Drumming for pop superstars

Katy’s is a hugely entertaining show. Can that be distracting for you as a drummer?

“Sometimes you forget what you’re doing. You think, ‘Where am I?’ There’s guys flying around in there, a giant inflatable car running around the stage. But, we’ve been playing this music and you learn your stuff and you can have fun and get lost in it. I just try to get through it and play my parts.”

It seems that with every tour it isn’t a case of just adding a few new songs, it is an entirely new show. Is that demanding for you as a performer?

“It’s a totally new show. We’re doing a lot of the old songs but everything has been revamped.
Like Hot N Cold is a slow, 6/8 swing version and everyone is dressed as cats. It’s great. We’re doing I Kissed A Girl differently as well. I’ve been playing these songs since the first record so it is nice to have a fresh take on them. If you play anything for three years straight on a tour it just becomes a series of movements. Some songs were really composed and structured whereas others have room to explore.”

Is Katy hands-on when it comes to drums?

“Oh yeah, she is definitely hands-on. From the start of a tour, she has an image of what she wants it to look and sound like. The kids want to hear the record but she wants to give them a show. It’s the combination of having the sounds that are built into the song - there are certain parts that you can’t take away otherwise it’s not the song anymore. She likes the element that it is a live show but she has an idea of the sound, it has to retain that record magic.”

It sounds like you need a lot of discipline for this gig. Is that true of all pop gigs?

“It depends on the artist. In my situation you have to play the parts. You need discipline. There’s a structure you need to keep. You can stretch out within that framework but you’ve got to play the parts. I’ve played with people that have a hard time doing that. They’re amazing musicians but the artist might not want all these licks. You have your moments to do your licks, but you can’t do them over the chorus!”

With Lady Gaga, she is a musician herself and you have an MD too. How much room do you have to play the way you want to?

“They hired me to do what I do. That’s been the joy with a lot of my calls lately. I get called to do what it is that Spanky does. I have total freedom - she trusts me. Be a musician. You love to play, play. If you hear the keys, play the keys; if you hear the bassline, play the bassline. That’s our whole vibe. Do it with utter confidence. I love it. It’s never been, ‘Spanky, don’t do that. I don’t like it.’ You know how a lot of drummers do the same chops, the same fills? I’d kill myself. I can’t do that. I’m blessed to be in a position where I can venture off. Not go crazy, but I have that freedom. That’s important.”

Do you suffer nerves playing such big venues with Gaga?

“There is definitely adrenaline. You get nervous sometimes but my mom always used to tell me, ‘Why are you nervous? You do know how to play drums, so don’t forget you know how to play'. Now, it’s so much excitement. We’re so used to playing and letting go, letting my gift take over and you don’t know what’s going to happen. Last night we jammed and I didn’t know what was going to happen. None of us knew but I was excited.”

How much interaction is there between Lady Gaga and the band?

“She trusts us 100 percent. Like she’s falling backwards off a building and we’re there to catch her. That’s how you want your artist to feel. She has a lot going on so it’s good for her being able to depend on us. She doesn’t even address us about anything musically. I’ve dealt with the top divas; everybody is tough, but she’s nothing like that. I thank God for that, because that’s what would make me leave a gig. There is none of that with her.”

Did the 'toilet circuit' gigs you did with bands early on serve you well once you had made the step up to arenas?

“With Kylie and Leona, you’re not supporting in an arena, you’re part of the headline act. Often you’re on at 7pm and there are 12 people there. You can say you’ve played Wembley, but no one is listening. I remember the first Girls Aloud show I did; it was a heart-racing experience. If you haven’t done it before, you can’t visualise what it is going to be like. Fear is simply reacting to what we don’t know.

“With Girls Aloud I think I probably only saw the show on DVD because I spent the time thinking ‘don’t screw up, don’t screw up’. But then with Kylie, we did so many shows I was able to settle in and enjoy it. It’s a bit like a long car journey: ‘Am I going the right way? Yes, I am. Right, enjoy the drive and look at this beautiful vista.’”

Is working with big artists an art in itself?

“It’s all about being conscious that you’re there to serve the music and the artist; it’s their thing, their baby. They’ve spent time crafting it, so you can’t walk in and say, ‘I don’t think that is any good, I’m going to play this.’ It is better to start off and be asked to play more than the other way around. Let it breathe. With drums it is very easy for singers to be afraid of the drums. They’re going to be loud, raucous, spilling down their microphone; it is my mission first of all when I walk in to make the artist realise that I’m there to help them and to be part of recreating their record.”

How much input do artists such as Kylie and Leona have on your drumming in the studio
and live?

“If there is something that they hear, they are where the buck stops. Kylie has just celebrated 25 years, you don’t get to that without knowing what you’re doing. I’ve never worked with anybody that has said, ‘Just do what you do.’ I remember hearing that there is no freedom in freedom. If someone asked you to just play something now, you’d be thinking, ‘What does he want to hear?’ But if I gave you a guideline, you’d know whether you want to break that or stay within it, you’d have somewhere to go. I wouldn’t want to be in a situation where I had complete freedom. It’s way too scary!”

What advice do you have for getting and keeping the big pop gigs?

"With gigs like these, there are hundreds of people who want to be doing them. So it can be cut-throat. If you're not doing it efficiently then you're gone and they'll get someone that will. You need to be on top of your game and suited to that gig better than the next person. As easy as it's given to you, it can be easily taken away. No one is untouchable."

What advice do you have for playing to a click?

"We've done a lot of click playing. Playing to a click is vital for anyone, you need your click playing to be on it. For this show you just need to adjust to the different click times but it does become second nature. We rehearse so much that we could fall asleep up there. We're about to go out on a stadium tour so for that we will have a good month and a bit of rehearsals and then full production rehearsals. As a core band we're going to sit together for a month and strip everything back to make sure everything is perfect."

How did you get the Miley Cyrus gig?

“I was producing a band for a TV show called Laguna Beach. They had to go to New York and perform on TRL, which was a big show and they had never done live TV. Their management asked if I would help them rehearse. I ended up playing guitar and singing background vocals with them, but off camera. I literally stood in a janitor’s closet next to the stage with a Marshall half stack and a mop in a metal bucket!"

“I went for a drink at a bar and this guy stood next to me turned out to be Miley’s manager. We started talking and he said he had a job for me and he’d call me. A couple of weeks later he rang and said he had this artist named Miley, and he thought I’d be a great musical director for her. The guy who hired me said I could play drums or guitar in the band – I was always going to choose drums. I didn’t even know what a musical director was. I said that I didn’t know how to write charts for everybody and they said, ‘No stupid, that’s not what you have to do.’ They said for me to just put a great band together and rehearse it.”

What were your first impressions of Miley?

“I met Miley when she was 12. I went to New York and she sang for me, I loved her immediately. She started breaking my balls instantly, she was making fun of me because I had a mullet and she said I looked like her dad. I said, ‘She’s awesome, I’m in.’ No one knew who Miley Cyrus was at the time, it was Hannah Montana. I didn’t even know what Hannah Montana was because it hadn’t had that
big explosion yet. It hadn’t reached that tipping point where everyone in the world knew her.”

Is Miley hands on with what she wants from you drum-wise? And has it always been that way?

“Totally. But, I know some people who have worked with pop divas and there’s no way I would work with somebody like that, there’s too much punk rock ethos flowing in my blood to do that! Some people just get worked up about the wrong s**t. Miley is so open and creative and she cares about her craft the way that she should.”