Gary Husband - Drummer and Keyboardist Sounding Off Interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6UoYEuPxqQ

Allan related quotes

• • RB:** One of the many crazy stories. When you would play with Alan and be working on songs on some of the early records—well, I guess on any of the records—when he'd bring in a song to you, how would you guys learn a song? I asked this to Steve Hunt, and I asked it to Jeff Berlin too, and it was fascinating that... would Alan just sit down and say, "Here's what I have"? Would he have a demo with a simple drum part?

• • GH:** Yeah, he'd sit down. Reluctantly, this is a very separate animal we're talking about here. And a little hard for me to even talk about him at the moment, but...

• • RB:** But that's okay, that's fine.

• • GH:** What he would... yeah. What he would bring, particularly in the earliest, my earliest memories, was what he usually... if anything, he'd give me a recording in advance on a cassette of basically him in the front room with like a live mic and just a foot tap.

Now, conceptually integral to Alan's music, there was often little rubatos inherent in pieces, where it would be a slight little time-stretch to certain phrases or the pause for marked straight after phrases. And I picked up on this right away. And, of course, the foot tap corresponded to the next one.

Subsequently, he would always explain to people—and people would think, "Oh, it's just Alan being Alan, you know"—and they'd say, "What kind of time signatures are being used there?" you know? And he'd say, "Well, everything's in one." And they'd go, "Oh, that's it's... that's Alan being Alan." But you know what? That's actually how he heard it. He heard beat one as the first one that began as a kind of recapitulation to the first, to the original tempo. So there'd be a kind of slight pause or a slight little rush, you know, a slight little... accelerando, yeah, into a phrase, and then it'd smooth out and become the tempo again. And at that point was the one for him. Interesting, huh?

• • RB:** Very interesting. Would you... so would you, when you're creating your parts and you're incorporating these things, sometimes there would be an extra beat or one less beat, which would turn into odd times, or would you not even think that way?

• • GH:** Well, no, I wouldn't even... actually, I wouldn't even think it. I just feel it, because I was aware that it was something you couldn't put in a grid. Whereas some musicians are very frustrated with... I don't know why, a little uncomfortable with the prospect of trying to conceive the feeling or perceive the feeling of a phrase that isn't in some kind of grid-like tempo that you can actually work out in a series of 16th notes or 32nd notes for instance, and write out, you know, for instance. But for me, it was just enough to feel it.

And the one of the many close things that I feel that we had together was this... it felt totally natural to me to have a little rubato and this little thing, a little... ritardando just to that little bit, and then a quick little acceleration—accelerando, sorry, excuse me—into what became beat one of the continuing next section, you know, back into tempo, so to speak. So, you know, to actually pull these and to interpret them on the drums, why not?

So, being a boat [bad] musician, isn't it just about a musician? And to a large degree, being very improvisational in the realization of it, the execution of the idea and what you do in it. So I could play little things that were similarly out of tempo, but they would have a kind of corresponding thing of when we'd come together again. And this stuff, to a very large, incredibly large degree, was unspoken between us.

Oh, this is the kind of thing that makes you realize this was closer than anything I could ever possibly know again, you know. Sure, no words necessary. Yeah, you just play it, and it got stretched, so... oh, yeah, that's stretched. If you listen to "The Things You See," for instance... sorry, "The Things You See," yeah, that's... that's his song. You hear you know right, you hear where they placed... yeah. Okay, yeah, that's from many years of knowing exactly where he instinctively puts those accents. And you can't write them; you just have to feel them.

• • RB:** And click track? Never?

• • GH:** Not really, never, right. So it was like you say—and I've said on your many very interesting and enlightening interviews, Rick—that he really did have a like a contemporary kind of classical, at least, influence. You know, he had a whole kind of realization of of that side of music, at least what he heard. And as as big a separatist as he was and as unique as he was, he had his influences. I mean, you go back to Sand... you remember the track "Sand"? I'm not sure if... you can call it that. There's like a chorus to it, right? It's Elgar! It's Enigma Variations.

• • RB:** Yeah, unbelievable, huh?

• • GH:** I say it's... he was a rock musician that was an improviser, like John Coltrane, who played over contemporary classical music. Yeah, that's the only... it was a melding of styles that had never been seen before. And I don't know if it will ever be seen in that way again. It was so... it's so unique.

And I think the part that gets lost to people is the... I mean, people realize the harmonic complexities and beauty in his music, but there's also the rhythmic aspect of it and the jazz element to it, the improvisational element to it. And how sophisticated it was just to improvise over those types of chord progressions that he used. And the tempo variations like you're talking about is very much like contemporary classical music, like an orchestra with the ebbs and flows of of the beat. Try and find somebody to conduct it, right? That was you.

• • RB:** Well, I like... I would commend myself on on the nights that we that we came close. Not always, because, you know, he would be changeable and so would I. But if we could get near this rubato element in the music, I am aware that it used to come... that was the one of the big elements that used to confound a lot of people. Like, "What time is that?" Well, it's just felt. It's just a pause, it's just little time expansion and little time compression, or whatever. That's what it was.

On a practical level, since I never walked into a recording studio, I don't think, until the late '80s or so... when you were making records back then, how would it go when you made *IOU*? That was the first record that you played on with him, isn't that right? When you're making the record, would you do a rhythm track with the whole band playing live? How did you make records back then?

