How did music get sparked for you?
I spent my childhood and teenage years in Chesapeake, Virginia. My fascination with music all started with my dad's record collection. He has a lot of records. His tastes were in the instrumental R&B world. He was big into the genre of music that unfortunately became known as smooth jazz. It was a generation before that; the soul jazz that was not contrived for commercial use. It was cats playing.
Was that kind of a CTI Records type-vibe?
Yeah, CTI and Creed Taylor, Quincy Jones, those Jazz Crusaders' records, and the Bob James albums. That brings back all my childhood memories; the music that was in the house. I started mimicking what I was hearing on those records, trying to play along with Steve Gadd, Harvey Mason, and all those great drummers. I was loving the sound of their drums on those records. I've always gravitated towards that. My recording career started for me in college. I went to James Madison University, as a percussion performance major, but I decided halfway through my freshman year that I wanted to work more on the media side of music. There was a course called Mass Communications – a blanket term for anything in media. I ended up getting a degree in Mass Comm, but there was an emphasis in Recording and Production. It was the best of both worlds. I got to play the drums and be in the studio, so that's where the fascination started for me of playing in the studio.
Were you working on engineering?
That was part of it. I learned a little bit about engineering, but I was never as interested. I was much more looking at it as a means of creativity. I wanted to figure out enough to put a mic on the drums, record it, and hear myself back. The craft of engineering at that point wasn't as appealing to me as the means to hear myself recorded and create music. But I did study the fundamentals of engineering. I learned a lot. My playing career started to take off around my senior year in college. I met some musicians while playing at Disney [in the All-American College Jazz Band] that led to meeting the great jazz singer Betty Carter. I played with her for a couple of years before her death in '98. Then I spent about four years in Richmond, Virginia, from 1997 to 2001. During that time is when I got into home recording. I had a [Roland] VS-1680 setup at the house. I was doing tracks on my [Akai] MPC2000, which I still have. I had a [Fender] Rhodes [electric piano] and a couple of Korg keyboards. I was making beats and doing home recording. When I was able to save up enough for a day, I'd go to the studio and dump what I'd been working on from my home recording studio setup either onto tape or ADAT. Those were the early, formative stages of the beginning of my career in the studio, not just as a drummer but as a creative in the studio. Things started to take off a little bit more when I moved to New York in 2001. While I was in Virginia, I met Dave Holland, a great bassist, and he said, "Man, I'm gonna move to New York. I want to play with you." A year or so after I moved, I started playing with his quintet. We made a record [Critical Mass] that was my first big studio record [with the Dave Holland Quintet]. That was at Avatar Studios [now Power Station at BerkleeNYC] in New York. I had done other smaller sessions, but this was my first "holy shit" moment, where I realized how big a deal it was. James Farber [Tape Op #114] was engineering. He had a long-standing relationship with Dave and did all Dave's records. He's a legend. I think we were in the studio three days, and we did Critical Mass in those three days.
How do you prep for sessions?
That's a great question. I had to learn quick with Dave. So much of it is getting your own sound on your own kit, using your own drums. I had a kit I loved in Virginia, and unfortunately about six months before I moved to New York it got stolen. Drums, cymbals; all of it. I ended up adapting quickly to this idea of playing different drums at different studios and making it sound like me. I had to get good at that. When I got to New York and we had a budget and resources, it was like, "Okay, I want to use this kit." I got there early and tuned. I was so excited about that record that I wanted to make sure everything was right. I've learned to make that process a lot simpler for myself. I think so much of it starts with the drummer and the hands. That's the main thing. Touch is so huge. On many of the records I've played, I show up and play other peoples' drums, and they're set up in a certain way. But I still find a way to tweak it or play it that makes it sound like me. When I do have the time, budget, and resources, I take my kit. I play my Ludwig drums; I take in a couple snares, and I'll have my guy show up early with my drums. We're cutting within an hour or less of me being there. That's a sign of someone who's done it a lot. I try to show up and be as prepared as I can, musically. I let the engineers who are the geniuses of that do their job.
It's important to be able to walk in and get to work.
Oh, yeah. It's hugely important. This record [Jaime, Tape Op #133] I did with Brittany Howard, the engineer Shawn Everett [#115] is a whiz. He has this brilliant mind, and he thinks about music in these huge, picturesque terms. I would show up to the studio and Brittany would play the demo for me and Shawn. I'd be learning the drum part. Shawn would listen to the sound and say, "Okay, man. I've got an idea. I've got something that's gonna sound sick. Give me a little while." What I learned was "a little while" was two hours, right?
Right.
I'd go get a coffee and wait for Brittany to text me or whatever and say, "We're ready." Shawn had these outlandish set ups. That's one approach. On the other tip, there's The Fearless Flyers, where I show up and there's this little frame drum that has a big pillow and two cinder blocks in it to keep it from moving. There was also this old [Ludwig] Supraphonic snare with a RootsEQ baffle on it, and a dusty pair of hi-hats. It's like, "Show up and play this." So, 20 minutes after we show up, we're playing and recording. We're doing takes. Different projects call for different approaches, but if I have my druthers I do prefer to show up and play. Get in and get to it. If we need to make adjustments, we can do that, but I'm keen to get in and strike while the energy is hot. It's so different for every project and every engineer.
What's your approach going into a session, knowing that it's going to be different?
I walk into the door trying to be as open as I can about the music, not walking in with any preconceived ideas. If I'm showing up as a sideman for somebody, then I'm showing up to help fulfill their vision. I can bring my own ideas to it, but most of the time I'm showing up to play the part. Making sure I feel good, my hands feel good, I'm warm, I've had my coffee, and I'm alert. I'm open to new parts, listening to the demos, and taking it all in. So much of it revolves around being willing to take direction from musicians who have a specific vision. That's the main thing I take into the studio. I'm listening way more than I'm playing. Even when we're doing takes, I might be playing a part, but I'm listening so hard to everything else. I'm trying to figure out where my drums fit in a record and where it's helping, because it's all playing in service to the music. When I do these sessions with Dave Cobb [Tape Op #122] at RCA [Studio A, in Nashville], I'll show up and he's already got the drums set up. He knows how to tweak those sounds. He's like, "I'm going for a [Steve] Gadd-something today," or, "I want a Quincy Jones/Michael Jackson thing." He's got preconceived ideas he wants me to dive into, and I can dig into that bag because that's the music I grew up listening to. I feel I have this library of ideas in my head I can draw from when needed.
