The drumming of Waage and the impossible rhythmic translation of the music of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff: All, assembled with the touch of avantgarde
jazz and at times of light heavy rock. It’s the orchestral Conception of the drumset, one, where the drumset replaces the conductors baton.
Adding to that, musicians like Percy Jones (former bassist of Brian Eno and David Sylvian), Tony Franklin and Derek Sherinian (DS scheduled for up coming album), take on duties on Waage’s highly intensive solo work, which includes Phaseofmatter(2005) and Takeitoutside(2008), both available free of charge on the web. No business, resulting in only the pleasure to explore and possibly violate the borders of of a musical stereotype.
A developed Producer, let alone sophisticated arranger, his drumming is a sound carpet that propels the compositions and the rest of the band.
From spontaneous light speed accents to extended vibrating fills that intimidate both extreme modern metal and hardcore jazz drummers.
But it’s nothing to much for him.
Maurizio: Who were your first drumming idols? Who are now the drummers you refer to in your songwriting?
Gunnar: My first drumming idols, well I studied piano for 3 years as a kid and enrolled in the conservatory at the age of 12 to study classical percussion. I got heavily in to Mitch Mitchell with the Jimmy Hendrix
Experience, Mark Craney with Jethro Tull simply blew my head of and Barrymore Barlow as well. Then I discovered fusion and started listening to Cobham, Gadd, Mike Clark. Then came the 90’s and the drummer that I still value the most from that era is Mel Gaynor of The Simple Minds.
My songwriting is in part an extension of my drumming and for about 10 years I did extensive analysis on the style of Dave Weckl, trained heavily on his style along with Joel Rosenblatt´s.
Today the drummers that I mainly study would be Virgil Donati, Mike Terrana, Marco Minneman to name some. My own style has been moving in that direction, It’s a technical study and a study of form, structure and so on.
But when it’s time to make music I play my own style really. If I could point out any particular influence from a drummer there is probably some Mel Gaynor in that heavy groove in “The Flight” It has that monstrous big beat.
Maurizio: What about your primal fascination for drums?
Gunnar: I don’t know really, I loved the way the drums looked and it was an instrument that was completely above my understanding. There where classical musicians in my family, my grandmother was a concert pianist and my mother an opera singer. Those where huge footsteps to follow and I found an urge to pave my way in a completely different direction.
Maurizio: What about your experience with musicians of the the caliber of David Garfield, Tony Franklin and Percy Jones? What could you say about these collaborations?
Gunnar: The experience with those guys has been an education and great pleasure really. Actually the “Phase of Matter” album was supposed to be an experimental album with free improve and that was the type of stuff I had been working on for a few years before that. When I contacted Percy I sent him some music to listen to, to my surprise he thought it was “braking new ground”. So we decided to do an album.
However 1 or 2 years went by and somehow I didn’t find the spirit to do more material like that. I wanted to go in to a more structured direction and do a technically demanding fusion album.
So when I finally figured out this writer’s block of mine I told Percy I really wanted to do a drummers album with some aggressive drumming. He was fine with that and so it went. Percy is maybe one of the greatest bass players of the 20th century and his playing on the album is amazing. I cannot say the same for my production methods on that one and I think I made a mess of it really. But Percy’s playing was amazing! This was my first album and it was wild and cocky, I was trying to mesh together all kinds of influences and it was lacking direction.
Tony and David played on “Take it Outside” and their input was amazing as well. I can honestly say that I’m very happy with the album. I knew what I wanted to do this time and I had a new attitude. I also took my time with this album both with the writing and the production. The important thing when dealing with this type of music is that you really have to play it with a fearless approach, it has to be you. Tony Franklin and David Garfield have that approach and Percy Jones has that approach as well.
However writing the music and arranging it, engineering it and mixing it plus tracking the drums which is actually the least amount of work, all this is tremendous amount of work and pressure. So on my next album it will be a relief to have Derek Sherinian (Planet X, Dream Theater) produce it and play the keyboards. It will be a big step for me because until now it has been difficult for me to trust someone else with recording and mixing the drums.
Maurizio: What about The Gunnar Waage School of Drums? What about it’s spirit and it’s method of teaching?
Gunnar: I started teaching a couple of students in Minneapolis at a school while studying drums at Music Tech. Then in 1994 I moved to Mexico City where I stayed for 4 years. There my teaching really took of and I actually became one of the founders of the G. Martell College of Music. It was a great place to be in and the staff included players from the Ricky Martin band, Arjona ect. This was a great experience.
I moved back to Iceland in 1998 and after a while I started teaching in the Conservatory. After a couple of years I was tired of it for a number of reasons, I had wonderful coworkers and all that but I wanted to be in charge and have my own department.