• • GH:** Actually, that was surprisingly... that was probably the only one of the only records where we did that features the largest degree of material actually was live. His amps were in actually sort of the front of this floating barge, actually quite close to where I live now—I often go there and look at it. And he actually kept a surprising amount of material that happened of the moment on the sessions. He had... at that point he was using these Hartley Thompson cabinets and was very happy with the sound at that point in time. And he actually kept a lot of what happened. That's amazing.

I have a stark memory of only on *IOU*—there was not a single one that followed where he'd do that. But we had actually been playing for around at least two years, maybe more, before that album became recording... no, what am I talking about? A year maybe, 14 months, something like that, before that album came about, you know, was recorded. And it was actually recorded in sort of 1980.

It wasn't until 1982 when we had to escape this country—we couldn't work here, and when we did work we couldn't get paid. That's why the band was called *IOU*. And, you know, we were just so used to this meager existence with... it was the most precious jewel to each each one of us, this whole thing. And yet it was totally unremarkable to just about everybody, unfortunately, you know.

And we even had a little anecdote: we played at a place called The Rock Garden, which used to exist in Covent Garden here in London. And it was basically a rock venue, right? And we'd gone on and started playing our first tune, and the promoter for the gig, or the club owner, or whatever, or the front of house engineer, came running on stage going like, "Stop, stop!" And when we... like, what? He got us to stop, and he said, "Guys, do you not realize the guys... the people are in..." We thought we were just warming up or playing some random... anyway, so much for perception, no. Jeez, yeah. So it's not until we came to America in 1982 that that album became known to people, because we were able to just press up vinyl copies and sell them at the shows.

---

• • GH:** And I learned this from Alan, too, despite the complexity of his expression. It was really remarkable to become aware of that way of playing so early in my life, you know. And just going back to him, he was the original guy that kind of set me free really as an improviser, and made it possible for me to start improvising and developing as an improviser. He really had... he really, beyond his technical abilities, his ability to shape one note, it was amazing.

And it didn't matter... it always impressed me that Alan would change equipment every record. He'd be playing some new rig, and it'd always sound like him—always.

• • RB:** Always in the hands.

• • GH:** Obsessive, yeah, completely. And I was thinking, "How can you get this sound out of all these different... all this different gear?" It always sounds like Alan. It was unbelievable. But his conception of tone and how to shape a note, how to shape a phrase, was so unique.

And yeah, it's... it's all through him. I also learned how to shape what you do directly in a personal way and to have... like he would say things like, "You... if you can see a road, you form that road, you further it, and you keep going down it like... doesn't matter what... it doesn't matter if nobody likes it, you know, doesn't matter what one person says, it's not relevant. If you believe that, you go that way." You know?

And I knew that he was the kind of man he was, intrinsically loving, you know. And he'd... he loved and suffered very violently. He was a... of drastic humongous emotional extremes and complexities. And this very much shaped what he did: was he wanted one note to say it all. And he couldn't help but put it where he so acutely and raw, and in a raw sense, felt it.

And it was all about feeling for him, despite how convoluted and how complex his phrases and improvisational developments are, both on paper and to listen to. You always knew this, always, you know. It was always what that note was meant to say, you know. And these are things I'll carry forever, you know, in his legacy. Glorious legacy.

---

• • GH:** CDs. Funny, the records with Alan, the subsequent records to *IOU*... they were all... we had a... there was a studio in Costa Mesa called Front Page, and a lot of those albums were done there on an absolute shoestring. And Alan would give me these little demos the day before and we'd go to Charlie's Chili place and listen to them. And in that morning during the setup, I'd be, as he wished me to do, I'd create kind of a beat. What can you do? What can you do with that? What can you do with that to... so... and I would I would just relish meeting that challenge, you know. He... it was so... it was just a like, "Please be creative with this, find something to do on it."

And so as a result, I was able to really stretch imagination and come up with something that was kind of a little bit like a counter-composition to where he'd do things. And that's where a lot of those beats came from. And they'd literally be invented in the morning of the session, wow. And yeah, as was the sound, I mean we spent what, 10 minutes, 15 minutes getting a sound max. So you know, the drums just go in, set up, then the tune down, play first... and everything on those records is like first, second, very outside, maybe third take, some of something.

So, but what's in all, I'm... I'm proud of the creative process, but majorly just to say this: this was all tape, you know, up until I think it was *Wardenclyffe Tower* was the first... so we're well into the '80s now. This is like late around... can't remember if that came after *Secrets* or not, I think it did. But from that point, yeah, I remember it was DDD all the way.

Full transcript

• • RB:** Everybody, welcome to Sounding Off. Today's guest is multi-instrumentalist Gary Husband. He is known as a drummer from many, many records, and he's also known as a pianist and keyboardist. And it's very unusual to find somebody that is on the top level of both instruments, or of multiple instruments, which we're going to talk about today a lot. So, welcome, Gary.

• • GH:** Thank you, Rick, for the introduction, although it sounds like you're talking about somebody else.

• • RB:** Absolutely not. Speaking of that, when you started—I imagine you started with classical piano lessons, probably, right?

• • GH:** Yeah, yeah, I did. But reluctantly, because I was being introduced to big-band music on a regular basis, because my dad was a part of a BBC staff orchestra in the north of England, where I come from. And they were called the Northern Dance Orchestra. And this was like my induction into sort of session protocol, you know—recording situation, studio protocol. You know, when that light goes on, you don't make a sound, you don't even move in your chair. And I got introduced to the whole realm that was there—there were 16 or 17 guys, musicians, all performing at the same time, together, going for a take. And it was usually immaculate, you know. And it's quite something to come from that and see what you see in modern times. But...

