that drum,
really effects your body. The resonance of the drum reverberates through your
body and concentrating on one sound creates a trance-like effect. When I first
started playing drum-kit I did exercises - buzz-rolls - on a rubber drum pad
with metal sticks just to build up my muscles in my hands and wrists and arms
and I would do this for half an hour to forty five minutes at a time. This is
how I first started getting into a meditative state. I remember the first time
I felt that I was a little person inside this big body looking out through my
eyes, as if I were inside a control tower -- my head -- watching these hands
moving and that I was controlling it from this little point inside my head.
I went from that to the out-of-body experience where I was above myself looking
down as I played.
M: What were the highlights of this transition?
J. McG: I remember it was very hard to make the transition from drum-kit
to hands on playing. When I first started doing it I used to bang on them and
really beat the shit out of my hands. I had no technique. My first lessons showed
me how to make the "pop" sounds, the "slap" sounds -- all those basic sounds,
without hurting myself. Although there is a period where you get some really
nasty blisters which can be very painful. It took a little time and for the
most part it was hard work. It takes time to relax yourself. The hardest thing
to do, and it took me years to do it, is to relax. Coming from being a "straight-ahead"
rock-n-roll drummer playing loud, heavy music for a long time, that was my energy,
that was the way I played, and taking that into percussion was exciting. It
was exciting to be a heavy percussionist as well. The dancers enjoyed that.
But it takes a toll on your hands and it took a toll on my kidneys, too. I got
to a point where I really wanted to play percussion and there were a lot of
instruments to learn. So, I just had to stop playing the drum-kit in rock bands.
I told people that I don't play the Drum-kit anymore. I play percussion. Back
in New Jersey there were no other percussionists, that I knew. There were no
ensembles, no drum circles, the only opportunity to play was with rock bands.
So, I moved to Los Angeles in 1986 and I played percussion with everybody I
found. Back then the folk scene was having a revival, and the acoustic music
movement was developing, so I got a lot of those gigs. That's when I developed
the nuances of soft playing and explored the dynamics of the sounds.
M: Tell us about "Barney".
J.McG: Barney is the first drum that I made. It was one of the nastiest
experiences I ever had. I bought a book called "How To Make Drums, Rattles and
Tomtoms". And, it suggested going to a local slaughter house where you can get
fresh hides because, the book said, that's the best thing, you don't want to
get anything that is chemically treated. So, we went down town, Los Angeles,
to Vernon, to this section where they had this open warehouse that just had
stacks of pallets loaded with fresh hides that were dripping blood. We walked
through there and it was the most awful smell that I've ever smelled in my life,
flys everywhere, my feet were sticking to the bloody cement floor. They asked
us which one we wanted so we had the pleasure of sorting through some nasty
hides to pick out the one we wanted. We brought it back home and soaked it.
Before we could put it on the frame we had to scrape the flesh off the inside
of the hide, its what they call "fleshing", and that was a regular treat. Then
we stretched the hide and we had to put Nair, a chemical hair remover, on the
outside to take the hair off. I took the hair off one side only so that we could
get two different sounds. And that's it, my favorite drum. It sounds great,
it is an excellent low sounding drum. I use it on all my recordings for getting
the super low end sound. We named it "Barney" because it smells like it should
be in a barn. Since making it, I have found a place in Florida where I can get
all my hides shipped to me through the mail, totally clean, totally without
scent. Its a much easier way of working!
M: You have seen music evolve from 70's rock-n-roll through the 80's
revival of acoustic/unplugged music and the 90's emergence of a new "tribal"
music movement , where drum circles began to become important for amateur players
and professionals alike? Why and how did you get involved in that?
J. McG: This reflects a very basic thing that is within everybody. Everybody
loves to bang on something. This is the approach I take to my own recordings.
In my first recording, "Percussive Environments", I did not want to do something
that was traditional. I didn't want to do a dance record which would have been
the obvious direction to take with percussion. I thought hard and decided that
I wanted to do something for myself, something outside the major record company
trends. At that time I was practicing for hours at a time and really getting
into a meditative state. I found I could alter my state almost instantly through
drumming. So, I thought it would be a good to do some long pieces in hopes that
the person listening could get into the same state. I wanted to see people dancing,
playing along and listening to the rhythms. Just listening to the rhythms will
get you there. It still gets me there.
M: What do you think people achieve in listening to your recordings?
J. McG: I think, in a sense, its a grounding influence. It brings you
right into yourself and it brings you out of yourself, at the same time. When
you really listen to a rhythm you can feel it going through your whole body.
Resounding tones will vibrate certain parts of your body and sometimes you will
feel your heartbeat pulsing in time with the rhythm; An entrainment.
M: Lets get back to your concept for your recordings.
