full interview_will calhoun_10.mp3
Speaker 1 [00:00:00] Come here. Tell me about what it feels like. Let's do motion.
Will Calhoun [00:00:05] It's a warm bath, total relaxation. Letting yourself go, you know, and then listening to the things that are happening and creating some ideas out of the sounds you're making, basically. An acoustic version of it, basically. So it has a different approach, a lot more dynamic, your touch, you have a lot of more direct impact on sounds whether you're playing soft or louder with electronic instruments. It's done a little bit with dynamics but mostly with volume. And here you can play really Easier to, in studying acoustic drumming, I would say more jazz drumming. Most of my instructors had me hold up a ruler and zero was on the bottom and 12 was on top. And they told me when you play, you have to use the entire length of the ruler as your dynamic range. Most guys come in at five or six and they go up. It's a lot more real estate down there. It's more interesting to have a grasp for both playing slow and also playing at a very low volume. It's easier to play more difficult, faster passengers. Passengers. Passages, excuse me. If you can really have a good handle on playing very soft and playing very slow passages. Something that we talked earlier about with the great Al Foster. I made a little bit of a joke about it, but a lot of club owners in New York in the earlier days talked about they loved Al because Al had a volume knob, you know, he can play really soft. A lot of piano trios love Al. Outside of his brilliant drumming, he's someone who has a really wide dynamic range. So that's an important part of making music overall. On this instrument, which is known to be a loud instrument, it also sounds really fantastic. Play it softly.
Speaker 1 [00:02:36] Do you want to get that ruler thing again? There's a siren there. I mean, it sounds to me like it was covered by his presence. This is kind of like this little buffet you've got here with all these surfaces. Thank you. Every time you do something, you're like, oh, I'm noticing a little symbol, a little stack of symbols there. I'm not noticing big symbols. I'm, you know, it's, it, but this is idiocy. I'm getting an echo. Is that on his other, what, what? Did you hear that? Am I, is this just because I'm- It's, you might be being under here, slightly, yeah. Oh yeah, okay. I don't matter, but for him, if it sounds weird for him. Is it, is this is kind of your own creation? Completely.
Will Calhoun [00:03:25] Completely. I designed, Savian Symbols is the company that I endorsed. However, this is my design. This is called the Ambient Ride and I used that term in that I wanted a ride somewhere that was like a pair of jeans. You can wear it to a wedding, or you can wear going fishing, you can wear it going to work, hanging out, and I wanted to sound that was just kind of universal. And it all depended on what you dressed it up with. To define where it was gonna go. So this symbol is like a uniform symbol for me. This is what I call the desert ride, only because the time that I lived in Morocco and I was working with the Ganao musicians in Essoira area, I was trying to find sounds that I can play with this instrument called the Gimri. And it's a very dry instrument. It's the grandfather of the bass. So these kinds of symbols are really more modern sounding. This cymbal attenuates very early, it can't really get loud. It gets to a point where it breaks and just doesn't get louder anymore. So this is called a desert ride and it's very thin. As you can see here, it's just easy to bend, which means the control of it is very, very easy to control. The dynamic... And it's very good, you can play it really fast, the articulation is great. That's that idea. Some of these newer ideas are my visual creations along with sound. This obviously is the head of a line inside the content of Africa. This is a pyramid. Simple kind of cut out. I have a few different ones. This is more of something like I'm wearing, which is called the zinder. This particular one is a nomadic one for travel, for safety when you travel. This is a zinder symbol as well. I wanted to try it in a circle, so getting sounds and also creating visual art with it, along with my already, you notice how they're away from my typical symbols. But these are things that I, this is called the alien disk because I like symbols that buzz, that are a little bit annoying, that have some kind of bee sound around it. I like this kind of sound. And I thought about aliens and spaceships and shapes and circles, and it's really small. So I just call it the alien disk. There's some pictures here, going on there. The hats are called mad hats. The idea of these hi-hats are the bottom cymbals are a little bit bigger than the top, which is not my idea. A lot of early bebop drummers, Papa Joe Jones and guys, use hi-hat cymbal, so the bottom symbol was a little bigger, slightly a few centimeters, and it creates another type of. Sound, a chip sound that's more washier, it's wider and fatter than a clean chip, you know, it's a little bit more of a wider sound. And those guys used that to get a louder sound, the microphone situation was different at the time, recording in a studio with eight or nine microphones for a whole band. So that was the idea of this, but sounds, these creations come from... Experiences and from auditioning ideas, as on the electronic instruments, acoustically too. When I get some things that are heavy or dark or light, the real idea of all of these symbols are that each symbol is a is a Crayola box. You know, all of the symbols have red, orange, yellow, blue, black. It's just different levels and different pitches of the same conceptual ideas. And you want to be able to have this, I want to It's a different version, all crayon boxes within different versions of it, right? This is a smaller one, this is a darker one, this is the thinner one, but still it's there. And the idea is to put those concepts together in a blend rather than having six crayon boxes that are all the same. Now I can pull from things if I hear a singer, piano player, saxophone player, sometimes the audience can say something or do something to make you go, okay. Too much beer drinking or too many knives and forks are moving and I have to play something to get their attention, or the band's not paying attention. The band's kind of goofing off, getting along with the crowd and losing track of the music and there's certain things you can do to get the focus to get back together again. So all of these allow me to have those options, which is a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1 [00:08:05] So, what does it mean to be a drummer? Sounds like there's a lot of hats you have to...
