A Conversation with Terry Bozzio – HuffPost 6.30.14
Mike Ragogna: Terry, when did your devotion to percussion and drums begin and who are some of your early musical heroes?
Terry Bozzio: Surf Drum Music, Sandy Nelson etc., then The Beatles on Ed Sullivan made me beg my father for drum lessons. I’m celebrating the anniversary of 50 years since that first lesson on July 15, 2014. Then the San Francisco music scene exploded and local bands like Big Brother with Janis Joplin could be seen down the road for $2.50. Jimi Hendrix and Cream came next. Then I went to college and got into studying the great jazz drummers who played with Miles or Coltrane and classical music.
MR: What was playing with Frank Zappa like and how did he influence you? What are your favorite recordings with him?
TB: I was very much in awe of Franks’s multiple talents and intellectual prowess. I learned so much from him in 3 years! It was like Marine Boot Camp for musicians.
He took me from being a naive drummer from San Francisco to being known all over the world with credibility, just because I was affiliated with him. Favorite recording would have to be “The Ocean is the Ultimate Solution” because it was an improvisation with him.
MR: You also played in UK and with Jeff Beck. What are your reflections of those years?
TB: Ah, the English! Well, Beck, of course, is just the best guitarist and one of the nicest people I have worked with. Thanks to him and keyboardist/composer Tony Hymas we made Guitar Shop, won a Grammy and toured the world several times. Playing with Jeff is like lighting a fire. And I loved to try to light him on fire! The UK was a great experience for me as well, I was a sideman member, enjoyed the music and tried to play my ass off back then.
MR: How did your group Missing Persons come about and did you leave for creative or personal reasons or…?
TB: It was a concept that developed between Warren, my ex [Dale Bozzio] and myself. I was frustrated by being a sideman in UK and wanted to do something more unique and modern. Warren left Frank Zappa and I left UK. We hooked up with the legendary Ken Scott, and Zappa let us use his studio to cut the demo EP (that got picked up and later sold something close to 400K, which for a time was the best selling EP in history). The idea was to be as creative as possible w/great players and intricate music but in the “pop” universe. We wanted it to be like a Fellini movie, and it was on many levels, including the tragic parts!
MR: Do you have a spiritual connection when playing drums and percussion?
TB: Absolutely. It’s really very much a “whole psyche” experience. I describe it as a “borderline” state of using all that you know and are, consciously: Intellectually, emotionally, physically and intuitively. But dipping into the unconscious and letting things happen or come through you that you were not aware of or planning. That’s the spiritual moment where things better that you could conceive happen. At that moment you use everything you know about music and compositional technique to develop, repeat, enhance or contrast with this sort of “gift idea” you have been graced with. When you are in this “zone,” it is an awesome experience.
MR: Any particular moments of your career overall that you’re the most proud of?
TB: My bio is loaded with them, Zappa once called me a genius! That was nice! But, I’m hoping this upcoming tour will be that. My big kit has midi to enhance the melodies I play. There are a lot of contrasting pieces I’ll be playing that take from, classical, ethnic percussion styles from all over the world, ambient, spacey, film score like compositions, as well as my art work as a stage set. I hope to take my audience on a time traveling experience with me!
MR: You also recorded instructional videos, performed at drum clinics, etc. How do you feel about being in the role of teacher or mentor?
TB: You can’t keep it unless you give it away! When not touring I work at DrumChannel.com hosting shows where I get to interview the best drummers in the world and play with them! And I have a full Art of Drumming lesson series you could study from. It covers all the elements of music: rhythm, melody, harmony, dynamics and orchestration as applied to the drum set in video and downloadable PDF files of exercises. I feel responsible to study and use the correct language of music–from the Western European tradition–when I speak and teach. I then try to share my concepts. A concept can be universal and students can apply them in infinite ways according to their own expression and affinities.
MR: What advice do you have for new artists?
TB: Study, learn the history, learn the basics. Try to be consistent and enjoy the process. Look inside, be authentic and honest with yourself, others and your art.
MR: And what would you have told Terry Bozzio when he was first starting out?
TB: Probably the same thing…but I wouldn’t have listened!! Youth is wasted on youth.
MR: Where do you see your place in music as a player and patron saint of the ostinato?
TB: I don’t see myself that way at all! An ostinato is just another of many musical/compositional devices. Most music falls into the homophonic category, that is, sound with sound, harmonic or rhythmic accompaniment with a lead melody or rhythm line. The accompaniment is always subordinate to the lead line. Much the same way as a pianist plays a bass line or chords with his left hand while playing the lead melody with his right. This technique has been around for hundreds of years–i.e. Mozart’s use of the “Alberti bass line”–and is not my invention. The drum set was only invented about 1899 when a drummer rigged up a way to play bass drum with his foot while playing snare drum with his hands. We’ve been expanding and developing techniques and technology to this day. It’s what we do! What we love! I love to compose, paint, practice new things, invent new equipment, make my drums look like an abstract (but functional) sculpture! Nobody pays me to do those things! It’s what I feel compelled to do. But I also love to share what I’ve discovered with others. That’s where my love of performance comes in. And most importantly the magic of live music. There is nothing to compare it too… CD’s, DVD’s of say Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” are great, but when you hear it played by great musicians in a symphony hall it becomes transcendent!
Think about it. Music is a ritual or reenactment of a myth. A theater is a “church” for music. The listener gives himself over to the experience without the distractions of the outside normal world. The artist is a channel or medium for the very spirit of creativity. He is high up on stage, the listener low. He is in the light, the listener is in the dark. He performs through an amplified sound system while the listener is silent. If the artist does his job correctly, both share in a transcendent experience where one is lifted above our normal mundane state of consciousness into a place where time and space no longer have such a hold on us. We are transformed, if only for a moment, into a place where feelings of awe, joy and ecstasy exist. Science explains this as entrainment, because everything in the universe is rhythm–frequency and vibration. From the rotations of planets to tempo, into the hearing range of pitch, to color–trillions of vibrations per second–to radio waves, x-rays and beyond, all are related by the law of the octave. So music is indeed a metaphor for the universe!