Bobby Jarzombek Interview Continuation

Bobby Jarzombek Interview Continuation from Sick Drummer Magazine Issue 7

By: Craig Sternberg & Noel Smart

 

SDM: How was working on "Angel Down" by Sebastian Bach?  You worked with great musicians on that record!

Bobby: Ralph Santolla was scheduled to come into the studio and track some of that stuff, but he couldn't make it out for that.  He did write a couple of things for that.  The one thing that was different with the "Angel Down" record was that we cut it with everyone in the same room together.  We cut it live like in the '80s.

SDM: Did you like it better that way?

Bobby: Well, when I think about it, when we did one of the Halford records, Metal Mike was playing guitar along with me.  Not for me, but so the producer could hear what the drum parts sounded like within the guitar parts, the tempo of the songs, the feel of the songs, that sort of thing.  In any other instance, I usually just cut the songs with the click track and I know the song by heart so I don't have to worry about losing place in the song.  Even when there is a guitar player in the room, I don't even have them in my headphones, it's for someone else's purpose.  But with the Sebastian Bach thing, I had to have everyone in my headphones because we barely knew some of those songs.  There's good and bad to it.  Certainly you're going for a band vibe, and if it pushes and pulls a little, it's okay, but if you push and pull too much, like if I'm listening to someone in my headphones and someone starts to drag or rush, play a wrong note here or there, I find that my mind will wander off.  If I'm not totally focused on my recording, I'll just start focusing on everyone else.  That's where it gets scary for me when I track with other people, because I can't just block that out.  I played too long with people where I'm constantly listening to everything around.  So in that way, I don't prefer it at all.  But for the type of record that Sebastian record was, I thought it was a cool thing that Roy Z suggested that we play it that way.  Truthfully, for Sebastian that was the only way it could work, because he wanted to be singing songs while we were recording it so he could get a vibe for the song.  Sebastian will change his mind in the studio, like it's too slow or too fast, so for that record it was the right thing to do.

SDM: What do you think of drummers who dabble in blast beats and double bass?  How come you don't do that?

Bobby: Well, for one I haven't been in a musical situation that sort of lends itself to that.  I haven't really been in a situation where guys are writing that sort of music.  I haven't been involved in that kind of music really at all, but it's funny, because sometimes I'll hear a traditional guitar riff and I hear it with blast beats over it.  It's funny just where guys come from.  I was talking to Dirk from Soilwork recently, and he said the first thing he ever learned was blast beats.  I was sitting there going, "how could you sit on a drum kit and that's the first thing you learn!?".  It's crazy!  It's cool, though.  I work on blast beats as exercises to get warmed up.  They are great coordination exercises, lining up your limbs.  You have to be very precise to play blast beats, so it definitely helps working on those things.  Blast beats are cool, they are going to be out there for a while and they are here to stay.

SDM: I think we should write you a death metal riff and send it to you and have you do blast beats and double bass at 250 bpm and see what people think about it!

Bobby: You know, that would be interesting if somebody sent me something that was considered traditional.  I saw something recently of George Kollias playing; we send emails back and forth.  I saw something recently from him that was a little more progressive.  When I saw it, I thought it was really cool what he was doing on certain sections.  I thought to myself, "I would have approached that completely differently!".  It was sort of death metal/progressive, and I was listening to the riffs and knowing I would have done something completely different.  That's the way drumming is, every drummer has their own interpretation.  Those guys are very unique and completely different in their approach, say to someone like me.  But guys like George, they have been in tons of projects where they do tons of blast beats, and I haven't been in one.

SDM: So if an extreme metal band came to you to play on their record, would you be comfortable doing it?  Would you do stuff at 240 bpm?

Bobby: Well, for one, I couldn't do blast beats at 240 bpm.  I'm not able to do that, because I don't have that sort of technique worked up to be able to do that.  I would definitely be comfortable doing my own interpretation of it.  The other thing is, if I did blast beats, it'd be like me playing Latin.  On my DVD "Performance and Technique", I have a song on it called "So it Ain't".  I called that song "So it Ain't" because it really isn't Latin, it's my interpretation of Latin.  With blast beats, I'd just have to do my own interpretation of it.  If a band said, "I want you to play this with traditional blast beats and make it sound like Napalm Death", well, then you are probably asking the wrong guy.  It's like asking me to play Alex Acuñia on a Latin tune.  I would welcome anything if I thought it was cool music.

SDM: Other than George Kollias and Dirk from Soilwork, whom else do you admire in the Extreme Metal Scene?

Bobby: Derek Roddy, of course.  I like a couple of the new guys; I checked out some clips from Mike Heller.  I think he's cool!  John Longstreth is great.  I like those guys.  I think what they are doing is very interesting.  I don't spend too much time checking out the other guys.  I know there are guys all over doing similar kinds of stuff though.  I really like what George does, because I can hear more influences in his playing, and I've talked to him, and he's talked about playing Top gigs and doing different things like that.  You can definitely hear it in his playing, the guy is not just strictly a blast beat/extreme metal drummer.  You can hear all sorts of different influences and I dig that!  If someone sends me a CD or link or something, and I hear thirty seconds of blast beats, I won't listen to it a second longer.  Because rhythmically, it doesn't do anything for me, because it's all 32nd notes or 16th notes, there are no broken patterns in there.  I don't feel moved by it.  There needs to be some sort of syncopation in the patterns, without the syncopation it's just a drum machine to me.  That's really why I like what guys like Derek Roddy and George Kollias are doing.