Will Calhoun [00:08:11] The drummer is a single mom with six kids and a seventh one coming soon. You have to, you drive the bus from the back, you steer the bus in the back. That's basically what it is. You have passengers, you gotta make everybody happy and feel good and safe without them really knowing it. I use the single mom kind of in jest, sort of, but actually you have this thing of, you almost become second or third in the relationship of what's happening in the music. As a drummer, you have to have a certain kind of an ego, I think, because you go into it knowing you have make everybody else feel and sound amazing. It's your job. And you're probably not gonna get thanked for it and people aren't gonna really recognize it. But there is an A-band on the planet that is considered great and the drummer's not good. It's a very important part of the piece. So you have this important role and... If you've been around musicians, drummers are the closest of the groups. You can get a hundred drummers in a room and they'll all actually talk to each other. You can't do that with guitar players. Certainly can't with singers. So it's important that we know our role and what it means to be a caretaker and sometimes a guard dog of the music. And you have to invest in it every beat, every bar, every measure. You're investing the whole time. You're reinvesting and reinvestig. Making everyone sound better and feel better, the audience feel great. It's a fun job if you enjoy it, I happen to enjoy it. But it is a lot of hats and a lot of times you feel like you weren't able to be yourself or have a conversation or contribute to the existing conversation. You've only been the support of the conversation and that can be a drag sometimes, just keeping it real. But it's an important instrument and a demanding one. And as Max Vogts told me, you can practice until the cows come home, the drum set always wins. You'll never be able to overtake it, but if you spend your life trying, you'll really enjoy yourself. And that's kind of how I look at the instrument. There's always new ideas and I can try new things and mix new things, and it just more and more and brings my relationship and my vocabulary on the instrument."
Speaker 1 [00:10:39] So for somebody like me, who loves to listen to music but doesn't know much about it, you're saying you're steering the bus from the back of the, you know, steering the bus from back. Is it all, is it about the rhythm? I mean, is that, I mean if you boil it down to one word, is It's not
Will Calhoun [00:10:54] It's not one word, I'm sorry. It is the rhythm, it is the dynamic range. It is, it's a multitude of things actually. The rhythm's very important, but you also have to be a conductor and a producer in a lot of ways. You have to know, oh it's gotta push it now. It's starting to lag or, and the closest friend you'll have is the bass player in that relationship. The bass player will be like your cousin. No one else gives a damn. They just want you to kill it so they can go do what they have to do. Today's play is gonna be a closest highlight in that scenario, but yeah, it's a few hats you have to wear. I wish it was just rhythm, but it's not. It really feels a lot with dynamics, rhythm, control, and you're in the race car and you go in 200 miles an hour because you have prepare for that turn, right? You have the left turn, you prepare for it one way, then you prepare it for the right turn. You know it's coming. Sometimes when you're performing with musicians, they don't know. They didn't even know the song, but they still don't know the turn's coming. So you have to prepare them and the band for that turn, upcoming turn. So in that sense, it's not just rhythm, but it's also being able to see almost the performance as one piece and not a song. It's almost like you look at the whole set of 12 or 20 songs and how you're gonna make this.
Speaker 1 [00:12:24] I'm assuming that a lot of this is intuitive for you. You're a natural habit. But at the same time, you really put a lot of thought into what is happening. What's your body doing, what's your brain doing. I know you've done a couple of things to kind of try to pin that down. So just talk a little bit about, tell us a little about that process.
Will Calhoun [00:12:46] Well, the process is, I guess, in giving an example, if you are cooking a meal that you may know of, it could be pasta, it could a fish, and you haven't nailed it yet, but it tastes good still. But you're a little bit of salt away this time, or not enough pepper this time or too much vinegar, or maybe it needs more time. And that's what it's like when you're dealing with a musical event. You wanna really get the recipe to be really there. Recording is an interesting experience, because you put your emotion and your concept and your thoughts into five or six minutes, and then you have to go back and listen to it. Is it translating the way it is in your head? Are your ideas too much? So you have be a producer in that way of going, you know, they like that, but that's too, because you gotta think about the singer singing and his lyrics and his stories being told. How am I gonna make the story more appealing to people? Maybe this, don't play this. Gets in the way of the story. In that aspect, you have to pick and kind of choose, but I have so many drummers that I love, that I listened to over the years, that I steal from and I steal, that it's the best part. I have a research and development. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you again. Office upstairs where I go back and listen to great drummers, to Billy Kammer and Steve Gad and the narrator Michael Waldon and John Bonham and Max Moach and R. Blakey and Elvin Jones. You can always go back, learn and become educated. It's like getting a really old good book and even though you know the story, you read it again and actually Chapter 12 didn't hit me like it did the first time I read the book. That way we're doing the research and the more you do and the more you play out the more you'll have those moments of breaking things down and knowing okay now I want to approach it this way. Branford Marsalis told a great story in an interview how he rearranged a classic, I'm paraphrasing now, he rearranges the classic jazz song he wrote an arrangement for it. I think it was R. Blakey or someone he was playing with at the time and he said that's not cool. Branford said what What do you mean? I didn't... He said... The song was fine the way it was. You're not doing, you're not at it. He said it was a moment of like, well art has a point. But when you're young and you have these ideas and you wanna do this kind of thing, but what's the matter with the original? But what I like about Branford's story is you have to go through that process to understand what it means for the song to be really amazing out the box. How you wanna to do it is kind of really up to you anyway. But it's a great, it was great analogy he made there between. Thinking you're doing something, something already is great. So this is a great instrument, and it's a new instrument in terms of time, as we know time. And there's still a lot to be discovered on it, but it's brilliant instrument, and it has a lot of options and opportunities, and younger drummers are coming along now, pushing it even further and further and farther out. So my process is a combination of research. And live performance and listening to recordings and putting all of those things together to see how I can sharpen the knife.
Speaker 1 [00:16:04] You know our show is about art and science and tech, art and math, so I know you've done some of your own experiments and you've even tried a couple of things, like basically the light sticks, which we're going to have a video of that. Okay, just tell us about that. Tell us about why you did it, what you were going for, what learned.