So I decided to open my own school. It’s been 5 years now and I have a diverse array of students from beginners to my College level students and then there are quite a bit of professional players that come in with special interests or areas they need to work on. I use Gordy Knutson’s material in the College program which is the same material used at the McNallySmith College of music in St.Paul Minnesota.
I enjoy teaching immensely and it really is my calling if you will. I am happy to say that when the school started 5 years ago the drumset was not officially an independent instrument at the government level.
However I applied pressure through the media in interviews and on the schools homepage toward a change in that area. Last fall the drumset was eventually recognized as an independent instrument here in Iceland and that was really a victory in my struggle for a more modern academic approach. I’m proud of that.
When a student graduates it’s always a victory as well since what comes before that is a lot of anxiety on my part. The Diploma program is 2 years and 60 credit/hours. The first year is mostly a technical training year and the 2nd year is more of a study in structure, form, applications ect. It’s very important to prepare the student for the recital at the right speed and make sure his/her abilities peak at the right time. This process is never the same with 2 students.
Maurizio: What about your drum equipment? What kind of drum pieces and cymbals set you play? Which sizes?
Gunnar: I use Yamaha Maple Custom drums, a 20 inch bass drum and the mounted toms are 8 and 10 inch. Floor toms are 15 and 16 inch and I use a 12 inch tom on my left side. I use a 4 x 14 Peter Erskine signature maple snare drum and sometimes a 51/2 x 14 Dave Weckl signature snare drum.
My Hi Hats are 13 inch both of them. The left one is mounted on a Gibraltar Ultra Adjust stand and the right is mounted on a Pearl Eliminator Cable Hat stand. Then I´m using 4 Pearl Eliminator pedals with belt drives, a double pedal and two single pedals.
The cymbals are mostly Sabian and there is a 20 inch ride a very live dark jazz cymbal with a lot of textures and colors in it. I have one 16 inch Jack Dejonette signature crash which is very dry, an 18 inch
Rod Morgenstein med.thin crash, 16 inch China. I have a specialty china which consists of a 14 inch china attached to a 12 inch splash, both of those cymbals are broken and I prefer them that way since it gives them a thrashy percussive effect. There are two more 16 inch med. Thin crashes and two splashes 8 and 10 inch.
Maurizio: How do you tune your skins and drumheads?
Gunnar: Actually I’ve been raising the pitch lately.I have been using small toms like 8 and 10 inch for about 15 years now and they require undertuning which then results in a pretty low overall tuning. I tune the toms in thirds and I use a certain song for humming to myself while tuning since that song is made up of pure thirds.
The snare drum I don’t tune very high like is very common today, it has a medium slack and the strainer is also slighty loose to allow it to breathe. This tuning of the snare drum gives it a lot of tonalities which suits my style. I don’t go for a very consistent backbeat which is the norm but rather go for the small different nuances that come out of striking the drum in different places. That comes from Jim Keltner, he is the king of that type of playing. I want the snare drum to sing.
I use clear Emperors on the toms and a white coated Emperor on the snare.
Maurizio: You said: “I am a strong believer in drummers leading their own careers. Why should a drummer spend his whole life in the supportive role?” What do you mean by “supporting role”?
Gunnar: That means playing in a backing band behind a singer for example. If that’s your dream and that’s what you want to do then you should do it. However its not for everybody. Most great instrumentalists are composers whether they compose independently or in a group. I don’t think a drummer is necessarily meant to be strictly a timekeeper, that point of view has become old school I think.
Maurizio: What are your future artistic goals?
Gunnar: Well there’s my next album that I’m going to do with Derek Sherinian and Tony Franklin later this year. I am finishing up on my double bass workout that has taken me 3 years and I will be presenting some of the results of that work in the online class on gunnarwaage.com. I aim to keep on learning more about my instrument and during teaching I’m the one learning the most.
Maurizio: On the background of your MySpace page there is King Arthur’s sword Excalibur. Why this choice? What does it mean for you?
Gunnar: – I’m glad you asked me that! As a kid my favorite books where Prince Valiant. Just looking at those black and white drawings and the whole mythology of the knight, the fighter, the hero. I don’t think people change very much over the years, I’m 43 now and a lot of things that mattered to me the most when I was a kid stay with me to this day. For some years I probably lost sight of them but I’m probably back where I should be.
I named my baby daughter who is 2 and a half now “Lilja Aleta” and Aleta was Valiant’s wife.It´s hard to say as to why I use the sword Excalibur on my profile. I have an aggressive drumming style that relies on strong technique and that’s not necessarily the easiest path to follow. So you fight your way.
by
Maurizio De Paola chief editor of Drum Club Magazine in Milano in june 2009.