SKF NOTE: I’ve posted a couple of excerpts from my 1984 Modern Drummer feature interview with Matt Frenette. Recently I was asked by a visitor to my YouTube channel if the entire interview was available.
Well, as a matter of fact, it is. Or it soon will be. Here’s Part 1 of 4 interview segments. The actual interview took place September 1983 at the height of ‘Loverboy’s’ hit song, “Working for the Weekend.” It appeared as the cover story for the March 1984 ‘Modern Drummer’ magazine.
Here is my 1984 MD introduction to Frenette’s interview.
“Things happen fast in the world of rock ‘n’ roll. The first time Matt Frenette was interviewed for ‘MD’, people were raving about ‘Loverboy’ on the West Coast, but the group’s popularity did not yet extend to the East Coast.
“The interview was therefore intended to be a portrait of an up-and-coming new artist.
“However, before we had the chance to publish that interview, ‘Loverboy’s’ success had spread across the country. Since Matt Frenette’s position in the drumming world had skyrocketed along the group’s popularity, we are now presenting an expanded feature interview with ‘Loverboy’s’ drummer.”
In Part 1 of this interview, Frenette discusses the following topics:
Talking with kids he meets on tour. Influences: Latin American, country & western, Meeting Buddy Rich as a kid Hoping to do clinics after Loverboy tour There’s a lot of girl drummers now Kids ask a lot of good questions. I started on a rented snare drum learning rudiments Five years of school marching band. Playing conventional grip & press rolls Playing with dynamiccs. Pinpointing key drummers history of rock and roll: Don Brewer, Stevie Wonder, Mike Shrieve, Chicago, Blood, Sweat & Tears. Keith Moon, Ginger Baker, Mitch Mitchell, Carmine Appice, Billy Cobham, How original styles in drummers have decreased. Conversation with Quiet Riot drummer. Copy licks vs learning concepts Motivation for starting Loverboy Started out doing all original material in packed clubs. Pay to record their first album First big concert opening for Kiss. End of 1981 played to every demographic. Worst gig ever played. Cape Cod. Opening for ZZ Top.
SKF NOTE: With the passing of the great songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, his longstanding band members wondered, “Now what?”
Friend and drummer Barry Keane, in this interview, shares the story of Lightfoot’s band picking up the pieces and becoming The Lightfoot Band. Carrying on the classic songs of Gordon Lightfoot.
It was, and is, not an easy transition. Gordon was “the leader,” says Keane. How do you go forward when your leader is gone?
Added to the musical challenges, Lightfoot’s passing also meant the loss of much of the group’s administrative and logistical support.
So, in many ways The Lightfoot Band is starting over. In this interview, Barry Keane tells that story here.
Also, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation has recorded and made available some excellent performances by The Lightfoot Band. at the “CBC Music Live at Massey Hall: A special celebrating Gordon Lightfoot” concert. You can view the video here:
SKF NOTE: This three-way exchange with drummers Max Weinberg and Paul T. Riddle and me. In the early 1980s, Max and I were collaborating on a drum book. Part way into that project, Max wanted to take a different direction I found less appealing. We ended our collaboration on very friendly terms.
Max went on to write and publish his book of drummer interviews, “The Big Beat.” In that book’s Acknowledgement Max thanks “Scott Fish, for his encyclopedic knowledge of drumming and for his help with the Russ Kunkel chapter.” Max and I interviewed Russ Kunkel, Andy Newmark, Jaimo, and Paul T. Riddle for our first book idea.
Russ became part of “The Big Beat.” I have the Andy Newmark, Jaimo, and Paul T. Riddle interviews.
This exchange between Paul and Max about the role of a drummer in a band comes from Paul Riddle’s interview. Max was still drummer with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. And Paul was still going strong as a founding member of The Marshall Tucker Band. We were in a hotel room for this interview, either in New Jersey or New York. Beyond that I have forgotten the details.
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Max Weinberg: What do you think the role of a drummer in a band is?
Paul T. Riddle: To be a team player. Be musical. Listen to the tunes. The song will tell you how it wants to be played.
MW: That’s a simple and obvious truth that takes years and years to learn.
PR: We all want to play musically. And we all want to be a team player. And we all may have said we were being a team player when we were still thinking drums, drums, drums. Thinking just as a drummer.
And you’d listen to it back and you were still listening to it as a drummer and not as a whole musician, and not as a song. When you can really truthfully start doing that with yourself I think that’s the big step in reaching for the door handle.
MW: I try to listen to lyrics as much as possible.
PR: Me too. I like to learn the lyrics first thing.
MW: That can give you a real clue to what to play.
PR: Exactly.
MW: Especially when you’re in the studio and you’re trying to make that statement that’s going to last.
PR: Exactly. And cover that vocal. Exactly. And you can find the holes easier that way./
MW: I’ve been playing with Bruce [Springsteen] for nine years. We were talking about a month-and-a-half ago, and I said, “It really helps me to know the lyrics.”
He said, “Well, I never knew that.” He figured people never listen to his lyrics.
PR: I had Toy [Caldwell] print me up the lyrics to the songs on “Dedicated” before we went into the studio.
MW: That’s important. Because I always look at the rhythm section as like the mountains and the desert. The words and the vocal are sort of the action going across in front of it.
PR: Frank [MTB bassist Franklin Wilkie] and I always say we’re painting a great road for them to ride on.
MW: That’s it. That’s really it.