• • RB:** Oh yeah, nowadays, you know, you don't ever have to play it right.

• • GH:** No, no, unfortunately for music, that is.

• • RB:** I know. Well, you have Pro Tools, don't you?

• • GH:** Well, uh, yeah. Um, another world.

• • RB:** Did your dad bring you to sessions all the time?

• • GH:** Yeah, I pretty much got raised watching and being a part of that momentary thing that was the thing of recording and making broadcasts, you know, that they were doing at that time. And paralleling that, I was getting introduced to what I thought, in the sort of late '60s and early '70s, is being commonplace electric music. Now, I was listening to Tony Williams Lifetime, thinking this was commonplace creative electric music, you know, contemporary stuff—this is what it is, having no awareness of the fact that this was actually something once in a lifetime, so to speak. And that that was actually changing music at that time.

Apart from this, there were lots of alternative influences in music, you know, and diverse influences of music that were permeating my whole perception of everything that meant something to me. And really, the crux of it was, if it means something and it speaks to me, then it's got to be worth something; it is a valuable jewel. And this would be my kind of the art style along with a lot of classical music.

But when I started with classical piano, I became exposed to this world of vengeance and competition, you know, and insistence that, you know, you have to be concert-platform pianist potential, so that I could somehow enter a competition and compete against other students and all this—which was like, what is that? But at the same time, with my wise father's insistence, classical piano technique is secondary to nothing. Yes, if he said it, it was true, you know, as far as I was concerned.

And I quickly became aware of that, that when you spend months on end playing a scale and crushing your thumb underneath your middle finger—your second finger—to go to the F, but your palm doesn't move because there's a coin on it... and if you go to the next lesson and you can't do this little transition with your thumb underneath without that coin falling off, you get hit in the back of the hand with a cane. Hey, hey! Old-days school of piano! I mean, it was something. And, you know, this was sheer patry [peasantry], I have to tell you. But the music never stopped affecting me, and that was always the winner.

• • RB:** So when was the transition to drums, then, after the classical piano lessons?

• • GH:** The transition to drums was brought about through a necessity to break free of this world of classical nness [strictness]. And, you know, I have to say, nothing of this should reflect badly on the teacher, actually. Should be a very highly thought of teacher, and still is apparently. Master classical piano technique, I should say, because this was the overriding value. And what it gave me—spending months and months and months playing a scale at tempo—was like this simultaneously, you know, right. And months, man, it's enough to drive you insane!

But something takes place that I've realized, in that there was a some kind of Zen-like thing that took over through playing something that slowly. I began to realize this almost unbelievable experience of unlimited strength and power, as if that I could go outside and lift a car. And it was kind of brought about by this—not retention, but what you'd build up in reserve through playing something that slowly for that long. So I was a very, very kind of early induction into spirituality, if you like, almost, you know. Sure, very Zen-like.

To cut a long story short, it's the technique that stayed with me, kind of. And it's a good job, because I don't have an instrument in the house, so it's something I can keep refreshing, refreshing, and refreshing, and keep intact throughout—even though years of drumming have changed what was once a very good technique into something manageable. But as long as I can get some kind of message...

• • RB:** How much did your playing of a chord-form instrument inform you on things like drum tuning?

• • GH:** I think drum tuning came about, and the kind of tuning I prefer... You remember Stewart Copeland of the police, right?

• • RB:** Yeah, of course.

• • GH:** If you listen to IOU and you listen to that first tom—my 12x8 Gretsch, beautiful drum kit, that tom—you'll hear that it's pretty much cranked up. And I'm playing a combination of head and rim, so I'm doing like a rimshot on that thing to make it really, you know, it's got a pop to it, too, being a Gretsch drum. It's got such a... and with a drum of that standard and of that character, somehow when you hit it in a certain way, you can get so much from it. So that was Stewart right there, you know, for instance.

And actually, that was the drum on the kit that followed on subsequent recordings with Alan. I had a slightly larger set from Tama, which featured the smallest tom—I think it was a 10, no, a 12, I think—but it was really cranked, so it was almost like a timbale, you know, for the drums. You know what I'm talking about? It's like almost higher tuning tension-wise than the snare drum, even.

And Alan used to call this the Fred drum. And if you realize the story behind it... you remember, of course, The Flintstones, sure, from our generation—you know, when Fred Flintstone used to start running and Barney Rubble next to him, you know, there was this sound, you know? So there was this kind of sonority to the way I used to crank that drum. And so this became known as the "Fred Flintstone drum," particularly if you play kind of fast figures on it and stuff. It always had that association.

• • RB:** One of the many crazy stories. When you would play with Alan and be working on songs on some of the early records—well, I guess on any of the records—when he'd bring in a song to you, how would you guys learn a song? I asked this to Steve Hunt, and I asked it to Jeff Berlin too, and it was fascinating that... would Alan just sit down and say, "Here's what I have"? Would he have a demo with a simple drum part?

• • GH:** Yeah, he'd sit down. Reluctantly, this is a very separate animal we're talking about here. And a little hard for me to even talk about him at the moment, but...

• • RB:** But that's okay, that's fine.

• • GH:** What he would... yeah. What he would bring, particularly in the earliest, my earliest memories, was what he usually... if anything, he'd give me a recording in advance on a cassette of basically him in the front room with like a live mic and just a foot tap.

