always done that for our concerts; the music between sets or between bands in the old days, or whatever. When the three of us are talking about the songs we want to play, or don’t want to play, if somebody really doesn’t want to play a song, we don’t do it. ‘Cause you’re not going to go out there 60 times and force somebody to do something they don’t want, or play a song they lost the spark for. I remember there was one tour, maybe in the early ‘80s, where we were sick of “The Spirit Of Radio” and dropped it for half a tour. You know, one of our most popular songs, but all of us felt, “eh.” Then we brought it back again—that was 15 years ago at least, and we’ve never dropped it again. But for those few months we just had to put that one aside no matter what. And it can be as simple and as seemingly off-the-cuff as that, but there’s always due respect to the music, and again we are fans of our music in a modest sense, so we get excited. But it’s also for the audience, because that same reference and that same relationship that exists between us and our music, hopefully exists between an ideal fan and our music. You kind of think you’re speaking for them and feeling for them when you choose the songs.

 

DH: As a drummer who’s always growing, studying and advancing, you can’t help but look back on your past catalog and always critique yourself. You know, “I should have done that better,” or “I wonder how Gadd would have played it?” Do you ever look back as a lyricist and think “How could I have written that line?” or wish you had chosen a different word to have gotten something across better?

developed a metronomic time, but unfortunately it was metronomic. It felt so stiff and it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Then I met with Freddy [Gruber] several times and talked with him and just got curious. You know, I wondered what it would be like after all these years to work with somebody like that. So, I made it happen and of course, it was completely transformative in ways I could never have predicted at the time. You can’t measure the change that makes, and the impact that makes on you inside, to have transformed everything. That’s the beautiful reward from that discipline, from that application of stuff. There I was doing that after having played for 30 years, and being in my 40s with a family and all that stuff, still finding the focus and discipline, saying, “I’m going to practice every day.” Then the band talked about getting back to work, because we had taken a pause when Geddy and his wife had a baby. I said, “Guys, I’m not ready. I need another six months to really do this thing that I set out to do.” Then we started working on Test For Echo after that. The fact that I practiced had so many waves and ramifications; all that time had a cumulative effect that a decade later now has added up to so much that couldn’t have been perceived. Making a whole record with a traditional grip was an experiment, but I eventually decided a matched grip is better for me in the way that I want to express myself and the music I want to play in this band. But I’m so glad I did it. I did all that stuff. I played hard rock with traditional grip.

NP: Well, I’m glad to know I could have done it better now. God, how awful would it be if that were not the case. The same thing I was saying about going out and playing live this time and feeling like I can play faster, stronger, better than I could 20 years ago, never mind two years ago. If I didn’t listen to stuff from the past and wince a little, then I wouldn’t have gotten better, and I wouldn’t understand that I know more now than I knew then. I’m actually glad about that.

There’s a good parallel there with book publishing. I worked on it for 20 years before I published a book. I’d already privately published five books and worked on all kinds of prose writing to learn the craft. By the time I did publish my first book, I can still live with it. You know it has excesses, but it definitely captures the kaleidoscopic madness of Africa. When I had to re-read it a couple of years ago when we had to do a new edition, it was like, this is over the top, but it’s true. This is what it felt like to be there. That’s great. When I read the previous ones that I didn’t publish, I was so glad. I wish I had that in music. That’s kind of how I feel about it, but at the same time, it’s out there. Yeah, there is stuff I would expunge from the record, given a choice, but there’s nothing I want to go back and do again. I’ve kind of outgrown it all. Like “Tom Sawyer,” I’m still glad to play it every night ‘cause it’s still fun and hard and challenging and satisfying and all that stuff, but I have no desire to go back and revisit it. One of the reasons that drove me to study was a growing dissatisfaction with my time sense. Working so much with clicks and sequencers in those days, in the ‘80s going into the early ‘90s, I had

DH: Not an easy task. NP: Yeah, so all of that was good and it gave me a facility now where I can do that. I was telling the sound engineer on that tour that I was worried about the strength of playing and having the big backbeat. I said, “I hope you’re getting as good a sound from the traditional grip as you are from the matched.” He said, “It’s better.” He claimed that the songs that I played with traditional grip, if I just laid down on the rim just right, it got a fatter sound than it did when I played with matched.

 

DH: Tell me if I’m mistaken but back in ‘78, you did that in the guitar solo section of “A Farewell To Kings” and switched over to traditional grip. NP: Yeah. I think so. There are certain figures I only learned ‘cause when I first started with drum lessons I had a practice pad and a pair of sticks and my teacher taught me traditional. The pillow, Mom and Dad, and paradiddles. Having learned those so painstakingly, I wasn’t about to go back and waste time re-learning something. So for rudimental stuff I always switch back, even in those days, it was a given. I’ve