Will Calhoun [00:16:28] Sure, sure. I call it rhythm art. I call that rhythm art, the light sticks idea basically came from playing live rock and roll, in a rock and role arena, drum solos on the Living Color Tours. And I wanted to bring another esthetic to my performance. My sister is a professional dancer. She danced with Alvin Ailey and Irvin Bushman and great dance companies here in New York. And I watched her over the years growing up. But the dance group thing is interesting because of the movement. And the patterns and the shapes and how they move. There's multiple dancers and drummers. I said, what can I do to maybe bring some kind of a visual esthetic to me performing? So I auditioned the idea of getting these light sticks from The Mind Designed and the first night in Amsterdam, I decided to tell the promoter to turn off all the lights I get to the drum solo. And I only wanted to have the sticks light up and I wanted to solo. Make some electronic loops and samples and play them so you can hear this force of drumming, but you're only seeing the streaks. That led into a company approaching me about doing my own art, which is, you can look it up, but you know guys know it, worldcatoneart.com. And the interesting, the most interesting thing about that process is, as drummers, we never get to see where we're going on this map. Move our arms and legs according to sound, but there's actually also movement, places, things are happening in the music. So in setting up the RP, shooting with slow aperture, multiple cameras, light sticks in a dark room, I extracted myself and the drum set from the photograph and just had the streets bouncing off the cymbal and off the heads. And it was one of the most incredible things I've ever witnessed, honestly. And I decided to move forward in putting that into a new language of creating art and playing drums. A few folks approached me about the angles and the shapes of some of those pieces. Of course, it's improvised, so the shapes came in after the fact, and I noticed when I play certain types of tempos or certain styles of music, there's more triangles. There's more hexagons. If I play it slower with the brushes, there's more circles. It's very interesting to see the shapes according to what you're playing. So that's how it started, and now I'm moving forward, now doing that and connecting images to now so the audience can actually see live images as well as the streaks of light.
Speaker 1 [00:19:10] So when you say you see triangles, hexagons, that is the pattern of your sticks. And what are we talking about?
Will Calhoun [00:19:15] That's the pattern of the patterns I'm playing. It's interesting that you say that word because if I'm a playing a pattern and I play it softer for the purposes of the interview, if I am playing this pattern like this. Right, so we have here, here, here, two. So you have this piece going like this now. You're only going to see with the sticks, the streak going from here, then it blows up because it hits the cymbal. It goes here and it goes here, and it was here. So although it's not a closed triangle, gives you the image of a triangle, there's three different angles, one, two, two. The third one would be from here to here. And if I wanted to add it, I can do it. I go here, one, two, so we have one angle, two angle, third angle, that's your triangle. Either way. So that's the part where it's very interesting because it's a pattern and it's a typical one and now you have this very interesting pseudo, similar to a 90 degree triangle look in the art that would match that pattern. So for me it was very interesting to start to look at a new relationship between patterns, I'm playing with the kit, and visual patterns they create. What tempo and what style. So the rhythm work for me is a new frontier.
Speaker 1 [00:21:11] And maybe later we'll try, we'll see what it looks like in this place. Okay, okay. We'll do that later. The other thing that you do, which I think makes you fairly unique, is this, you're really interested in math. Yes. So talk about how that works, how we do this, are we okay? Your relationship with mathematics.
Will Calhoun [00:21:36] Well, I wasn't certainly the best math tutor in school, but the drum set puts you in the math arena, because you're playing in time signatures, six, eight, you know, six beats over eight, eight notes. So the math piece comes because for us, well I'll say for drum, it's actually fun to have different time signatures happening when you're playin' six or eight or seven or nine and making it work in different time signature. So. You have to be able to quickly know if you're playing in 10 where the accents are gonna fall because it still has to fit into that phrase. It's really quick math, and it's slick math, and that once you get to 10, well now I'm gonna do 10, but I'm going to do this kind of 10. Now I'm doing this kind 10. You're subdividing, you're doing five and five, seven and three, four and six, six and four, eight and two, and you just know that because it's in 10. So if I do eight beats and then two, that's done back to the one. I do six beats and then four. So math works in that rhythmically, as drummers we're stacking the numbers and making them fit within a particular phrase and being able to interchange the numbers but still have the same defined definition. That's really the intriguing part of it for me is, I mean, then there's knowing what the math is and not playing it, right? It's a counter math. So it is in six, but I'm gonna play a nine. It still works. It's just not gonna count out in six. So it's in the same shape. Three, six and nine have the same shaping music. So you wanna just say, okay, now I wanna do a nine over the six and musicians who can hear it understand that. So that's where the math is done to where you're superposing now. You don't have to spell out the obvious parts of the math. You know, some of the equations already exist. Now you're gonna do something completely different over the equation. And still get to the same result. So that's the math relationship with drumming is having the options to have one equation and 40 ways of solving it or creating it and making it work. That's the fun part. And the more interesting it is, the more us drum is paying attention, more so than maybe an audience, you know? And there's so many different ways to play five or to play four or to to play two. And once you have it somewhat logged, you'll know how to apply it. And applying it to me is where the mastery comes in. When you have something like a three or seven and someone just takes a totally different approach to playing that, and you're like, whoa! As drummers, you're, like, wow, I didn't think about that. Or where you hear things. Playing with North African musicians was a big wake-up call for me because going into that green, as I did at the time, I assumed all the counting structures were. Similar to the same. When I played with desert musicians it's completely almost the opposite of how many western musicians play or hear. And I had to, I kept, I was ending up in the wrong place and then somebody just clapped it out. I said, is that where that is? So with math you have to know where the starting area is and where it ends. And i think that's an intriguing part of being able to put masks. Into them, but I really love it. I really do like the challenge of playing 13 or seven and seeing how many ways you can do it, which way makes it sound like it's four, which way is super academic, which you learn all of those things and then if you're clever enough, you make the easy one here, you make a hard one here. You make the middle of the road one here and you make invisible one there. You're playing them all together. You have four limbs, four options of the same equation. And making it work, making it swing, and making people feel good. So the more math, I think, you know, the more options you have on performing as a drummer, different types of rhythmic analysis within that equation. That's an important part for me to know. It would be the same as being able to speak 10 languages and you can just go to Italy, France, Germany, Ireland, right, and shit right in. No manuals, no downloading apps. It's the same thing with math and drumming. The more you know, the more language you'll be able to speak and communicate with the jazz group, a bluegrass group, hip hop group. One of the music that I heard that was incredible was Bulgarian wedding music. This really amazing musician named Ivo Papasov. The first time I heard his music on television in Bulgaria, I said, who's this guy? This sounds incredible. As an academic musician, it's very difficult to play what his band was playing. What I saw, I went out and purchased all of his records at that time, and that group and his music taught me how to listen to things differently. It was a totally different approach to things that I grew up listening to and playing all my life. So that's the strong side of it, is having the other math down, being able to have conversations with the bass player and the piano player where you can turn things around. I love that about Miles' 60s band, you know, with Tony Williams and Ron Carter and Herbie Hancock, they would be playing in four, then Ron would play in three. And Herbie would just play chords once in a while, and Tony would do an Afro-Cuban thing on top. And they were all in the same tune in different places in that math. But it's still the same equation. That's the beauty of it.