Now, conceptually integral to Alan's music, there was often little rubatos inherent in pieces, where it would be a slight little time-stretch to certain phrases or the pause for marked straight after phrases. And I picked up on this right away. And, of course, the foot tap corresponded to the next one.

Subsequently, he would always explain to people—and people would think, "Oh, it's just Alan being Alan, you know"—and they'd say, "What kind of time signatures are being used there?" you know? And he'd say, "Well, everything's in one." And they'd go, "Oh, that's it's... that's Alan being Alan." But you know what? That's actually how he heard it. He heard beat one as the first one that began as a kind of recapitulation to the first, to the original tempo. So there'd be a kind of slight pause or a slight little rush, you know, a slight little... accelerando, yeah, into a phrase, and then it'd smooth out and become the tempo again. And at that point was the one for him. Interesting, huh?

• • RB:** Very interesting. Would you... so would you, when you're creating your parts and you're incorporating these things, sometimes there would be an extra beat or one less beat, which would turn into odd times, or would you not even think that way?

• • GH:** Well, no, I wouldn't even... actually, I wouldn't even think it. I just feel it, because I was aware that it was something you couldn't put in a grid. Whereas some musicians are very frustrated with... I don't know why, a little uncomfortable with the prospect of trying to conceive the feeling or perceive the feeling of a phrase that isn't in some kind of grid-like tempo that you can actually work out in a series of 16th notes or 32nd notes for instance, and write out, you know, for instance. But for me, it was just enough to feel it.

And the one of the many close things that I feel that we had together was this... it felt totally natural to me to have a little rubato and this little thing, a little... ritardando just to that little bit, and then a quick little acceleration—accelerando, sorry, excuse me—into what became beat one of the continuing next section, you know, back into tempo, so to speak. So, you know, to actually pull these and to interpret them on the drums, why not?

So, being a boat [bad] musician, isn't it just about a musician? And to a large degree, being very improvisational in the realization of it, the execution of the idea and what you do in it. So I could play little things that were similarly out of tempo, but they would have a kind of corresponding thing of when we'd come together again. And this stuff, to a very large, incredibly large degree, was unspoken between us.

Oh, this is the kind of thing that makes you realize this was closer than anything I could ever possibly know again, you know. Sure, no words necessary. Yeah, you just play it, and it got stretched, so... oh, yeah, that's stretched. If you listen to "The Things You See," for instance... sorry, "The Things You See," yeah, that's... that's his song. You hear you know right, you hear where they placed... yeah. Okay, yeah, that's from many years of knowing exactly where he instinctively puts those accents. And you can't write them; you just have to feel them.

• • RB:** And click track? Never?

• • GH:** Not really, never, right. So it was like you say—and I've said on your many very interesting and enlightening interviews, Rick—that he really did have a like a contemporary kind of classical, at least, influence. You know, he had a whole kind of realization of of that side of music, at least what he heard. And as as big a separatist as he was and as unique as he was, he had his influences. I mean, you go back to Sand... you remember the track "Sand"? I'm not sure if... you can call it that. There's like a chorus to it, right? It's Elgar! It's Enigma Variations.

• • RB:** Yeah, unbelievable, huh?

• • GH:** I say it's... he was a rock musician that was an improviser, like John Coltrane, who played over contemporary classical music. Yeah, that's the only... it was a melding of styles that had never been seen before. And I don't know if it will ever be seen in that way again. It was so... it's so unique.

And I think the part that gets lost to people is the... I mean, people realize the harmonic complexities and beauty in his music, but there's also the rhythmic aspect of it and the jazz element to it, the improvisational element to it. And how sophisticated it was just to improvise over those types of chord progressions that he used. And the tempo variations like you're talking about is very much like contemporary classical music, like an orchestra with the ebbs and flows of of the beat. Try and find somebody to conduct it, right? That was you.

• • RB:** Well, I like... I would commend myself on on the nights that we that we came close. Not always, because, you know, he would be changeable and so would I. But if we could get near this rubato element in the music, I am aware that it used to come... that was the one of the big elements that used to confound a lot of people. Like, "What time is that?" Well, it's just felt. It's just a pause, it's just little time expansion and little time compression, or whatever. That's what it was.

On a practical level, since I never walked into a recording studio, I don't think, until the late '80s or so... when you were making records back then, how would it go when you made *IOU*? That was the first record that you played on with him, isn't that right? When you're making the record, would you do a rhythm track with the whole band playing live? How did you make records back then?

• • GH:** Actually, that was surprisingly... that was probably the only one of the only records where we did that features the largest degree of material actually was live. His amps were in actually sort of the front of this floating barge, actually quite close to where I live now—I often go there and look at it. And he actually kept a surprising amount of material that happened of the moment on the sessions. He had... at that point he was using these Hartley Thompson cabinets and was very happy with the sound at that point in time. And he actually kept a lot of what happened. That's amazing.

I have a stark memory of only on *IOU*—there was not a single one that followed where he'd do that. But we had actually been playing for around at least two years, maybe more, before that album became recording... no, what am I talking about? A year maybe, 14 months, something like that, before that album came about, you know, was recorded. And it was actually recorded in sort of 1980.

It wasn't until 1982 when we had to escape this country—we couldn't work here, and when we did work we couldn't get paid. That's why the band was called *IOU*. And, you know, we were just so used to this meager existence with... it was the most precious jewel to each each one of us, this whole thing. And yet it was totally unremarkable to just about everybody, unfortunately, you know.

