the Creation Festival in front of fifty thousand [Peter] I didn’t realize how much I had missed a front man. John was a really good front man
people and among a lot of really good bands drumming until I started drumming with Steve and I didn’t think I really wanted to be a front
and musicians?” So I think it was really out Taylor & The Perfect Foil. That’s my thing. I sing man. Maybe I knew deep down I was meant to
of desperation. to pay for my motorcycle habit, and drumming do it, but I just didn’t really want to do it. When it
habit. I think that’s what I love to do. But at the was decided I was the best option, then it was
time, again, it was desperation. obviously that there was going to be an empty
[WM] So tell me, what did it feel like the first
time you did that stunt?
seat back there. I had sung a lot of the show
John was not going to be with the band from the kit, so as a singer live I wasn’t worried
[Peter] Nobody tells you how to make one of anymore, Dunkin was playing percussion and because I was already singing half of the set
those things, so you’re getting parts from Home he was a drummer of course, but actually what from behind the kit.
Depot and you’re welding stuff. We made it, I we did is we ended up auditioning a bunch of mean, there is no manual on the thing. There drummers. First we had to figure out who was So when I left the drum kit we auditioned
were times where the hydraulic hose would going to sing, but at that time as a singer I had a bunch of guys. But there were songs like
break and spray the crowd and shoot fifty feet already been singing at least fifty percent of the “Shine”, and “Shine” is really not a natural beat
through the back of a church. We would get, record, so it wasn’t a big jump vocally. In fact, for a drummer to play, it’s a really awkward beat,
“You guys aren’t coming back here no more” we were struggling with the last couple records and these were songs we tested drummers on
kinds of statements. Some total Spinal Tap to get John on the record. Because John had and if they couldn’t play these three of four
moments, I’d be stuck upside-down, the road a great voice but he just didn’t have a passion songs with the exact feel then I don’t care if
crew coming out to try to flip me the right way for it, and my passion for songwriting had they could beat Neil Peart in a contest, it just
up. There were a few different iterations of grown exponentially. didn’t feel right. It was more about having a
it, the first one was very primitive, and it had
Charlie Watts then it was about having a guy
counterbalance weights in the back of it. So it’s As a songwriter, I had to sing the demos to superior. Honestly we tried a bunch of really
come a long way since then, but I think it was present them to the band or the record label good drummers. There was one guy, Fran Lenz
really just a way to stand out. or whoever, or to teach John. So I started who is an amazing drummer, and he’s the guy
to develop as a singer honestly not really on that got the closest. At the end of each audition
[WM] Then there was the transition from purpose, it was just out of necessity. So when we would get Duncan to jump on the drums
drummer to front man, what was it like leaving it came time to be the lead singer, well, there’s and Duncan was sort of close or as close as
the kit? a huge difference between being a singer and they were, so it was about me stepping up
January 2019
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