Speaker 1 [00:27:26] Great. So that brings us to this little band you're in sometimes.
Will Calhoun [00:27:32] Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 [00:27:34] How's that, how's that going?
Will Calhoun [00:27:36] God of Articles, interesting that I basically was introduced to the band by having these conversations you and I have now. We talk about math, we talk about science and physics, we talked about musicians like John Coltrane, or Nick Homan, an artist that dealt with and still to me deal with, because we're still learning the concepts of math and other layers of music, other concepts of music. So what we started on is academic chat. I've played many shows with Melvin in my career. He's one of my favorite bass players in the world. He's a great musician. Stephon's from the Bronx, like I am, and you know, he's wrote an incredible book in the physical jazz. He wrote a beautiful, great book. And we decided to take our conversations to the instruments because we were debating. This doesn't work with this, it can't work. No, it's not possible. And we're different, you know in that. Stephans coming from both the music and the professor side, the actual academic side of it, Melvin and I coming from more of a musical side. The conversations began with the arguments, kind of, a little bit of the challenging each other. Okay, well here's the equation. What's your point? And we would play the pattern, and Melvin would play his point, and I would play my point, and Stefan would play this point, and we brought Jaron in as well. And then as we started to have this conversation, we were creating music out of philosophy, and math, and physics, and that doesn't work with that. Yes, it does. If you put. Three and eight here, you end up with five, no you won't. That's really how it started. And it became a beautiful thing after a while. We started to write four guard particle. Actually putting songs together that did without conversations. Improvisation, rhythmic stimulation, circular patterns, avant-garde patterns, harmonata tones, all of these things became part of our vocabulary. And first time in my life I was part of a band. Based off of a conversation, a scientific-mathematical conversation, but that's where it started.
Speaker 1 [00:29:45] Let's talk a little bit about Stefan. He said, you know, you and Melvin are your professional working musicians, and he's got other things on his plate. Tell us about it. What's that like?
Will Calhoun [00:29:59] Well, it's different because saxophone players, as a species of musician, have a certain type of, I think Melvin and I kind of used to be on with saxophone plays of that kind of saxophone ilk. Stephane's coming from the professor side and the saxophone side, so it's different for us, it' new for Melvin and I. If I can describe it, it's been a pretty, I think, good learning curve for us but for him too. He's getting his analysis on the way he thinks about the song, and he's not discussing it with musicians. He's doing them on a scientific aspect. Challenging moments here and there, yeah, but it's great. It's a beautiful concept to work those things out with Steph, and the thing about all of us, but I'll say definitely Steph, he's a student. So if we hit a brick wall, we can say, hey man, check this out and listen to this. He'll call me saying, I heard this thing, and now I understand what you were saying. Two days ago. Being open and being able to acknowledge. Parts of your journey makes it easier.
Speaker 1 [00:31:10] Now, you know, for me, I took physics in high school, you know, I enjoyed it at the time, but now it seems a little bit of a kind of a foreign country to me. Yeah. And what's that like with you? Because we have that scenery that's explaining to you all about the instanton. You know, Melvin's got a priceless reaction where he's like, ah, I don't really know where this is going. But it's an important part of the dynamic, and it's really important for Stefan, I think, to be able to talk physics.
Will Calhoun [00:31:42] Oh, it's compulsory. It has to be. What I love about Stefan's angle is he wants us to know and listen and understand his point of view, which is different, and it is musical, and it doesn't make sense, and that is unique. So it's, but Norman and I, and career-wise, are used to getting different information from people who are master musicians. I'm not putting anything against Stefan, but. It's it's like Your mom tells you something over and over again, most of your life, whether, whatever it is, pick up your socks, you know, boom da da da, right? And then you meet a young lady in your life. And then in the first two weeks, she says everything your mom said to you in the 20 years of your lifetime, like, there's a problem here. So, where is that coming from? Right, is it something I don't know? You know, my daughter, but it's informative and it's connected to you, right, and you heard it before. It's getting you from a different source now. So you have to readjust that information in a way that you don't say, I heard that already. Actually, you haven't. It's just a newer version of something that you heard when you were younger. So that's what it's like. Stefana's coming from a very. Academically sound place. Math and science are built on facts. You do things, right? And facts is different, facts are different from theories. Right? I couldn't be wrong, but I think that's the, things happen the same way most of the time. Facts, they get the same result every time. Well, music is a combination of both. And when you think you have a theory in music, the audience can tell you you have the fact. And in your head, you might have the ego of, oh, this is a total fact. And the audience might respond like this is the theory. It worked on Monday and Tuesday night but it sounded horrifying on Thursday night. So this is difference in combining the real academics of physics and mathematics and putting it in music. Music, it breaks so many rules all the time. It stretches. The facts in music are just like instructions. It's not the law, just instructions for you to go, okay, I know this, I knew this, I know what that, now what are you gonna do with it? So, I don't know what it's like to be a physics professor, to have a PhD, that kind of a thing, but I like talking to Stefan about those kind of things because for scientists, once it's a fact, that's it, you put the stapler together, you close the book, shut the hard drive off next, and for musicians, It's never over, even though we know the song, and I know, I mean, I can do that, or you can say, oh, I know this ballad, I know how to play My Funny Valentine, and you go to some club, and you're sitting down at the bar having a beer, and you hear somebody else play it, and you like, whoa, I didn't know you can play it like that. That's the difference, I think, that we share in working together as God Particle is how Stefan brings his... Pack inferior concepts to the band.