And we even had a little anecdote: we played at a place called The Rock Garden, which used to exist in Covent Garden here in London. And it was basically a rock venue, right? And we'd gone on and started playing our first tune, and the promoter for the gig, or the club owner, or whatever, or the front of house engineer, came running on stage going like, "Stop, stop!" And when we... like, what? He got us to stop, and he said, "Guys, do you not realize the guys... the people are in..." We thought we were just warming up or playing some random... anyway, so much for perception, no. Jeez, yeah. So it's not until we came to America in 1982 that that album became known to people, because we were able to just press up vinyl copies and sell them at the shows.

• • RB:** What about the state of music, that is art music like that—that sophisticated music? Where... where are we now in 2017 versus where we were in 1982?

• • GH:** That's a good question. Deserves a good answer. But we're in a different place, for sure. I think... I kind of have my own feelings on it, personal feelings.

• • RB:** That's what I want to know about.

• • GH:** What I hear predominantly in just about everybody—and I think it's a lot to do with... it corresponds directly to the times we're in and the mediums that we use and are exposed to every day—is that I see the most unbelievable proficiency that I could ever conceive seeing. Unbelievable! I mean, I can't believe the proficiency of people: how fast they can play, what they can master, what they can... drummers, like, of speed that I never thought possible. But there's a whole lot I'm missing, Rick.

You know, and I know it sounds like a very old-school thing to say. I'm seeing a lot in in recent days my name associated with this term "old school"—"Oh, that old-school guy." Oh, really? When did I become that? You know, that's kind of interesting, that's a good thing. But... and when the whole thing was you sit in a room with the lights off and listen to Stravinsky's *Mass*, or whatever it might be, or Bach quartz [quartets], string quartz, whatever... and you have this emotion coming out of you, like being moved to tears literally by music like that, as powerful as that... that's pretty much my yardstick, Rick. And I kind of sense that in you, too. From what I know of you and your achievements and the stuff that you've... amazing stuff that you're doing.

• • RB:** I know. So... I mean, the two references that you just made say it all, huh? I mean, that's... that says it all. I mean, well, Bach was... Bach was an old friend since... probably not in their wisdom, I got sent away with these sort of first, you know, early level *Mikrokosmos* series, which were unbelievable for, as you know, of course, your independence.

So these were unbelievable exercises for that. But more... more resonating to me was this introduction into bitonality, that they were definitely in there, yeah. And they were haunting me, man. I mean, I was like, "How can that be?" you know? I was just waiting for some professor, musicologist to say, "Oh, sorry, that's a false relation, can't use that," you know, whatever else. All these things that I'd become exposed to in terms of education. And suddenly I was engrossed in the wild universe of Mr. Bach. It's quite something.

So I don't know where we were with that, but I think that basically every experience you go through stays with you, particularly and simultaneously, and along with that, every musical experience stays with you and becomes somehow part of what you do.

For example, in my case, I was playing in a big band at age 16, playing drums. And there were a lot of balances to meet with that overall level. There was no PA in the kind of scale we had then, no monitors, very often no... bass and the piano even wasn't even being fed through any kind of PA, you know. And these people needed to be able to project on a piano.

You read Bach stories about this and how he managed to find a way to project without hitting hard. It was a particular kind of thing that he had to cultivate. And he did it along with lots of other people of the eras before and in that era.

But with drums, you know, you have lead trumpet players right here just behind you. So for a drummer, this is extraordinary. You got lead trumpet players and they usually pretty feisty characters, you know, right? Since you play how you are, invariably I do believe these guys nine times out of 10 ahead of the beat, whatever. There's something in... particularly lead trumpet. And you've got this first and foremost in your ear.

Down here to your front left, you have like a trombone section where there's a kind of lazy attack on those. And invariably those hit the back of the hall and you hear that really late. The same with the saxophones, but not so distinct. And it's basically you in the bass, like, "Okay, what I have to realize here is I have to center this music. I have to play in the center of it so that all these people somehow use me as the same reference point."

And that's kind of what I had to learn. And I learned that through recording, of course, through listening to all the great drummers, which I did relentlessly. I know you've done a video on listening—very enlightening, Rick—and how how important it is. So this was a real great original exercise.

But going back to what I was saying, the attack of what I was doing had to be clear and precise. And I remember having to kind of cultivate a way to be able to play in a way that was authoritative first and foremost. This is the authority, you know. Even if I'm wrong, I am the center of this and you play with me, you know. Not easy for a 16-year-old, you know.

• • RB:** No.

• • GH:** "Is this kid on drums? I mean, what the..." I said, "I don't care. I've got the gig. You play with me, or whatever, but I'm going to find this and you're going to play to me, sorry."

And really becoming aware that you had to have that kind of conviction as a drummer. So this is one of the first things I learned. And that stayed with me, same as every other experience and demand and and other every other thing I had to cultivate along the way. They stay with you. And I'm so happy, because I feel so enriched and of course benefited by all these marvelous lessons, and to have learned them firsthand in in that way, you know.

• • RB:** You know, from the people that I've interviewed, I believe it was Victor Wooten that said a similar thing—a lot of people have said similar things about... you'll see young kids on YouTube playing these things that they never thought possible. But what they don't have, what they can never take... they could copy a person's playing, but they can never copy their life experience. And that's really what makes you who you are as a musician. It doesn't matter how fast you can play or how... you know, these unbelievable feats of technical prowess that kids have, yeah. These experiences of playing in a big band at 16, or listening to the Bartók string quartets—all these experiences that you had, and of listening to really eclectic music, this huge variety of music early on in your life, has shaped everything that you've done in your musical career, I believe so.

