his guitar drones were in 21’s and 16’s, and stuff like that. So the guy really knows time.
When I first joined the band, I was throwing everything but the kitchen sink at John. I remember at rehearsals, when it came time for me to do drum solos, I’d go nuts and he would just sit there laughing. When you’re really knocking John out, you can tell because he’s laughing the whole time. Sometimes he laughs so hard he can’t come back in.
And that’s when I knew I had reached his heart, because John’s one of those kinds of guys who loves people who are pure, who play from the heart and approach everything from the heart. He loves that kind of person, because he is that kind of person.
I remember nights where you know he’s not feeling too well, or his mind is just somewhere else. He’ll turn around and look at me, and make motions with his guitar like he’s paddling a boat. So I asked him, “What does that mean?” He says, “Man, it was a long struggle tonight for myself, it just felt like I was just struggling so much.” So when we go back out on the second set I just try to do some things to crack him up, get him back up.
he couldn’t play ‘em! He wrote ‘em and he couldn’t play ‘em! [laughs]
DC: With the Free Spirits, the very first time we got together, it was about a week. But most of it was spent on Joey and John nailing down the parts because the melodies were so quick. You know, John had written some things that were so difficult, that even
DH: The other band you’ve been gigging with a lot is Mike Stern’s. Do you approach that any differently than the two trios? DC: First of all, it’s a bigger band. It’s a quartet with bass, saxophone, guitar and drums, and it’s more structured music. Mike pretty much knows what he wants, and he’ll tell you, so I just try to give him what he needs.
DH: When you’re working in that guitar/organ trio – as opposed to Niacin’s bass/or-gan trio – do you tend to change anything, like where you’re putting the focus on the drum kit? With Niacin, for instance, because you have a bassist, do you want to stay away from the lower frequencies or vice-versa? DC: There is a difference. With Billy, there’s a bass, and therefore I’ve got to nail down the grooves a lot harder, because you’re dealing with a lot of low end. With John and Joey there’s still a lot of low end too, because Joey’s also playing bass pedals, but I think it wasn’t as prominent because the music was more centered on John’s writing and on nailing the parts. We were more centered on nailing the parts, ‘cause there were a lot of freakin’ parts with John’s music. [laughs]
DC: It all depends on the piece. John’s stuff was very difficult. He would send me tapes beforehand, and I’d still be confused about what they were because some of the drum parts sounded like there were five drummers playing.
DH: Was it programmed? DC: Yeah. It was hard to pin down which idea to go with ‘cause there were a lot of different ideas on the drum part. Sometimes it actually sounded like five different drummers playing at the same time, doing five different things.
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