Speaker 1 [00:35:08] No, it's really interesting because that is a mirror of what he told us, which is that he really loves talking to you all, because he gets from you, his brain works in a different way than if he's talking to his colleagues. If everybody knows what you're talking about for him, it is like a closed loop. But then it comes to you guys, and maybe you know he just throws stuff, you know, he just says stuff.
Will Calhoun [00:35:29] Well he does, he'll call me and he'll say, hey man, something or something about this theory. And I'm like, is this an assignment? Do I have to turn it in by Friday? What's going on here? How you doing, man? We're gonna go get some food, like what's up? You're in town? And he'll go, well man, I have this idea, man. I wanna get your opinion on it. But he's serious about it and he does bounce the stuff off. And he will tell me sometimes, wow, that's an artist's answer. And sometimes we go. Totally a scientific answer, man. You know, you should speak at colleges and you should know how Stefan is. But it's really inspiring to talk to him. And I think being a musician, which is kind of being a magician in many ways, to sit down and talk to someone about facts, it's important to know the basis of some things versus always having this elastic approach. To all of your concepts.
Speaker 3 [00:36:32] I tell you one thing, he would say, there really aren't any facts yet, until 12 people have affirmed the same thing that I just thought of. He would say like, no, I mean, I don't know, it just leads me to another question.
Will Calhoun [00:36:47] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Being on the panel with him is great. It's really great to hear both sides of his personality, to hear him talk about saxophone and John Coltrane and improvisation, and then to hear them talk about straight facts and theories, how numbers work and what they do with the harmonic tones and the effect. So it's a beautiful combination.
Speaker 1 [00:37:15] And then there's another guy.
Will Calhoun [00:37:18] Tarrin
Speaker 1 [00:37:21] Tell me about you.
Will Calhoun [00:37:23] Oh my God, Jaron, one of my best friends, obviously, I think one of the most intelligent people in this part, this universe, maybe a couple of more universes. Jaron for me, I mean we met and when I met him through an Iranian friend of mine, a singer named Susan Day-Him. She said, you gotta meet this guy, took me to his house. I just thought I wasn't gonna see the guy anymore. I'm like, yo, this is cool, oh yeah. And we hooked up and then he just said, man, what are you doing tomorrow? Come by, let's start playing. We became really great friends and we started to do some shows together. He's the most interesting side of what I said previously. He's an amazing musician, in my opinion. He's very bright, obviously academically, virtual reality piece and so many other things. But he has the sensitivity side to him, along with his brilliance. His brilliance isn't rough. You know, it's a sensitivity side too, where he's allowed to take things in and view them for the value that they are, and then be able to talk about it, and not have a theory about the things. So he's one of the most fascinating human beings I know. He plays many, many instruments, he has a very interesting sense of humor, you know just say something and you're thinking you know a guy that smart and that serious going to make a joke like that? And he has an insane laugh, so it took me a while, the first two or three months, I was hanging out with him to realize he's actually making a joke because he would say it so fast. I was like, did he mean that? And Jiren is the future of technology and art. He's the future. It's going to take someone with this kind of brilliance, intellectual sound, fearlessness, love for art and for music and for people and for humanity, he has the package to me. And I think someone like him is going to be the future, whatever comes out, AI or this or that. I think Giants... Spirit is in a place where technology needs to follow, and it's a beautiful thing, and it is humanitarian-based, but he's thinking much wider than what we're being shown. So he's an important piece to the future of our existence, as human beings first, as scientists, and mathematicians second, and as artists third.
Speaker 1 [00:40:02] So when we filmed you back in March, do you remember that afternoon at his house? Yes. So what did we see? Just, if you remember.
Will Calhoun [00:40:11] It's a toy store for me, but what you see is just, it's amazing one person has all these instruments in their house and they can play them. They're in great shape, they're very rare. They're built by super rare builders. Some of them are just well thought out instruments that are created for him. Someone like me, it's like giving me two million dollars and letting me go into the Vegas. It doesn't matter what I come out with. That's kind of how I feel whenever I'm going over this place. It's like, we record, it returns money and stuff, we try different things. So it's a beautiful, beautiful library of sound for me going there and technology. It's really beautiful libraries. I always learn something. He has at least 10 instruments I'd like to purchase that I can't afford, but go ahead. But it's nice to go and hang out with him and talk a little bit of Turkey about technology and instruments. And we have a dangerous friendship in that he emails me very expensive, available instruments that I can find that he thinks I would be interested in playing, but the prices are quite astronomical. So once in a while, he throws me a little low ball in the middle of the night, and he'll send me something. . This is only 20 grand. This is a beautiful instrument. You'll love it, Will. So but you know very kind for kind kind person, and I think he's his his spirit is a Mandatory piece for if we're going to continue Doing math science and music your parents at the leader leading position to me of pulling together all of those avenues
Speaker 1 [00:42:03] And then the next day, you went to Cumbua. Yes. Go ahead and set that up. Battery.
Speaker 4 [00:42:10] No, I just thought so. OK. I think we have a second.
Speaker 5 [00:42:13] Yes.
Speaker 6 [00:42:26] I hope it's not me.
Speaker 1 [00:42:30] How are you doing, okay? I'm great. We don't have any shine issues?
Will Calhoun [00:42:36] Okay, yeah, look at the lighting. I'm gonna lean here rather than lean back here. It's better here. Yeah Okay You should just be comfortable.
Speaker 1 [00:42:45] Besides, you're taking it off yourself, so that's okay. Yeah, just tell us, a lot of this is about stuff we already have and giving it a little bit of an explanation. Sure. You know, so y'all did a master class at Kimball. Yes. So just, again, what was happening there? What did you see? Why were you doing it?
Will Calhoun [00:43:10] The idea for the class for me was to present.
Speaker 1 [00:43:14] So just saying, so, so Jared and I did a...
