Wednesday, March 28, 2012

On the Drum Solo

I don't consider myself much of a soloist. While most every drummer I've ever known or read about likes to go absolutely bonkers crazy from time to time, the ability to organize all the madness into something performance-worthy is a whole different issue altogether.

When I'm in the practice room, I tend to focus more on becoming a better supporting drummer. I realize that 95% (if not more) of what I get hired to do is to bolster of the rest of the musicians in the band, so that's what I spend the majority of my time working on. My job is to establish and reinforce the feel of the songs through groove, dynamics, and time. The drums are the heartbeat of the music; the framework around which everything else is built. But they are not the primary focus of the music.

All well and good until Tyler asks for a drum solo so he can catch a quick breather (after going bonkers crazy himself on 'Pennybags'). Great. Now I have to be the focus of what's going on for at least a few minutes.

So we craft the solo. In doing so, we need to consider the audience, the overall vibe & flow of the show, and what we're looking to accomplish. There are few things worse in a live concert than a drum solo that defies all musical context and goes right over everybody's heads (imagine a big rock show and right smack dab in the middle of it, the drummer launches into a bunch of crazy, polyrhythmic jazz licks with no sense of muscial time or connection to what's been going on during the rest of the concert). Ick. Makes my skin crawl just thinking about it.

So, let's keep it musical. Let's keep it short. Let's make sure we give the audience something they can grab onto, something they clap along with, something they can feel so that I'm not just up there slamming away on my kit while people in the audience are checking out and falling asleep in the middle of the show. To help me out with such a task, I turned to my trusted low-end confidante, Joshua Corbett. We decided to start with a few tricky licks and then launch into a song throughout which we can craft some more cool drum stuff. But not just any drum song. The drum song: 'Wipe Out' by the Surfaris.

The great thing about this particular solo is that it goes back with me all the way to high school. I used to rock this tune during halftime at basketball and football games with the ol' CSCS Pep Band, and even then I used the same basic idea: floor tom groove during the melody riff and solo stuff in-between the hits. It's great because it works. It doesn't necessarily give you the time or room to prove you're the absolute greatest drummer in the universe (which I am definitely not), but it keeps things fun, lighthearted, and musical (which is definitely what you want after a Tyler Ward rap song).

So, thanks to WardHeart for shooting and posting this video and thanks to all the fans for hanging on while we played it. It was different every night and some of those nights were definitely better than others. But the following video was shot in Cologne, Germany, the night of Mr. Ward's birthday, and I think it came out pretty well. I hope you all dig it.


And, hey, even if you don't like it, at least it's not this.


Or this.


Haha. Drums rule.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

The Month In Review

One of the best parts of going on the road....

....is coming back home.

We've made it. And, I think I can speak for everyone involved when I say that the first Tyler Ward European Tour of 2012 was (with a few very minor snafu's), a resounding success. Everybody's safe back at home and fighting off the effects of a 9-hour flight that only takes up four hours of your day.

I've written a lot in the past month about dreams coming true because this tour was an exceptionally big one for me. Not only did it mark my very first journey to the continent of Europe, but I got to do it in the name of performing music for thousands of fans. I'm not sure it gets much better than that.


But, now, I get to come back to the wonderful place I call home. It is an amazing experience to travel abroad, to see the world, to revel in its history and take in the sights and sounds and tastes of other cultures and countries. It is equally amazing to have the privilege of coming back to a place that is just as enchanting, not only because of the natural beauty of Colorado, but because of the wonderful people who populate it along with me. There is nothing as important in this world as people, and God has seen fit to bless me with tons of great ones everywhere I turn.

Taking in the River Wien.
So, Europe, thank you. Thank you for an incredible experience and some wonderful adventures. Thank you for being so hospitable, kind, and welcoming to our little rock band. Your sense of friendship was palpable pretty much everywhere we went, and you were exceedingly gracious with a bunch of guys that struggle to say "Thank you" properly in all your native languages.The shows were amazing experiences, both the big and the small, and the band feels like it has taken a large step forward in its live performance acumen. Fans came from as far away as Rio de Janeiro to see us play this month, and we could not be more humbled or honored by that kind of incredible support.




