Monday, August 8, 2011

Interview with Jamie Douglass 7.18.11

Jamie Douglass is a Los Angeles-based drummer.  He has played in countless numbers of bands and is currently playing shows with Andy Clockwise, Trey Green, and Josh Norton & Jerks, to name a few.  I caught up with Jamie on July 18th, as he was preparing for a show that evening with Andy Clockwise at The Satellite.





AB: So when did you start playing drums?

JD:  Fifth grade.  I had already been involved in music before that for a few years.  Starting in third grade, I was singing in a choir on the East Coast, touring and going over to Europe to perform.

AB:  How did you get from singing in a choir to playing drums?

JD: I just liked it.  I was just attracted to it.  I played trumpet for a minute in fourth grade.  I just wasn’t feeling it, and the whole time I was so interested in drums. I would play in the little fourth grade concert band and was always just so interested in the percussion section, just like tapping on it and listening.  I remember, before one of the concerts we did, I sort of snuck on to the stage and just sort of played around, sort of tapping a cymbal here, or a timpani, or a xylophone there and I was just really into it.  So starting in fifth grade, that was it.  I just started playing drums and have been playing non-stop ever since then. 

AB:  At what point did you decide that you wanted to pursue music as a career? 

JD:  College.  I thought about it before and actually rejected the idea, because I knew people that were older and still in the music business and not doing well and they didn’t seem happy to me.  I didn’t want to be like that.  I was pre-med in college and doing pretty well, and then there was a fork in the road.  I was taking a Chemistry class that was really cool, but really hard.   I was in the middle of it and it was really starting to become a lot of work.    I realized that I liked it, I didn’t mind doing it a lot, but that it didn’t allow me to play drums very much.  So that was pretty much it. 

AB:  Do you have any key musical influences?

JD: There have been so many different directions I’ve gone in over the years because I’ve been studying music for so long.  I’ve always sort of been a chameleon.   I like different styles.  I don’t want to be doing just one thing.  These days I’m guided by what bands I’m in.  I’ll study and practice music around the areas of the actual requirements of the bands I’m actually in.  That’s the best way to bring 100 % presence to performance, but some of my all-time favorite stuff is Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis.   Tony Williams, a drummer who played with Miles for a long time--he’s one of my favorites.  I’m a big fan of John Bonham.

AB:  Someone who was talking about you recently said that you are one of the hardest working musicians in LA. 

JD: Maybe.  Sometimes.  Last month, I was.  I was playing gigs five nights a week and teaching a lot.

AB:  How many bands are you playing with at any given time?

JD:  Right now, about four.  Last month, it was twelve. 

AB: Wow!

JD:  Yeah, people always ask me, “How do you do that?”  But that’s the only way I’ve ever done it.  It’s not like all of these bands are working all the time.  Andy’s band is keeping me really busy these days.  We’re playing a lot.  I also play for an artist named Trey Green, and he’s keeping me pretty busy as well. But I love it.  I love the variety.  As a drummer, if you’re capable of doing it and you can handle it politically, you can play anything and not be branded because drumming is such an abstract language.  Joey Waronker, the drummer for Norah Jones, does infinite styles.   He plays in Thom Yorke’s band and he does studio sessions of all sorts.  It’s kind of a luxury to be a drummer in that sense.  You can do a lot of different things.  But in order to do that, it is especially important to be able to communicate ideas and to know different ways of saying different things.  Different musicians of different traditions say things totally differently.  Jazz musicians will have one name for something, Rock musicians have another name for it, Blues musicians another, and Classical another.  It’s important to know as many of them as possible or at least be able to shift quickly and not get hung up on terminology, because, for some people, that would cause a disagreement.  That’s what I meant when I said that there is a political side to being versatile.

AB: You have played with bands in so many different genres.  If you had to choose only one genre to play, what would it be?

