Carter Beauford Interview in Rhythm Magazine

[BeaufordBuddy]

First off, big thanks to Amy (malachite00) for sending me this issue as well as some recordings from the summer tour. It helped to put me back in touch with the band. I was able to check out all the new tunes for the first time, minus a couple I heard earlier. I'm really digging the revamped Sweet Up and Down and the new Cornbread tune. That song is just nasty, both lyrically and musically. Anyways, what this thread is really about...

Here’s the typed interview/article that was published in the September 2007 issue of Rhythm Magazine, the UK’s best-selling drum mag! Carter doesn’t really mention anything that we haven’t already heard before. There are, however, some interesting comments on timekeeping with band members/musicians. His top five DMB tracks are listed at the end of the article with some interesting picks as his favourites. Jolly well then!

Carter Beauford Words – David West Pictures – James Cumpsty Carter Beauford is one of those drummers who seems to possess the enviable ability to play anything he turns his hand to – and play it beautifully. His ambidextrous style is pushed to the limit in the Dave Matthew Band, one of the biggest live acts in North America. While the group is only just catching on in Britain, the band has been a huge name in the USA since their first major label album, Under the Table and Dreaming, came out in 1994. The Dave Matthews Band defies ready categorization, blending rock, jazz, folk and any other style that takes their fancy into their very distinctive sound. “We’re asked that question all the time – what kind of music do we play?” says Carter. “Most times what I tell people is, ‘it’s good music’, but for some reason everybody wants to put a label on stuff.” Alongside Carter on the drums and Dave Matthews, who sings and plays the acoustic guitar, the band comprises Stefan Lessard on bass, LeRoi Moore on saxophone and Boyd Tinsley on violin. Their live performances have become legendary and the band continues to add to their ever-expanding Live Trax collection, which is only available from their website. Rhythm: The legend is that when you were three years old your dad couldn’t find a babysitter so he took you with him to see Buddy Rich in concert. Is that true? Carter Beauford: “I was three years old at the time, so I really don’t know. For some reason, I wound up at a Buddy Rich show, whether it was because dad couldn’t find a babysitter or not, I’m not sure. To see Buddy Rich, to see someone of that magnitude play with such heart and finesse, it was fascinating even for a three year-old. I remember after the first few songs I was like, ‘Wow, I want to do that!’ Right after that show, Christmas rolled around and I had a drumset sitting under my Christmas tree. I have a two year-old son now, and he plays drums. He started younger than me. He has a little tiny drumset and he tries to emulate everything I do, just like I did with Buddy Rich.” What music was playing in your house when you were growing up? “The main thing I was listening to, because my dad listened to it, was jazz. My mom was into the gospel side of things – Mahalia Jackson – so there was always music in the household. Then there was the radio. I remember when The Beatles hit America for the first time. I was mad because I couldn’t grow my hair the way The Beatles had their hair, but I tried to mimic their style as a kid, walking around the house with a black suit on and a skinny tie and pointed shoes. I was a freakish looking kid.” When did you start playing in bands? “I was nine years old and I sat in with some older guys that were doing a jazz gig. They were friends of my dad and they heard that I could play drums and invited me to one of their shows. I remember playing ‘Take the A Train’ and getting a standing ovation. I even got paid, I got 20 bucks, and back then in the ‘60s 20 bucks was a lot of money, especially for a kid. I played with many bands – country bands, jazz bands, rock bands, a lot of fusion bands. I’ve had a taste of everything.” What drummers do you enjoy listening to now? “Will Kennedy. He is a very good friend of mine. I studied Will for years and years, back when he was playing with Chaka Khan. Then when he started playing with the Yellowjackets I fell in love with his playing all over again because he was doing stuff that I’d never heard before. There was a group from Oakland called Tony Toni Tone – nice grooves, a good backbeat and heavy bass lines. I always enjoy listening to Zapp with Roger Troutman from New Orleans. All these guys have similar styles, that heavy backbeat. We call it fat back.” You use an open hand playing style, like Billy Cobham. How