A huge thank you to all of the amazing people at Ramstein Air Base and for all that they are doing to help our own country fight global tyranny and terrorism. They absolutely deserve their very own blog post, but words fail me when I try to communicate just how special it was for us to be contacted by the military for an invitation to visit the combat hospital on the base and meet some injured troops on their way back home. It's exceedingly hard for my mind to comprehend how a rock band on its way up (haven't even made the radio yet!) would be so appreciated by the people who sacrifice so much for our way of life. I don't want to belittle what I do, because I believe there is purpose to it beyond just playing drums and I sense how special it is to the people that listen. But, what we do in the Tyler Ward Band is nothing compared to being shot at or blown up by insurgents and terrorists thousands of miles away from one's family. And to see the honor and the integrity with which these men handle themselves in the midst of their injuries - just wanting to get better so that they can rejoin their units back in the field - creates a feeling of gratitude and appreciation far beyond what I find myself able to communicate in writing. It has been a dream of mine to tour the world. It has been a dream of mine to see Europe. But, it has also been a dream of mine to work with the USO, and the opportunity to do so on this tour is something for which I will forever be grateful and a gift I'll never be able to repay.

And now, onto other things. It's time for me to walk my dog and take my wife out for fondue. It's time to get back into regular workouts and sleep schedules. It's time for baseball. It's time for me to meet my new nephew (the reason Drew couldn't come out with us on this tour). It's time to hook back up with other musicians outside of the Tyler Ward Band for some new and exciting projects. It's time for Tyler Ward to write and record his first full-length original release. It may, in fact, be time for me to start a whole new writing project myself (we'll see, we'll see). It's time for me to do all the things that will allow me to come back to Europe in the future, God-willing, with loads of new energy, new songs, new experiences, and new life to imbue into my drumming performances for all of our fans abroad. After all, what is music if not life communicated through an instrument?

So, once again, thank you, Europe. From all of us in the T-Ward camp. You made this last month a dream and a wonder for us, and we will remember it forever.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Ramble On

3 weeks down, 1 to go. 

Six shows left until the end of the 2012 Tyler Ward European tour. And what a ride it has been.

I’ve been asked to write about some of the details of our job; apparently, a great number of fans are interested in the behind-the-scenes aspects of what we do.

The touring life is not an easy one. In truth, it seems to me a kind of study in duality and contradiction: a lot of hurrying up to wait and routines that aren't routines.

Well, there’s a routine, of a sort, but it’s a constantly shifting one that doesn’t really allow for any kind of comfortable expectations to be formed. Some nights, you’re allowed 5 hours of sleep because you have to get up early in order to make it to the next venue in time for setup and sound check. Other times, you can sleep in until 11:00 in the morning because you’re not on your way until noon. We traveling musicians seem to have a kind of on-again-off-again relationship with rest. Sometimes she obliges us. Other times she plays hard to get.

Sleep, of course, is the bedrock of health, which is another aspect of touring that can be great one day and your worst enemy the next. From one day to another you may have opportunities to eat well, work out, relax… or not. For instance, we’ve found ourselves doing our best to stock-up on edible commodities that don’t get eaten backstage before a show in order to take them with us in the van for the next day’s travel (this provides not only ease of access but it is much lighter on our individual budgets.) But, some things last better than others and some show promoters do a much better job at providing us with usable amounts of food. That’s not to say that anyone has yet screwed us over on this tour, but, as with life (haha!), sometimes there’s an abundance, and other times you just have to get by with what you’re given. 

Live in Copenhagen.

 The trips in between cities are usual pretty low-key with this bunch. Most of us fill the time with watching movies on the iPad or reading books on the Nook. The SatNav, however, is a wonderful device that lets a bunch of green Americans travel Europe with a certain sense of knowing where we’re going (despite its occasional insistence that we make a right hand turn into a lake or something). And I’m still mystified by the notion that sprinter vans are illegal in the States: the roads are wider and more accommodating and everyone checks out the rear windows, anyway. How much better would our first North American tour have been with this much space! 