JD: Rock. That’s my strongest area.  I would be really sad to do that though.  I’d be sad to let go of Blues, Funk, Jazz, Hip-Hop, Latin, Ambient, and Electronic.  There’s so much good stuff out there, but Rock, let’s face it—you can do so much with it.  There’s a lot of room for eclecticism in Rock, but I’m never going have to pick one, unless I got into the next reincarnation of The Ramones, where I would just be playing one type of music and that became my claim to fame.  Even in that case, it’s just public perception that that’s your thing.  A lot of musicians create this image that that’s all they’re about, but in reality they’re going home and listening to music from India or something.   But the average listener, the average person on the street wants a little bit of certainty.  They want to categorize things.  Not to mention the critics.  What are they going do if they can’t categorize music?  They’ll scramble to find new ways to operationalize it in language by making a genre out of it.   It’s almost like in “Black Hawk Down”, when one of the soldiers says, “Once the bullets fly past your head all the politics go right out the window.”  Making music is like that and that’s been true all along.  When you look at the history of Jazz, and the way segregation was so tied into that history.  There was rampant racism in the country, yet you had these integrated groups of musicians.  They wanted to play together and, at the end of the day, all they cared about was just the music and learning and camaraderie.  It cut through all the political crap.  Well, when we’re playing on stage, we aren’t thinking about any of the adjectives that writers use to describe and categorize music.   But people do get wedded to these concepts, because it can mean a lot politically.

AB: Do you ever have a day where you get up and you just don’t feel like playing?  

JD:  Sure.  I go through long periods where I don’t practice at all.  These days, I’m playing a lot because I sense an opportunity right now.  I feel like I’m busy and people know me a little bit more now, so I feel like I have to push for the next couple of years.  But, yeah, there are definitely times where I don’t want to play. And then I realize that I need to do something else like go to the beach or go get lunch with somebody or go for a jog.

AB: What goes through your head when you’re up on stage playing? 

JD: “What am I thinking?”  I don’t know.   It’s better if you don’t think all that much, if you kind of know what you’re doing by that point.   Some musicians say, “Only play what you’re hearing in your head and what you’ve perfectly planned out ahead of time.”  Other people will say, “Just go and allow it to happen and don’t try.”  Obviously, neither one is purely right.  It can be this weird zone, because it’s so different than normal life.  There are all of these vibrations of everything you’re doing and sometimes it’s exhausting.  Sometimes when I am playing certain shows, I’ll feel like I’m going to have a heat stroke because it’s just so athletic. And then sometimes I’m just thinking, “Get through it.  Get through it.  Do not drop the sticks.  Do not drop the beat.  Just do it.”



AB:  When your performing, do you ever take on personas or do you feel like you’re always just “Jamie” up there?

JD:  Most of the time, it’s just me.  Sometimes, I’ll take on just a very neutral demeanor.  There are times when the best thing I can do is just show up and deliver a very quality accompaniment to the music, without really putting that much out there as far as my personality.  Other times, I feel like I’m supposed to bring something extra.  For example, when we’re out on the road with Andy Clockwise, I have pretty much no management role in the band at all.  It’s really just travelling, showing up on time, with my gear, being a great rock drummer, and being presentable.  In a way, that does change my approach.  Normally, I’m on top of the millions of details that come with running a career and a business, but to go out there and have to let go of all of that and just be a great rock drummer, that does change my personality and I like it.  It’s purer.  

AB: Do you play any other instruments?

JD: I dabble.  I’m learning a little bit of guitar.  I’m learning some piano.  I’ve always sung, because as a kid that was my gig, starting out.  I don’t sing a lot; I sing backup vocals for people sometimes and I’m just starting to get more into it.   I also want to program beats on the drum machine.  I want to learn more about recording and sequencing and synthesizers and all of that.  It’s fun to work on the things that I want to work on, as opposed to what is being dictated to me by either what my students need or the bands I’m in.   I also want to write in the future.  I’ve written a little but I usually don’t think like a writer.  I think like a player.  I think about practicing, technique, and styles.

AB: Is there a particular performance that you would say was the best of your career so far?

JD: Oh man.  Well, there’s really not one; there’s a level that we’re always trying to reach.  I’ve been lucky to have reached it many times, and it’s a collision of skill, energy, ability, friendship with the people on stage, and great music, of course.  It’s the magic.  That’s the point.   I’m pretty agnostic when it comes to religion, so I’m always seeking out religious experience in whatever form and if this is a way to find that, great!