• • GH:** Yeah, yeah, for the better, for the better. Yeah. And you know, simultaneously your perception... you don't have to read Huxley books on philosophy books or books on perception or whatever to realize how beneficial it is to really embrace such a wide range of music.

And if you like it... I mean, I have to keep going back, you know, to these really early lessons, but my father was predominantly a classical musician with a great love of jazz. But he didn't have the improv... he couldn't commit to one idea solo. So I used to write solos for him—some good, some okay, you know—and, but he'd play them, you know, verbatim, note for note. That's a great blessing.

And my mother, who's still with us, happy to say, was a fantastic dancer and stuff. So she had all this exuberance. So I would get to hear on a regular basis singers, great singers, though, among which my favorites would be... I don't know if you remember names like Lena Horne?

• • RB:** Of course.

• • GH:** Electrifying singer! Oh, God, she... the hairs on my back, ah! The emotion and the commitment in what she did, what was behind that voice, oh my God. Of course, Frank Sinatra. A lot of Frank Sinatra. And through all these great singers—and I still hear great singers—was the realization and a very early lesson for me that every note counts. Every single note. Where you put it, how much you emphasize it, how much you might ghost it, or you know, proclaim it in some kind of way... every single note and how you shape it matters.

And I learned this from Alan, too, despite the complexity of his expression. It was really remarkable to become aware of that way of playing so early in my life, you know. And just going back to him, he was the original guy that kind of set me free really as an improviser, and made it possible for me to start improvising and developing as an improviser. He really had... he really, beyond his technical abilities, his ability to shape one note, it was amazing.

And it didn't matter... it always impressed me that Alan would change equipment every record. He'd be playing some new rig, and it'd always sound like him—always.

• • RB:** Always in the hands.

• • GH:** Obsessive, yeah, completely. And I was thinking, "How can you get this sound out of all these different... all this different gear?" It always sounds like Alan. It was unbelievable. But his conception of tone and how to shape a note, how to shape a phrase, was so unique.

And yeah, it's... it's all through him. I also learned how to shape what you do directly in a personal way and to have... like he would say things like, "You... if you can see a road, you form that road, you further it, and you keep going down it like... doesn't matter what... it doesn't matter if nobody likes it, you know, doesn't matter what one person says, it's not relevant. If you believe that, you go that way." You know?

And I knew that he was the kind of man he was, intrinsically loving, you know. And he'd... he loved and suffered very violently. He was a... of drastic humongous emotional extremes and complexities. And this very much shaped what he did: was he wanted one note to say it all. And he couldn't help but put it where he so acutely and raw, and in a raw sense, felt it.

And it was all about feeling for him, despite how convoluted and how complex his phrases and improvisational developments are, both on paper and to listen to. You always knew this, always, you know. It was always what that note was meant to say, you know. And these are things I'll carry forever, you know, in his legacy. Glorious legacy.

• • RB:** Do you ever... do you ever see, think that there will be wide acceptance of progressive music, you know, whether it's fusion or jazz or modern classical music again? I mean, I don't know if there ever was, but there certainly was 30 years ago much more than today. Will there... will it be cyclical? Will it somehow come back into vogue that people listen to music, art music, again?

• • GH:** I don't know. I often wonder that. Maybe we'd only find that out if we took it away. But it's so commonplace. We have to see how there's not only the devaluation of, you know, in terms of you... how we can't sell anything anymore. To... in a way, it's become increasingly harder to support ourselves in this endeavor.

But the fact that you... you know, from the moment you wake up in a... if you're in a city like this, music everywhere. You know, if you're in a hotel, you only have to go as far as the lift, the elevator, right? There's music coming. You get into a reception, different set of music. You go outside, you go into Starbucks, different set of music. You go into a clothes shop, another set of music. And it's like, "God damn it," you know, and you can't get away.

I actually... I become actually blind and deaf to it, yeah, after a while, and have to kind of tune it out because it's... because it's just... I'd like to change, you know, tune into music and savor music for all that it can give to me. And we go back to the little guy with the record player and the lights off, listen... tuning into those Old Masters, classical masters, and and really you from beginning to end you you go the distance and and and you stay with that thing and it says what it's what it was written to say and it accumulates in the way it was written to accumulate and it and it hopefully it affects you in in a way that moves you and and and enriches you in in a in such a great sense, a beneficial sense, and an ultimately positive sense, you know.

And whether people really have the time with this kind of split-second concentration, attention span, lack... lack of attention span, yeah. And it's every second there's something people are looking at the phones, you know. Somewhere they've got to be there, somewhere, you know, somebody trying to call you. But they're trying to call you at the same time, and oh my God!

So the pace of life, I wouldn't say, is exactly conducive to it. But... I would, along along the path that that you very well involve yourself in there, Rick, in the in the speaking and the great information you're putting out about valuable aspects of... pertaining to musical value, it's real intrinsic value... then I think we have to kind of re-educate. And it's great to see you doing that, and I would love to be become involved in certain principles that apply to piano playing or or drumming in a way that would benefit somebody to to believe in themselves a whole lot more in order to see that... to become closer with that kind of ideology.