(Sorry… got distracted for a bit.)

So, anyway, depending on how much time you have to get to where you need to be (IE: the venue), the hours leading up to showtime can be very different. That being said, there is a very definite routine to how the shows themselves actually work. The band usually arrives at the venue in the midafternoon to load in. Once this is done and the equipment has been adequately set up, the sound techs commence their duty of getting microphones situated at all the right places. Then comes the sound check, which usually involves a line check (each individual mic getting dialed into the specific place in the mix that the sound engineer desires), and the band running through a handful of songs. The sound check is accomplished once both the band and the sound man are comfortable and confident with the way things sound and feel on the stage and on the floor.

Three Amigos.

 After this process, the band gets a respite of usually a few hours before the show starts. These hours always seem to me to fly by: I usually find myself thinking that I’ll have all kinds of time to do this, that, and the other thing in between sound check and showtime, and I never seem to accomplish very much of any of it. In this band, we usually fill the time with reading, dorking around online, talking to our families on Skype, or eating an actual meal (depending on how hungry we may or may not be). Sometimes, (as in my case before our show in Paris), we might try to wedge a quick nap in if we’re not feeling so great. But, then, it’s time to take the stage and all the world goes on hold for an hour and a half while we live the dream.

It’s been a great excitement to me that during this tour the stage has been a welcome escape from all the other stuff going on out in the world. No matter what I’ve been feeling or dealing with beforehand, for the last three weeks the stage has had a magical ability to pick me up and refresh my soul. Everything dissipates as I walk out to do my job, and the fans have made us all feel amazing at each and every show. Incidentally, I’ve just confirmed a suspicion that I’ve had for a while that I seem to play really well when I’m frustrated. Ah, the consequences of reading your e-mail ten minutes before you go on...

Lit up in Hamburg.

 The job is not over after the show is done, however (we are still very much in the process of ‘making it’). After a few minutes’ reprieve backstage, Josh and I get to commence breaking down the equipment we just set up a few hours earlier while Tyler does his best to interact with each and every fan that will hang around long enough to do so. Sometimes you simply can’t see everyone or anyone, for that matter, due to sickness or exhaustion or some other unforeseen circumstance. But we certainly try our hardest to sign every autograph and take every picture that the fans might want. Once all that’s done and the equipment’s been loaded back into the van, it’s back to the hotel for whatever rest we can manage to get our hands on.

And that’s pretty much it, as far as the job goes. We are constantly discovering, however, that there is more to this thing than simply playing music. We are forever and always on the lookout for lessons to learn about the craft of entertaining along with all the purely musical education that the road offers. No matter what any hipster artiste may claim, we feel that it’s important to give the fans a show: to let them in on the secret, as it were: to bring a smile to their face & let them join the party for a bit. Just standing there playing your instrument with no regard for what anyone in the audience thinks might have worked for Miles Davis’ egocentric mentalities, but for us music is a thing to rejoice over and share together. It’s a thing to smile about, even when the subject matter of a song is painful or heavy. The shared experience of singing a song with the audience or, in my case, hearing them clap to the quarter note pulse of my drum solo creates a kind of community, and what were human beings created for if not for community? So, we dress up for the fans and we bring them a show: Welcome to our little corner of the world. Hope you enjoy your stay.

Boom.Boom.Chick.