PR: We always like to give them a real nice road to ride on.
MW: Are you paranoid when you play?
PR: Only when Fish is looking at me. The sucker jinxed me the last time I was here. I went down there in the bright lights and the cameras, and then your ass over there going, “Boy, is he sucking tonight. He’s really sucking bad.”
But have fun when you play.
MW: What if you’re not having fun? What do you do if you get in a situation where you think, “Well, I’m not really grooving here.”?
PR: If you’re having a bad night – relax. Take that deep breath. I always try to relax my shoulders. Danny was talking about how he can look at me from behind and tell me – especially if I’m playing matched grip and I cock that shoulder up – if I’m a little tense. There’ll be that difference, and he can tell. You can feel that more than anybody else, I guess. I used to crouch real bad. I’m still pretty bad.
Scott K Fish: You crouch forward a lot.
PR: Yeah. I’m better though.
MW: We were sitting on the side watching and I said, “Boy, he looks just like a jazz drummer.”
PR: That’s what everybody used to always tell me. I didn’t think I looked like that anymore because I think I’m sitting up a lot better than I guess I am. But I try to take that deep breath and relax if you feel like you’re having a bad night.
And play the song. Go back to the song. Listen to the lyrics and get into the music and quit thinking so much about what you’re doing.
I find if I’m having a bad night I start zeroing in on every little thing. Whereas, when you’re having a good night, and you drop a lick, or something doesn’t sound quite right, you just laugh about it and you brush it off. It’s no big deal because you’re having so much fun. Who gives a shit?
Then if you’re having a terrible night, every little thing starts snowballing. You start thinking about all this crap and it starts snowballing. That’s why you’re sucking. Because you’re thinking about every little thing.
I used to do that a long, long time ago.
MW: I get into that in the studio. But there’s so much shit that goes down in our show. We don’t do any soloing or jamming, except for like eight bars. It’s all songs.
When I got in the band that threw me because I was really into jamming. And suddenly, here I don’t feel like I’m playing anything.
PR: That’s when you really have to get into the song. A team player. It’s fun to mess around, and it’s fun to play a lot of notes. We all like to do that. But when you get into laying it down and filling that pocket, that’s as much fun too.
MW: If you get into that head.
PR: If you find that pocket and you put a smile on your face, and really get into that groove like the way Russ Kunkel does that. He loves it. And that’s why it sounds so good. I’m sure. Get into that as much as you do a five-stroke roll or whatever. Or some hot paradiddles or something.
It just depends on where your head’s at. It all goes back to attitude. If you have a good attitude about the band, the music, and laying it down, then you’re going to have a great time playing that song.
As I was growing with our band, after awhile I started realizing, “Well, shit! Just lay it down on this country song and listen.”
And I’d just get into singing the song, just singing along and playing with it. Because I know later on in the set you re going to have one to mess around.
Just be patient and be a team player, and take the set as it comes. You don’t have to say everything you’re going to say in one song. I used to try to do that a lot.
MW: I used to do a thing where you do a record – and I wonder if you’ve had a similar experience – your songs are pretty varied.
Our songs are basically all the same. Very similar, I’ve found. I find that I’ve been playing very similar things because all the arrangements are the same. Two verses, a chorus.
Then I thought, well, it doesn’t matter if I play the same thing in every song if that’s what’s right for the song.
PR: Exactly. If that’s what the song is saying – then play it.
MW: I just realized this in the last month.
PR: It’s just all in attitude.
MW: I was trying to play different things in every song.
SKF: Al Jackson never really varied that much.
MW: Well, that’s the perfect example of that. Because he plays nothing, but he plays everything.
SKF NOTE: Thank you to the “erwigfilms” YouTube channel for preserving, and making publicly available, this extended Louie Bellson drum solo.
“erwigfilms” writes, “Bellson Blues part 1 Bellson Louie 1967 Jazz at the Philharmonic, London 1967.
“In a concert like this a good drum feature is always a successful part of the evening. What better than Louie Bellson. After a drum intro there are some mighty sax solos by Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter before we go into Louie’s feature.
SKF NOTE – This 1984 Japanese translation of one of my Neil Peart Modern Drummer stories has been with me since 1984.
I vaguely remember MD publisher Ron Spagnardi telling me he had received this reprint request. Just as I sort of recall photocopying this piece when it arrived by mail at the MD office.
Thanks in advance to anyone fluent in Japanese who can paint a more complete picture of this piece. Knowing even the title and the subheading would be a kick.
As new information arrives I will add it to this blog post.
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SKF NOTE – Thank you DrumForum.org member s1212z for this first translation of Neil Peart’s 1984 MD article.
s1212z Very well Known Member Joined Oct 2, 2022 United States, Boston MA
From my interpretation, the heading reads something like this:
They will never break away from the trio format, Rush continues as an energetic operation. At the cornerstone is drummer Neil Peart. Always talking in a calm tone, but surpassing the boundaries of being a musician. Neil’s parts try to go beyond the limits. That will all be explained in this interview.
Playing to the masses is not something a musician does, that is what a marketing entertainment director does.
Then the interviewer mentions something about he is the Mark Twain of rock, such as the writing of “Tom Sawyer” or album “Signals”, often writing in (perspective) of like Huckleberry Finn…or something like that. But sounds like you were the interviewer (?), so you probably know best from the original transcript!
I’m far from perfectly fluent and still a learner, so grain of salt on some of these translations 🙂
Scott K Fish 
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