• • RB:** Now, when you're out touring, how would you say your time is split as far as keyboards versus drums with the people that you play with? I know with... when you're playing out with Mahavishnu you're playing keyboards, yeah?

• • GH:** Predominantly, yeah. With the recordings, the albums, I have a little bit more activity on the drums. But for the live shows, I usually get up a couple of times and we do some drum conversation in the pieces.

But as so far as your question, it's probably 50-50, which is, thank God, exactly intended, because I had so much resistance when I was younger, like, "You cannot be this multi-instrumentalist. You have to decide what you're going to do. People have to know what you do first and foremost." So, okay, do I have to say I'm a drummer, but I also play keyboards? "Ah, that doesn't matter, you're a drummer." Okay, so we... you know, people have got that. Or vice versa: "I'm a pianist," or "I'm a composer," or whatever, you know.

And this was really instilled in me a long time ago by both peers and contemporaries, actually. It's like, "This is why you won't work." And I would go, "Well, I'm not going to give up development on one instrument just to please this school of thought that has determined that only people who... in any times of any type of profile play only one instrument." I don't... that isn't my case, you know.

And as you probably know, both of my instruments sort of work in and develop and have evolved on a simultaneous kind of plane. So they... they both... they're both very much live and evolving that way together. But... but the two of them, it isn't split between... there's no split. It's just the two of them make a whole.

• • RB:** My friends that I told... when I told them I was interviewing you today, their question was... I said, "What should I ask him?" And all of my friends, I said, "How can you be so good on more than one instrument?" That was their thing: "How can you be so accomplished as a drummer and a pianist on the level of the top... top level?" I mean, that is really, I mean, unfathomable to me.

You know, when I... when I interviewed Steve, Steve said to me, he said, "You know, if I couldn't play guitar... I can't play any other instrument. I can't play the drums, I can't play anything." And I and I was laughing about that, and I thought that sounds like me, even though I... I play the keyboards and I play the... I play the guitar mainly, and I was a classical bass major in college and everything, and I play everything else I play functionally because I have to play in sessions.

But to get out there and play with John McLaughlin and play keyboards, or play drums with Alan Holdsworth, or... I mean all the different people that you've played with over the years... how do you play on such a high level? How do you keep your... how do you keep your chops? How much do you practice? Do you practice?

• • GH:** Surprisingly... surprisingly little.

• • RB:** Okay, shatter any...

• • GH:** I actually... I actually don't, at least not physically. There's music and... and I allow for invention to be coming through me all the time so that I feel things evolve. I'm planning, I'm structuring, I'm putting together things that the next time I go to that particular instrument or that particular medium, I'm going to be able to make manifest in some way.

And I'm kind of used to doing that because I never really had any way to practice, particularly drums. I envy these guys with this... you know, these perfectly... you know, perfect playing situations with the garage right next to the drums. And it's... and it's all soundproof, and they do all these drum tracks there, and it's right next door to the kitchen, you know? And I think, "Oh, man, that must be so cool to be able to just be in music all the time, but also be at home."

• • RB:** See, Gary, I have this huge studio here and I have 10... I have 10 drum sets and I... I can't play a beat at all. So... so there you go. I mean, I... I can... I could barely play. I could piece together a drum part, that's about it, with... with about 10 takes and some beat detecting.

If I were to ask you, okay, who are your top five drummers and top five piano players that you grew up listening to or that you love to listen to?

• • GH:** Oh...

• • RB:** If you were to ask me that... are you asking me that?

• • RB:** I'm asking you that.

• • GH:** Uh... drums. There was one figure that stood out that a lot of people won't be aware of in terms of his name. And his name was Baron John Von Ohlen, okay? And he played Stan Kenton Orchestra in 1972. And he had such a celebration of this... this power, this unbelievable higher level in music, this real magic, this unbelievable thing. And you could see visibly that the spirit took him. And he would just... you know, I mean, he was kind of good striking-looking guy, too, so I mean, he was giving it the moves and stuff. But he felt and lived by every single beat. Again, every single note matters, yeah. And the way he put the drum in that music, you could see it was exactly what Kenton wanted, of course, being the kind of jazz guy he was.

And in 1972 I saw that broadcast, and that's what helped me decide, "Yeah, I got... that's what I want to do, and that's what I want to do with that instrument, right? I want to make people feel like this guy just made me feel." Very simple.

So John Von Ohlen. People like Buddy Rich, which was fantastic and so exciting and exhilarating to listen to. People like this, and... or his technique.

But in actual fact, I had more favorite big-band drummers. There was a guy called Ronnie Zito, who used to play with Woody Herman's band in the '60s, who was really something. There was also a big-band drummer here called Ronnie Verrell, who used to play on lots of records well before my time, but I got to know him later. It's pretty hard to keep it at five.

And I loved... I responded... I mean, I had a great love for Keith Moon, you know, who really didn't have any kind of technique, but it was all about what he would do, how he would do it, and when he would do it, and how he was uniquely qualified to make that music with The Who. Half unbelievable, really, in a way that nobody else could. No, nobody could ever play parts like that and make them work in songs like that. I don't even know how they work, but they work so perfectly. He dies, book closed, you know?

Yeah, I mean, amazing, that powerful. And what kind of technique? Nothing, right? It's just soul to drums to out, you know. Where the message...

And so, you know, and visibly, because I was always attracted to the way people were charismatic on their instruments, too. So, of course, this was really amazing to see him.