 The off-days have provided some great adventures on this tour, as well. Readers of this blog will probably already know that two of my favorite pursuits (outside of music) are history and travel, and guess what: Europe does a fantastic job of catering to both. I’ve found myself gazing at 600-year-old churches and mighty rivers that shaped the course of history and realizing that this is probably exactly how people feel when they first see Pike’s Peak, the mountainous overseer of my own hometown: what is fascinating and captivating to one is just another day at home to another. It’s a wild trip to look up at a cathedral and know that this building you’re standing in front of is twice as old as the country you came from in order to look at it. Pretty crazy stuff and right up my alley. It’s also been instructive to move around and learn about different cultures: different priorities, different systems of government, different tastes (Guinness in Dublin; Belgian waffles in Belgium; Haggas in Scotland; Bangers & Mash in London). There’s a whole litany of things we’ve noticed in our adventures over here. Per esempio:
-        Doors that swing inward in America pull outward in Europe, and vice versa.
-        Europe gives you options for toilet flushing: one button gives you the light #1 flush, while the other button gives you the heavier, all-in #2 flush.
-         Europe seems intent on making their all of shower heads removable and handheld.
-         Fast food tastes better (McDonald’s and Burger King are ubiquitous, it seems): the ingredients are fresher and taste prepared, not like they’ve been sitting under the heat lamp for six days.
-        Sound crews in Europe are noticeably more professional: if I remember correctly, every crew (save one) on this tour has mic’d my hihat & the top and bottom of my snare drum (usually considered a luxury in American clubs). Beyond that, the European crews are helpful: even going so far as to tear down my drumset for me one night.
-        There is a remarkable lack of obesity in Europe, as well. Whether it be from the better quality of food, the amount of it they don’t eat at each and every meal, or the fact that so many more of them are constantly walking instead of driving, Europeans seem much more properly proportioned than a lot of folks back home. But they smoke more. A lot more.
-         European lights take just a second to actually turn on once the switch is flipped. No idea why.
-         Europeans don’t seem too interested in alarm clocks. I think a grand total of two of our hotel rooms contained them and none of the backstage areas.
-         Some stereotypes hold true: the Europeans seem to have zero affinity for ice in their drinks, even in countries where ice is clearly not a rare commodity. The Swedes are noticeably tall, blonde, and beautiful. German efficiency is on display just about everywhere in their country. The French bake a killer pastry.
-        Thankfully (thankfully!), most every European we’ve run into has known English. What’s interesting is that many of them seem embarrassed by how they speak it while speaking it much more fluently and beautifully than most Americans. (It is always fun, however, when they come across a word they’re not precisely sure how to translate.)

In truth, this tour has taken me both to places I’ve always wanted to go and to a few I honestly never thought of seeing. As Jordan told me before one of our shows in Ireland: “Just think, man. Tonight, you’ll actually be able to say, ‘Goodnight, Dublin!’” What a trip. And then, last night, I found myself playing drums for 500 Swedes in Stockholm. I’ve never been that far north in all my life and I was there to do what I’ve loved to do since I was 13. Incredible.

Which is to say that this job has both its dreamlike and its very real, unglamorous aspects. There is always a certain amount of actual work to be done (most of which I’d rather not do), but there is also an almost mystical quality to it all: a surreal realization that something we started putting together 2 years ago in Tyler’s basement has turned into playing a concert for more than 1,000 fans in the capital of Germany. Or Antwerp. Or Amsterdam. Or Glasgow. Or London. 

So, I don’t know if this adequately answered anybody’s questions as to what our days are like. There are ups and downs to all of them and a load of work to be done. The great thing is the payoff: getting to see hundreds (if not thousands) of people appreciating your art and joining in the experience of it with you. I'm convinced that there really is no job like it in the world.  And we, this little band of brothers, are certainly not worthy of all that we’ve been given. I hope that I get to do if for the next long while. I would love to look back on this tour someday and think fondly of it as the first of many European jaunts. We’ll see…

Sunday, March 4, 2012

La Longue Route Vers Paris

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. - Proverbs 18:21

My high school required two years of foreign language study in order to graduate. For reasons that currently escape me, I elected to take French. It did not go well.

I did alright with the vocabulary: I could memorize and retain words fairly well and I was keen to spot the similarities between many English and French words for the same object ('music' & 'musique' as an obvious example). What killed me was the conjugation of verbs. For the life of me, I simply could not figure out when to use what word in relation to the proper verb and so forth and so on and on and on.... It was hopeless to my 15-year-old mind.