Will Calhoun [00:43:17] Jared and I did a master class at the Cumba Jazz Club in Santa Cruz, California. The concept of this class was for us to be able to get on stage and play together and improvise on ideas and sounds, including the math and the physics part, but we were going to really sit down and not sort of plan it out and just improvise and create different vignettes. I do it at his house often, we wanted to try this to see how it would work in front of an audience. Not communicate with each other beforehand, but we picked out specific instruments that we both agreed to kind of blend with the drum kit because I was mostly on kit that night. And that was the idea, was to just go there and listen, talk about harmonics, talk about rhythm, patterns. A little bit of physics, math, you know, and science, but that was the idea, was to present ourselves in a format where we can be honest about our relationship to math and science and improvisation and not have, we're gonna play this tune now, we're going to play, we don't want to hide behind anything, we want it to be really organic.
Speaker 1 [00:44:33] Did he get any questions?
Speaker 4 [00:44:39] Let me just take one quick look here.
Speaker 3 [00:44:47] I have a ton of non-film questions.
Speaker 1 [00:44:52] No, I know. It's a whole lot of this, like, yeah, right. It's like eating out in the middle of the night. Oh, my God. Look over here. Ha ha ha ha!
Speaker 3 [00:45:02] How did you hear it? I just heard a couple... Was drumming always...
Speaker 6 [00:45:10] No way. No way No, no, no
Speaker 4 [00:45:15] When did that happen?
Will Calhoun [00:45:17] My first love was wanted to be the first African-American motocross champion from the Bronx. I was way into bikes, off-road only. An older friend of mine took me into a... Garage one day to work on some transmissions, spark plugs, and change tires. And I was addicted right away to the horsepower and how the clutches work, and bikes, and the mechanics, the chain, everything was just fascinating for me. My parents definitely were on the, I don't think so, mode for quite some time. And somehow or another, they broke down and bought me this off-road bike. And I started to study with a weight trainer because I was a skinny kid. I was 110 pounds and my bike was 175. I had a weight trainer and a motorcycle. And I did some little kind of local area in New York riding. My older brother, named Charles Calhoun, was a prodigy, he's six years older than me. So he was a killer drummer at like age four, just to give you a little drum background. The great Steve Jordan, who you may or may not know, lived actually 40 paces from where we're sitting right now, where he grew up. Ray Chu, great keyboardist, Raymond Chu, lived around the corner. Out of Calhoun House. All of our parents were very close. Ray Chu graduated high school and became the musical director for Ashwin and Simpson at age 17. Steve Jordan joined, the embassy orchestra at around the same time and started to play with a bunch of musicians. Having the drums in my house and my brother playing and having my brother's friends be so great, I didn't wanna play, I didn't think I could match that. So I went the sports route for a little while. And then I just was bitten by it after a while and we grew up in a two-family house. My mother converted the basement apartment into the local neighborhood rehearsal studio. My brother was very open-minded. He played with jazz trios, gospel choirs. Blues, cats, everyone came to our house, so I got to see, like, wow, tonight's an organ trio tonight. And that was the beginning of me, like falling in love with the music side of it, but I didn't want to be a drummer. And when you have an older brother, you don't want really do what he's doing anyway. It's just one of those things. He started to kind of slow down and not want to play anymore. And I was just getting information and meeting his friends. They would call me and come, we're going to go to the garden. We're gonna go to the vanguard, we're gonna to go to bottom line and see. So I was just getting, then at, I would say age 16, Billy Cobham was a... Influence on me and my brother didn't want me to go to this concert and his best friends were saying your brother's cool, man just bring them I went to that concert at the bottom line and There I am 16 watching Billy's playing all my favorite tunes. He looks amazing I had a cousin with me very big football player kind of guy After the show, he goes, you wanna meet Billy? He's one of those kind of guys that starts to walk, people get out of his way. We're walking to backstage, Billy's there, and all of a sudden, everyone's eyes go in one direction, including Billy's. And it was Miles. And nobody had seen Miles for five or six years. So I'm totally blown away because that's my favorite musician of all time. And Miles walks up, and my cousin, he's kind of a fearless guy, he says, excuse me, Miles. And I'm like, man, you can't walk up to Miles and talk to Miles, man. You gotta get permission. And Miles turns around. He looks at him. And he says look, my little cousin's a fan. Can he come over and say hello to you? And he looks at me, and I just couldn't talk. And then Myles said...
Speaker 5 [00:49:21] Does he speak?
Will Calhoun [00:49:26] It was too much, like that experience of Billy. I didn't even get to see Billy yet. So I saw him both, and then I went home that night and quit all my sports teams. And I went to the local gas station to work as a gas attendant since I knew I had to change. Spark wasn't transmission on bikes. I worked in a garage a little bit. And I saved up my money to buy my friend. I was it. It was it that that concert was really the thing that pushed me off the diving board. To be honest. That's where it started. So, I had all of this information and I just felt like I was a little late getting to the game. So I really wanted to put a lot of time into it. And from there on I went to Berklee and other things. I had great teachers, Harciano, Tommy Campbell, Ken Widenar, a lot fantastic drum teachers. And that was the beginning of my introduction to this instrument and this lovely world of music.
Speaker 1 [00:50:25] We've been talking to neuroscientists, and they say that drummers' brains are different than everybody else's, that they're like bigger, that there's just more going on. Yeah, I think Jaren actually told us that too in the interview we did before you showed up that day. I don't know if you feel that way, but it seems you're in touch, you need and want to be in touch with so many things at any given moment. That's got to promote, like, big brain. I don't know, it just seems so weird. Just listening to you telling me all the things that you have to be keeping track of, whether consciously or unconsciously or subconsciously. It sounds exhausting. In a good way.