The Ellington drummers, the Basie drummers... of course Billy Cobham. I saw him on his first TV broadcast. At this point I missed Mahavishnu, unfortunately, but I saw Billy Cobham 1973 or '4 on television and realized, "Oh, my God, this... everything about what he was doing, it was like, my God, you know, this is the most... one of the most exciting things I've ever seen." And I used to try to figure... of course, well, after the fact, we had no video recorder, not even a tape recorder, at that point in my life. So I had to go by everything I received in that moment and just sort of remain with the essence of what I'd seen and think that this was somehow, you know, maybe this was kind of close to it, or... right, you know? Some... stir something, and necessarily have to use your own imagination to come up with something that caught... that caught onto a little bit of that essence that he was putting across. So that was one.

And then I... through a friend, I'll never stop thanking... I discovered Tony Williams. And firstly on on a lot of older records with from the Miles quintet. And I realized this kind of broad-stroke artistry conception. I realized that nothing had happened quite like that before in terms of how this was all being incredibly widened and visual in terms of of what he was doing and in terms of structure of what he would leave out, you know.

And when you want to find out the most about people and you haven't got the internet, as we didn't, I'd look at interviews. And one of this most pertinent things he said was, "I don't play the bass drum on one or three, and I don't play the high-hat on two and four. I want to play the bass drum where it means something." And that became my mantra, you know. Just a little detail such as that, but said from the authority of someone who's actually doing it, who's actually being this amazing visionary and an inventor and revolutionary with an instrument. So I would take things like that. And he just became my everything for... and still is, really.

There was a guy who played with McCoy Tyner, Eric Gravatt. I'm not sure if you... he played in early Weather Report and on mid-'70s McCoy Tyner albums. Oh, what an exciting player! Jack DeJohnette, Narada Michael Walden... have I got to five yet? 15? Oh man, you know, we could go on all day with that one.

Piano players? Yes. Piano players, short story: Bill Evans. Why? Because my piano teacher threw my beloved copy of Bill Evans at Town Hall across the room and called him an imposter and a charlatan! Pretty interesting, wow.

You asked me, "What do you listen to when you're not involved in serious music?" And I said, "I brought the album," I said, thinking that, you know, she would hear the revelatory qualities, she would hear the purity of his perfectly formed and evolving harmony, and the charm of those show tunes which he kept the integrity of so perfectly and wonderfully. There was never anything superfluous, and I loved that about Bill. And he was left-handed, too, so I mean it gave me a whole perspective on on how much the left hand could be as strong as the right. So, really, Bill Evans, for sure.

Jan Hammer, because of his former Czechian meets New York kind of beautiful merging, the discipline in him. There's this another one where every note matters, really, along with Bill, I feel. And of course all the regular guys, but... not I shouldn't say something to cheapen anybody, but there are a lot of incredible guys out there. But I'm not a great fan of piano, believe it or not. I do get pianitis quite quickly, yeah.

• • RB:** Have you discovered anything new? What are you... what are you listening to? Something old, yeah?

• • GH:** I listen to a lot of old... I listen to a lot of Miles, because it's like I put that on and we make Italian food here and we listen to Miles.

• • RB:** Sounds great.

• • GH:** That's the best kind of evening for me.

• • RB:** That sounds great.

• • GH:** But we also listening to the new Arto Lindsay record. I'm not sure about this guy, the Brazilian guy. Very much a kind of art-edge to what he does, contemporary thing. And I love the approach, whoever is playing keyboards or the programmer stroke producer. There's some wonderful things happening in some of those songs on this new album.

There's an English band... with... it's an instrumental band called Three Trapped Tigers, I don't know if you... who are very subtly bringing in this kind of '80s kind of shine on more kind of indie kind of thing. It's very interesting and what they're putting together and the form of what they do. I'm really liking it. It's very creative, unlike anything I've heard. So I'm searching all the time, open to whatever I can find, really. I got a lot of CDs here.

• • RB:** What are they?

• • GH:** CDs. Funny, the records with Alan, the subsequent records to *IOU*... they were all... we had a... there was a studio in Costa Mesa called Front Page, and a lot of those albums were done there on an absolute shoestring. And Alan would give me these little demos the day before and we'd go to Charlie's Chili place and listen to them. And in that morning during the setup, I'd be, as he wished me to do, I'd create kind of a beat. What can you do? What can you do with that? What can you do with that to... so... and I would I would just relish meeting that challenge, you know. He... it was so... it was just a like, "Please be creative with this, find something to do on it."

And so as a result, I was able to really stretch imagination and come up with something that was kind of a little bit like a counter-composition to where he'd do things. And that's where a lot of those beats came from. And they'd literally be invented in the morning of the session, wow. And yeah, as was the sound, I mean we spent what, 10 minutes, 15 minutes getting a sound max. So you know, the drums just go in, set up, then the tune down, play first... and everything on those records is like first, second, very outside, maybe third take, some of something.

So, but what's in all, I'm... I'm proud of the creative process, but majorly just to say this: this was all tape, you know, up until I think it was *Wardenclyffe Tower* was the first... so we're well into the '80s now. This is like late around... can't remember if that came after *Secrets* or not, I think it did. But from that point, yeah, I remember it was DDD all the way.

• • RB:** Gary, I appreciate you talking to me so much. Thank you for the invitation, Rick. I'd like to thank Gary for being my guest this week and remind you to subscribe here to my *Everything Music* YouTube channel and hit the notification button to let you know when the next *Sounding Off* video is coming out. Thanks for watching.