J. McG: Part of the concept was to do long pieces, to inspire the listener
to get into an altered state. Secondly, everybody is moved by the primal nature
of the drum and everybody I've ever known, whether they can carry a tune or
not, when they hear a song they like, they sing, whistle or hum along with it.
I recognized rhythm and voice to be the two most primal elements that are at
the foundation of music. And everybody relates to that on a very basic primal
level. For my first recording, Percussive Environments, I was inspired by Brian
Eno. I had always admired what he had done with his ambient music. That was
an inspiration for me. He was making music that was as listenable to, as it
was ignorable. If you listen to it, there is stuff going on that you can grab
on to and respond to, enjoy or analyze. Yet, if you don't want to listen to
it, it's great background music, great ambient music. And, he is the king of
ambient music. He started the trend before anyone else. That also inspired the
title "Percussive Environments". I wanted to create an environment; it is great
background music, it creates a mood or you can listen to it and go deep into
it. That is what I have done with Soul Dancer as well as Drum Spirit.
M: Tell us more about your experience with drum circles.
J. McG: Rhythm, health and stress-relief are all related. Its pretty
exciting to see people react to drumming and react to each other. Drum circles
are proliferating. I am just guessing, but I think it all started with Micky
Hart and the Grateful Dead concerts. Drum circles are mainly made up of amateur
players. But, if you hang in long enough, it will get to a point where everything
locks in to the rhythm. It always happens. Its the law of entrainment, where
it takes less energy for more forms of energy to perform the same task at the
same time than to go against each other. I read that if you have a room full
of clocks with swinging pendulums, over a period of time, they will all start
swinging together. Say you are at a football game and everybody is clapping.
At some point, without any individual initiating it or starting it, everybody
is clapping together. They are all playing that same rhythm and there is that
power that you feel running through your body. That's what happens at drum circles.
When you get a group of 5, 10, 20 or so people banging on things and even if
they know nothing about what they are doing, in terms of precision drumming,
at some point they are all going to lock in and they are all going to groove.
I've seen it happen with preschool kids. You can give them all percussive instruments
and let them go and in a short time they will all be playing together. It is
one of the laws of nature.
M: What does this new-found popularity that drumming is experiencing
do for you?
J. McG: It's pretty darned exciting. I feel lucky that I have chosen
the path of banging on things to make a living. Its all fallen my way and its
a great thing. I am coming from the standpoint of doing what I like to do and
trying not to think about it too much. Too much thought takes a lot away from
me. It is just a very basic pleasure. When I approached music from an intellectual
standpoint it was not that enjoyable for me. I hated reading music. I felt that
when I let that intellectual part go, and just played from what I felt really
grounded me, I was able to get into a better state, a happier state, a meditative
state. I felt more complete about what I was doing. There was always a tension
around being precise and not letting go. I used to aspire to be an articulate,
proficient drummer and I looked up to the drummers that did that. But, when
I saw these drummers live, I realized that the whole time they are playing they
are thinking about every single note they are playing and not necessarily feeling
every note. Once I discovered what it really feels like to play there was no
comparison. For example, if your having sex , you don't want to be reading a
book about how to do it while you are doing it. That would be very awkward and
quite a different thing than if you just did it. That's how I felt about reading
charts while playing. Complete feeling gives a more true sense of being. Healing.
In certain tribes in Africa the doctors are drummers. They hold drum sessions
and dancing sessions and they see, by the way a person dances, if there is something
not right. They can often tell what it is that is not right with them and they
will go up to them and drum directly to them and intensify the drumming to make
them move and dance the illness out of them.
M: Tell us about your workshops.
J.McG: I have played for healing, meditation, and movement seminars,
where everyone would go for ten hours a day over a three day period. There would
be anywhere from 20 to 50 people in the group and we would begin with ambient
percussion and go on to intense movement over a long period of time where people
would have time to really let go.
This experience totally changed the way I thought of myself and being a drummer.
I realized the power of drumming and where it came from. Drumming is an intregal
part of life for many cultures used to connect, heal, travel, celebrate, mourn
and communicate. I had always only experienced these aspects on a personal level
and some magical moments while performing or jamming with other musicians. I
had never experienced the energy of a group of people feeding off of the energy
of a couple of drummers feeding off of a group of people. The dynamic was incredible
and made me realize how powerful we are and how tuned in we can be. Drumming
is not just for performing and entertaining.
I did my CDs to reach people and get people to experience what I was feeling
from playing.
Jim McGrath is based in Los Angeles where he records with a wide variety of
artists and for film and Television soundtracks.
Contact:
Talking Drum Records 1223 Wilshire Blvd. #503 Santa Monica, CA 90403
Phone: (310) 396-6941 Fax: (310) 396-3941
EMail: talkingdrum@earthlink.net
Website: http://www.talkingdrumrecords.com/
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