The fact that Eddie Vedder likes to play 3 hour plus shows a night, I have to be ready for that.
A lot of times, when a band finds success with a certain style or sound, they have a really hard time breaking away from that to grow as artists.
I guess by taking lessons early on, and really trying to play all the rudimentary stuff, and try to have it sound as good as my teacher. It took a lot of practice, which I enjoyed, and still do.
No matter how much success you're having, you can't continue working together if you can't communicate.
But I've always liked to be the kind of drummer and musician who likes to go outside of what's expected of me, and I've always been able to do more than you necessarily hear with every band I've ever played in.
I show up ready to play, so I normally try and fit the situation.
I'm always going to get more of a charge playing Chicago than I will Duluth or some place like that. Just because of the history and the people there are way more knowledgeable than a lot of other cities. It's an amazing music scene with some great bands and great musicians.
So, I just kind of played the way I played and then eventually we kind of figured out what worked best for the band. So, I definitely changed my stuff up and I think we're playing really tight now.
Joining another big time rock band was the last thing I was looking for, but as the tour went on, I really dug playing to a lot of people, the band sounded great, and just being out there again, got me over my depression and so I decided to hop on board.
I've always liked to be the kind of drummer and musician who likes to go outside of what's expected of me.
For me, I just try to make sure I eat enough and drink enough water and that's about it.
Whenever Elvin Jones comes to Seattle I try to go catch him.
I try and stay limber, swim, run, ride motorcycles.
I think it's really important these days to be able to relate to how the music flows and be able to speak the same language as your bandmates and the producer, rather than just talking drums.
I would never want to live in L.A., and I made that decision years ago, so I never chose that path for myself, although I have much respect for those that do it at a high level.
Live life to the fullest, and focus on the positive.
Creatively, I thought we were still viable and could do more records. But our working relationship just wasn't happening at all, and our chemistry as people broke down because of that.
I still felt we had some really good music on that record, but it's a shame that we couldn't make it better. And the tour was a total mess. We just had no life, no energy, and I felt we were going through the motions.