SDM: Have you ever heard Sean Reinert's stuff?

Bobby: Oh yeah.  I was going to mention him, but I consider him a lot more than just an extreme metal drummer.  He's a really cool guy too!

SDM: It's cool to see how the genre has evolved, it's not just blast beats and double bass, there's feel and groove to it, and all sorts of different influences blending into the music now.

Bobby: Yeah, and I think there are purists where all they want to hear is blast beats and the death metal vocals.  For me, I have a lot of other influences so I won't listen to that.

SDM: What kind of music would you say you listen to the most or identity with the most?  You've been in a lot of bands that are different from each other, so what type of music best represents you?

Bobby: I like a band like Opeth.  I like Opeth a lot, because I can hear a lot of melody in the song.  I don't know anything about chord changes, but I grew up listening to radio and songs.  I didn't grow up so much as a drummer, I grew up as a fan of songs on top radio.  The songs have to have some sort of melody or I have to feel something about the song besides the aggression or the power of the song.  I want to hear the power, but I want to hear what the song is saying rather than what the guys are doing.  Opeth is a great band for me to listen to, Porcupine Tree, Tool.  The vocals I guess I really listen to.  I grew up listening to Rush and things like that.  A band like Opeth you can listen to the death metal vocals and then you hear him singing melodic and stuff, and it's beautiful!  But if a guy's screaming at me the whole time, there's nothing for me to really listen to on that end.  The music has to have some sort of diversity to it, you know?

SDM: How does it make you feel when you see drummers in extreme metal bands where there isn't much melody and it's about aggression, and you realize you influenced those guys?  How does it make you feel knowing that some of these guys took your drumming and evolved it to that point?

Bobby: I think you are giving me too much credit.  I think those guys listen to guys like Lombardo and Benante, and I don't really do that.  When Charlie Benante and Dave Lombardo were doing quick double bass and stuff, I was more in a progressive rock mode.  I sort of ventured off into a different area.  I think if any of those guys are taking anything I've ever done, it's coming more from the Spastik Ink thing.  I think maybe the Spastik Ink thing is more an evolution of Rush and things I grew up with like that.  When we were coming up with song titles for Spastik Ink songs, we would always come back to the same bands.  Ron would say, this is like a UK kind of thing, or a sort of Bozzio kind of thing, or this is sort of Rush, but instead of 16th notes it's a broken triplet pattern.  We kind of referenced stuff back and forth like that, and took it to another level.  If guys were getting anything from me, from the extreme metal realm, it was definitely more the progressive side than the death metal side of things.  I think that sort of thing is cool though, if those guys find something in there.  George Kollias once mentioned that when he works with his guys, they reference Spastik Ink, and it turns out completely different.  If there's something where it's like, "let's go with a little bit of something these guys did here", I think that's cool.  If I influenced someone, that's great.

SDM: I think what happened with some of these metal drummers was that they got fast to a certain point, and then realized there was nowhere else to go, so they started listening to guys like you and incorporated more elements into their playing.  Got more technical, more feel, and listened to different types of music.

Bobby: I think every serious drummer does that at some point.  I think everyone has that breaking point where they say the speed thing is cool, but I want to do more now.  That's when I got into doing stuff that was more progressive.

The great thing about it now is if you were a death metal drummer, and you want to get into more progressive music, there are so many bands to choose from.  There are so many bands that are very death metal but a little prog, or a little death metal and very prog.  When I was growing up, you had bands that were airy, experimental, there were very few bands in the '80s area like Rush, UK, Frank Zappa, Al DiMeola; it was a very limited number of bands where you could bridge that gap.  Now there's so much more!

SDM: How do you feel about touring with Fates Warning again?

Bobby: I'm really looking forward to working with those guys again.  I had a great time with them last summer when we did the festivals.  We get along great, and we come from the same sort of era as far as music goes.  Jim is also writing a new Fates Warning record.

SDM: So you're doing the new Fates Warning record?

Bobby: Yeah, I'm throwing him a couple of ideas.  I recorded some beats in 5/8, because those guys write around certain time signatures a lot.  So a couple of weeks ago, I was on my Pro Tools and I recorded a bunch of beats in 5/8.

SDM: Is it more like Zonder?  Like Zimmerman?  What does it sound like to you?

Bobby: I haven't heard any of the stuff he's come up with so far.  What I did was I just formed a pattern in 5/8 and I built certain accented notes and whatever the accented note was, I formed like a theme.  Like maybe low toms, then I kind of build it into something like a full blown part, and use two other accented notes or three other accents notes in a 5/8 pattern.  I recorded all these pieces that are in 5/8.  I have no idea what his stuff sounds like, but I plan to send him more stuff.

SDM: Who influenced you more, and whose stuff do you play live more?  Zonder or Zimmerman?

Bobby: We only did one song from the Zimmerman era.  I really like the Zonder stuff, I think it's great and innovative.  The kind of stuff where you listen to it the first time, you hear certain things, and then once you start to analyze it, you can see how cool the parts are.  None of the stuff is super difficult to play, it's just hard to remember all that.  It was very difficult memorization.  He definitely got more creative later on.  Like on the early stuff, I felt like he was being busy just to be busy, but on the later stuff, especially like Pleasant Shades of Gray, there's some great drumming.  I enjoy it and I do a little heavier playing when I play those parts.  I think it's just my touch.  I think it's just from the interpretation of how drummers do stuff differently.