Granted, high school was a time of frustrated priorities for me: all I wanted to do was play the drums and yet for 8 hours a day I had to go apply myself to the study of things I cared not a whit about. So, my galling lack of retention of the French language might have been bolstered by my insistence on mental engagement with music at all possible times. Nevertheless....

The teacher who had the unfortunate duty of trying to instruct me in French was a woman by the name of Mme Knighten. She was a kind and gentle soul and as far as I could tell had the patience of a saint. Despite my lack of ability to really grasp what she was trying to teach me, she was able to make the classes fun and the interaction was most always uplifting. She was consistently positive and encouraging, even when I insisted on setting the stage for my own failure: I distinctly remember telling her before taking my second year final that I was ill-prepared for it, knew that I was ill-prepared for it, and that I didn't want her to take it personally if I totally bombed her class. She just smiled and told me to do my best in a way that was not all condescending or rote. Consequently, that conversation is one my most pleasant memories from high school. (Oh, and I passed the test. Just, just barely.)

Quite the view.

But, Mme Knighten was not just encouraging in the subject she getting paid to teach. She was an inspiring voice for me in my pursuit of music, as well. She was one of the only teachers I remember that acted as if she thought a life of music would be a great thing for me. She didn't consider the idea ridiculous or wonder aloud right in front of me about when I would stop with the nonsense and start giving consideration to the "real" world. She even went so far as to accommodate me when I asked her what the lyrics to Sting's La Belle Des Somme Regrets meant (a song written & sung in French): she had me bring the CD into class and we all went through it line by line, translating each of the lyrics along the way. Even that little nod to my passion for music was something that I shall remember all my days.

So, that brings us to today: more than a decade has passed, and I am now finally able to say that music has brought me to France. On March 2, Tyler Ward and his band played their very first show in Paris (as an opening act or otherwise), and the theme of the night for this drummer was that of a completed circle: inspiration from a teacher of French finally made its way back around to the people of France. The encouragement that was given to me as a young man barely dipping his toe into the world of music has stayed with me for all of the time that it has taken to realize this dream.

Debut à Paris.

Which leads me to...

The words we speak to one another form powerful realities: encouragement can fuel a fire for years & years to come while the degradation of forcing someone into a predetermined box defined by culture or how one is "supposed" to do things can keep a person down for just as long. I cannot tell you how many frustrated tears were shed or how many times I slammed my metaphorical head against the wall due to someone's insistence that I was throwing my life away by pursuing my dreams. When it comes right down to it, far too many people live in a world of passionless doldrum. They insist that the only proper way to live life is in the way that they themselves have done it: according to the rules, the prescribed formulas, and the societal equations that make up most people's definitions of the good life.

But there are the few: the few that dare to believe that maybe.... just maybe.... someone they encounter in their life might slip outside of the box and do things a bit differently. And, believing that, they lend their words to them as nutrition for their dreams. They speak life and love to another with no strings attached. I truly hope that each and every one of you dreamers out there have at least a few people you can think of who fan the flames of your life's passion.

So, Mme Knighten, this one's for you. Le batteur est finalement venu à Paris. And timeless Amsterdam. And idyllic Bruges. Thank you for your support and encouragement: it has meant the world and I shall never forget it. 

Uitverkocht (sold out) in Amsterdam.

And to everyone who's ever believed in this music thing that we've been going after (seemingly) forever: 

Thank you, thank you, a million times thank you. 

And for the Collector's Edition DVD types who like to know what goes on behind the scenes, I relate the following anecdote -

On the way to our hotel after the Paris performance, we were driving through the city along the Seine River. We took one little turn and happened across this....

 
It was completely unexpected and a bit mind-shattering.

We had planned on getting up early the next day in order to see Gustav's tower before we headed out to Amsterdam, but it seems God had other plans for us. Not only did we get to see the late-night, lit-up version of the Tower, but 1 AM struck while we were there and this happened....



Paris: if I didn't get it before, I get it now. Merci pour les surprises. It is truly the stuff dreams are made of.
Animated Social Gadget - Blogger And Wordpress Tips