Will Calhoun [00:51:13] It can be, depending on the family you're with, but yeah, yeah. Well, that's interesting, a neuroscientist, but it's really... It begins here, before you play with anyone. It begins all the math, all the science, all of the physics. Everything begins right here, independence. This sound has to sound this way. You're playing four here, three there, two here. That has to be loud. This has to medium loud. This has be soft. But when you go here, that's the sound even. And you hit the cymbal, you come back here, you got three different volumes with three different limbs. Playing four different limbs, one's louder. Max Roach gave me an exercise that I still haven't mastered yet, but it's a huge one. And basically, you make every limb play the same pattern. So I'll just go. Now, one of those things you have to make louder, and the other three stay the same. Let's give you my left hand. Bring it back down to the And you do that with each limb. You independently bring it up and you bring it down. After you get to the single patterns, you do more difficult ones. And that's where the brain power kind of starts. Because when you're playing this instrument, and people sometimes that you play with don't understand how the instrument works, and they'll say, don't do that, that's too loud. And it's usually one thing. It's too much ride cymbal. Let me just take that down. That's all. They like everything else, and some artists do know, and they'll say, Will, less on the hi-hat. I need more kick drum. And you have to turn just this up and keep the vibe going. So that independence is really an important part. So before you get to ensemble playing, the math really begins here on the kit and understanding the language of how to make this instrument sound like 50 things. You know, I have unlimited options. That's kind of the idea. Brushes, sticks, mallets, you know, slow. And then everything matters. The drum head, you now, thick head, thin head. The beaters, I have steel ones on. I like steel. There's some of the cloths. All of those things have an impact on the ideas that you've brought up. But yeah, I do love it. It's not kind of never-ending. It's never boring. It's always more to take in. And it's very challenging to be able to. For me to be able to think about. Everything that's going on, and I'm never thinking about my instrument when I'm playing. Whatever I need to do, I just do it. I don't have to think about doing it. So when you're playing it, when I playing a live show, like let's say we live in color, I'm only focusing on the show, not on my drumming. It's just this show, meaning this song's too long, this song too short, this song is too fast, Uh oh, we're losing the crowd, or they're really with us now. Those are the, that's the, this is automatic pilot. And this, what's coming in visually engages what I'm gonna perform and how I'm going to do it. So you have to work with both atmospheres at the same time. You know, you have really put them together and understand. Because if you do the head down thing and you just play, you get lost. If you get too much in the spinning the sticks and touching yourself and winking at girls, the music's probably gonna go downhill after that, right? So you really have to pay attention. You know, it's a little bit of a lifeguard scenario of the whole beach and certain sounds and listening. That's really where this job starts to become very serious, separates the men from the boys. You really have to understand that because if you're thinking about yourself and the ego and you're playing, you're going to lose the plot on all the other things. That's a very important part about us being able to read the room, read the sound, read the stage. Some people just wear it. Get with it. This horn player comes in, you look at his shoes and his jacket, okay, I know what this guy's gonna do. I hate to say it, but that happens sometimes, where this guy is gonna play fast the whole night. You just, you know, you just know it, or someone else you just realize this person is a listener. He's gonna really... You know, when I recorded with B.B. King one time, he was a brilliant man and brilliant musician, but... He was listening to me, which made me nervous. Because I was thinking, maybe I'm not playing this right. Pharaoh Saunders leaves the stage. And I was playing for Pharaoh, and I said, follow my way, you know, we were up there, see your gig. He said, well, I don't need to be up there because people are going to look at me. I already finished saying what I had to say. Now, if you guys don't know you're playing wrong, too long, or too loud, or too much, who am I to tell you? And it makes sense. So that means the responsibility factor is on these. He's not going to, hey man, hey, what's the purpose of that? It comes with that kind of a package of you having to...
Speaker 3 [00:56:57] We did a film before, we interviewed Jason Marcellus. Jason Marcello.
Will Calhoun [00:57:15] It's not even it's not someone who says you sound great after a show you just it you got to go Thanks and get it, you know, but you have to you have two another experience I had with That was playing with the NBC Orchestra I was some substituting Paul Schaeffer was conducting and We were doing the gospel song. This is kind of funny when I'm gonna be honest about it So surely Caesar who's the gospel queen is doing the song we doing this It was right before Union Break and Paul turns around and goes, Hey Will, you know what? I need you to play this lick going into this piece. And it was a really cheesy lick he wanted me to play. And I said, okay, you sure? He says, yeah. So we, okay. Union Break. So Will Lee turns around. You're not going to play that crap, are you? You know, the string players are like, I wouldn't do that around with you. Really? You're going to do that? So, like, it's my first time doing this, I'm like, damn, you know, he asked for it. And then, so we take the break, and we come back, and the guitar player's like, looking at me like, don't, it's a stupid lick, man, don't play it. So we get to the song, Shirley comes out, we play it, and I kind of enhanced it, so it can be hip. Ball doesn't say anything. At the next break, he goes, hey Will, I asked you to play this thing for me, and you didn't play it? I said, yeah, Paul, in all honesty, just felt good. He goes, well, you know what? I need to hear it so I know it sucks. That's all I'm asking. And I had to say, okay, I hear you. He said, now my field was a terrible idea, but if you don't play it, I'm not gonna know what's terrible. So I'm calling it, I wanna hear it, doesn't work. That's the other side sometimes of not trying to overthink things. Yeah, I was subbing so I wanted to sound amazing. And Shirley was telling me, oh, you sound great. I didn't wanna play this. And I played gospel music and the lick he was asking me to play was a little on the anti-gospel side in terms of the flavor, but I understand what he meant when he said that, and it made sense to me.
Speaker 4 [00:59:24] Thank you.
Will Calhoun [00:59:25] There are those moments when, although maybe you know something, there's a reason why someone's asking you to do something. Don't assume they don't know what they're talking about, you know, and you made a really valid point there. So that's the other side of listening and knowing and having a feel for things sometimes. And not to be bamboo-ful about other people who've been doing it for 30 years, all of those people in that orchestra have been doing for years. So I was a new guy and they just turned around and said, don't do that. What, are you kidding me? I wouldn't do it if I were you. What? Get out of here. Get out. He won't even know it. Don't do it, don't do it. And I was just sitting there going, what? So yeah, you have to do what you have to do. The idea is to make those other musicians and the orchestra and the conductor and those folks feel really amazing about the things that they're doing, you know, and focusing on that.