AB: You are stranded on a desert island.  What three albums would you want to have with you? 

JD:  I would want to have: My Bloody Valentine-Loveless, Led Zeppelin- II, and John Coltrane-Live at Birdland  Or, it’s a tie with that and Miles Davis-Kind of Blue.  I would try to find a way to take both.  With each of those albums, I heard it and it sort of opened up a new path.  Those are some of my favorite memories in music.  Sometimes, you’ll hear something and you’ll just realize, “Wow, this is possible.”  There is a handful of those types of albums for me, over the years.   Loveless is one of them, for sure, because of the way they use such a dirty, distorted guitar tone in such a beautiful way and the ambiguity.  Led Zeppelin II, I actually had when I was a very little kid on tape, and then I think it got lost or something, so I didn’t hear it again for a good 10 or 15 years.  Then when I heard it, it triggered all this crazy, primordial infancy imagery.  That was mind-blowing to me.   And Miles Davis.  A lot of people say that about Kind of Blue.  It’s like, “Wow, jazz.  I like this.  This is a whole world.  I can go this way if I want to.”

AB: What are the biggest things that you have learned about being in the music industry?

JD: Protecting your heart is really important.  That’s true for any artist.  Getting along with people is extremely important.  You have to figure out your own neuroses and how to kind of pre-empt them.  When you’re out on the road with people or in the studio, it can be easy to lose patience because it’s stressful.  There can be intense moments and I’m getting better at knowing what I’m going to do that could alienate my collaborators.   Being able to communicate well is another one.  Also, you’ve got to love it.  If you’re not having fun, get out.  Seriously.  Or quit doing that version of it.  In music, you’re going to make sacrifices, so it needs to be fun.   If you’re not a happy person while you’re in this game, you have to really examine that and figure out why that is.  I think, as artists, we have to be more honest with ourselves than most people.

AB: Are these lessons that you try to instill in your music students?

JD: I try.  I think these skills cross over to life.  Cooperating with people, interacting with people, staying on top of these details.  I think these skills translate.  And character, too.  Have you ever heard of this movie called “The Hustler” with Paul Newman and George C. Scott?  It’s about this guy, Paul Newman, who’s a pool shark.  He’s the best of the best and he’s taking on the reigning champion.  The whole movie is about this showdown and examines concepts of success versus failure and self-sabotage.  At one point, Paul Newman is about to beat the other guy, but he sabotages the situation by getting drunk.  Later he’s having a conversation in a bar with George C. Scott’s character who tells him straight up, “You both have talent, but he has character.”  That’s because the other guy knew what he was capable of, he knew how to back off, go to the bathroom, brush his teeth, comb his hair, wash his hands.  Meanwhile Paul Newman is sitting on a chair, with a bottle in his lap, laughing at how great he is, and in the end, he loses.  So it points to the idea that it takes more than just talent.  There’s character, which means being able to realize, “Alright, yeah I can play a million notes.  I can put up a video on YouTube that’s going to blow drummers’ minds.  But right now, I’m going to play simple and slow.  And I’m going to listen to the song and it’s going to feel amazing.“  Everybody needs to have that maturity level. 

AB:  Well, it sounds a little bit like when you were talking about music as a kind of spiritual experience.   You can perform in a way that says, “Look at how good I am”, but in the end it doesn’t leave you with anything. Maybe that feeling of transcendence comes from being part of something greater than yourself.

JD: Totally.  Everybody feels it and everybody benefits from it, so it’s not like there’s even a sacrifice involved.  A lot of people assume that when you say, “part of something bigger” that means that they have to be small.  But actually, everybody is elevated.  It’s a form of discretion.  It’s like when someone is carving a sculpture.  It starts off as a block of marble, and somewhere in there, that shape is there.  That perfect form is already there.  Some people think you have to build attachments, but all you really have to do is just trim and adjust.




No comments:

Post a Comment