Speaker 1 [01:00:25] So, one of the things we talk to, we have a lot of visual artists in the show, and we talk about what does it feel like when you're done, when you finish the piece, you know, and most of them actually, interestingly enough, say the same thing that we all feel when we're done with a film, which is you actually don't feel particularly good. Really? Yeah, you don't. You feel like, because you see all the flaws, you now, one artist said, you what, there is no longer any more potential. While I'm working on it, it still has potential to be... And then when I stop, because unless you're nuts, you basically do have to stop. You have the shows, the art show's going to start or whatever, and the potential isn't there anymore. And it's always, it's never, it never perfect. And that's... Really? Yeah, yeah, it was kind of interesting, right? And you said, you know what, I'm still listening. I still go to the bar and hear another version of My Funny Valentine. It's like, whoa, I didn't know that. So you're still not finished. But We interviewed Wynton about 10 years ago, and he was talking about sometimes they play a gig as a band, and they all know that something really magical happened. It wasn't just a job. So tell us about what that feels like.
Will Calhoun [01:01:42] Well, two things I want to say. First of all, when I make a recording and I feel good about it, I don't listen to it. I know when I'm done, then we're vivid and time's up. The first three Living Color Records, I left the studio. I felt like I had the Heisman, I had an MVP. I didn't care if anyone purchased it or not. We talked about the film. Everything that I wanted to do and more on those recordings, I did. And it was successful and it came out great. And then Stacey and Ron St. Germain, the great producers, and they made it even more. So I walked out of there like, yeah. If you saw one record, to me this is a killer. I have a problem if I leave a session and I don't feel like that. So there's a finale part of it. I wanna just answer that. First. And the second piece you want to know is...
Speaker 1 [01:02:33] You play a million gigs, right, in your career. Sometimes you have, sometimes, an angel came or whatever, so what does that feel like and, you know, it's not something you can order up, I assume.
Will Calhoun [01:02:46] No, I mean, the first time it happened to me... I went to see R. Blakey two nights after that. And I went R. Blakey and I said, R, man, this is a really strange experience. When I was playing, everything was working. And I dropped this stick and it was cool. Like everything was cool! He goes, yeah man, that's when the energy comes down and it comes through you man, it comes out. And you just, man don't fuck with it. Leave it alone, leave it alone man. Don't even ask what's going on. Let it happen, cause when you do that, you're gonna make a big mistake. And it was beautiful and scary. He was like, don't, that happened? And don't look for it, it ain't coming the next night. Maybe not the next year, leave it alone. And I went, oh thanks, you know, okay, great. Ah, maybe that was the last time, I don't know. I mean, that's what art said to me about it, but it has happened a lot of times, and I just think it's something about rhythm and vibrations. I think there is a simpatico rhythm between where the band is sitting, what the audience is feeling, whatever time it is at night, I don't know what's going on up in the stars and the moon, I dunno, but there are those moments when you, if you're paying attention, you're not playing the music. And that, when I told Art that story, I mean, it was my first time, I recognized it, and I was like, felt like I was on some Harley Davidson that had wings, you know, I was just flying. And I was doing things that I know, like when a stick drops, I'm like, damn. But it like fell in this cool town, you know and I picked up the other one, and it was a band, it was like ah, that was cool. I mean I didn't mean for it to be cool, but they were like, ha ha, yeah man, I see, I seen. I didn't practice that move, but it happened that way. So I don't interfere with that. Did a lot of studying and research with master musicians and mostly in West Africa, North Africa, and I've been told a lot of amazing things about being open and having energy connect with your energy and what can happen. Sometimes it cancels yours out, takes over your energy. Who knows, but it does happen and sometimes, to be honest with you, you can smell it before it hits you, like you have a sound check, we have a joke, when the sound check is killing, the gig is going to suck. So, as soon as we sound good at it, we're like, then you're like okay, okay, we cool, man, we'll cool, we'll go out, we see you at eight o'clock. And the sound man said, no, I'm gonna do some more. And the thing is, when you're playing the show, you know it, you're, like, damn, this song sounded so much better four hours ago. I wish I had that sound I had when I was doing this. Does that mean, don't warm up? I don't know, I don't have the answer. But I keep my performance in life on a spiritual tip. Some guys like to warm up. I don't like to judge anybody. I get lost because most of the time I don't warm up, I don't. The set list is built for me to warmup in the show. If I start sitting down with a pad and doing a bunch of things, to me, I'm eating away at that energy that I need for that set list. Now I know the guitar guys, they got metronomes and clocks and this and software. I'm at the library, I am at a museum. I'm at a falafel spot. I'm playing ping pong with the other drummer from the other band down the hall in the venue, but I'm not doing that now. You made a good point there. Times when you walk in the menu and you go, I don't have it tonight. You get that pad out and you get that and you can tell drum is a very physical instrument. It's extremely physical. I tell my students, don't get upset when you can't accomplish things. A lot of it is muscle development. It's not that you can play it. It takes a certain type of development to be able to do this kind of a sticking. You don't look at it and just do it right away. See how they practice it, show this. It involves tendons, the way things are moving, dynamics, soft to loud. So, it has happened. And it's a beautiful thing when it happens. And I listen to R. Blakey and I think about him every time. Don't stop, don't tell anybody you're feeling it. Don't share it, just do the show. And look up in the sky, wherever you need to look and say thanks and go back to the hotel because when it's over, you can feel that it's over and if you go to the next night with that vibe, you're gonna hurt yourself. So it's a little bit different in my aspects. It's interesting to hear you say that. For me, for recordings, for my own recordings, I gotta walk out of there knowing that the period's on the sentence and it's the end of the chapter to rap and I have a hard time if I don't feel that way. So. I go out of my way to make sure I feel. Now, honestly, I've done records where I was like, uh, uh, and I go back and listen to it and go, uh. But I'm pretty much a bastard about making sure, like, I wanna give the artists what they want if it's not my project, but if they pick a version of something I don't like, I have to say, can I do another one? Can I, no, this one's perfect. Maybe you wanna just, maybe you can cut them up later. I would say 98% of the time I'm correct. So it's a tough thing as a piece of art to let go of. It begins with your approach and what you want to say when it's time to speak and how you want lay it out. So if you're serious about it then say that in the first sentence and then you already have the idea. Don't wait until things move down the line.