did you develop it? “When I started playing drums everything was on my right side – my hi-hat, my snare, kind of Phil Collins-like. I set my kit up as a mirror of how Buddy Rich had his kit and I paid no attention to whether my left hand was stronger than my right. I played that way for a number of years then I thought, ‘Something doesn’t look right, I don’t look like all the other drummers’. So I switched everything to the other side and I just opened it up because it felt more comfortable. I hadn’t seen anybody do this and I realised [sic] that I could do everything with the left hand that I could do with the right. Even to this day I play traditional style and open hand just to get a different groove, a different feel. All the drummers that I talk to, I tell them ‘whatever you can do with the right hand, make sure you can do with the left hand’. It just opens up so many doors for you.” Your drumming often seems to follow the melody rather than strictly playing time. Is that a conscious decision? “It was a conscious thing at one time because I did a lot of listening to Tony Williams and Tony was a very, very melodic drummer. He broke that mould of being the timekeeper in the band. Personally, I feel that if you’re a musician you should know how to keep time. It shouldn’t have to come down to the drummer to hold the time for everybody else to have fun, so I said to myself ‘I’m going to have some fun with the melody, with the rhythm and make these drums become a melodic instrument’. Now it just comes without me even thinking about it. I like it that way too, because you can play as the moment occurs. That’s how music is, it’s spontaneous. Once you do it, it’s gone.” How did you first start playing Dave Matthews? “It was Dave, LeRoi and myself, we were at this bar that Dave used to work at. LeRoi and I were playing jazz back then, and Dave wanted us to hear a couple of songs he had played on his acoustic guitar. The first was a song called ‘Recently’ and when he played that for us, LeRoi and I looked at each other. Dave’s style of guitar playing was really interesting and his singing voice was real unique. We were like, ‘this kid has something’. So we decided to work together, just the three of us. We started rehearsing in my mom’s basement. From that point it went through the roof.” The Dave Matthews Band has released seven live albums in addition to the nine Live Trax volumes. Is the live concert the best representation of what the band is all about? “I honestly believe that, I really do, although the studio recordings offer another side of the band. You have your live stuff where you hear the rawness of the band, then in your studio thing you can hear the subtle, finer details of the music, but the live stuff is where you can dig into it and put it all out there.” How often do you guys jam onstage? “It varies. We’ll read the audience and if the audience is ready for it we’ll do the whole improvisation thing, but you have to read that audience. If they’re not ready to take that journey with you, then it’s going to bore them to tears. They’ll go to sleep on you, then when you do come back to the structure of the song they’re not going to be with you. There have been a few nights when we had to pull back on the reins.” When someone has to pull back on the reins, is that your responsibility as the drummer? “It’s everybody’s job to do that but basically Stefan, the bass player, and myself, we keep an eye on everybody just to make sure everyone knows where the one is, make sure everybody is on the same page as far as where the tune is going. Dave has such an incredible job being the frontman – he has to talk to the audience, play guitar, he has to sing, he has to look good. Sometimes he gets a little lost and he’ll either jump ahead or fall behind a couple of measures, so Stefan and I have to really accent the one, where the tune is supposed to be, to reel Dave back in. “Sometimes it gets to the point where we can never reel it back in and the whole song just gets played like that and it turns into some of the coolest stuff you’d ever want to hear. It’s one of those spontaneous things, but that’s part of the magic of music.” So it’s all about hitting the one? “You can take any piece of music and scramble it any way you want, as long as everybody comes back on that one. It’s a beautiful thing and that’s one of those things that I learnt growing up listening to jazz. All the improv that’s involved in playing jazz, you learn to make sure you know where the one is all the time. That way when you’re doing a solo you can really make it your solo – but make sure that the musicians on stage know where you are, then when you all come back in, the audience goes ‘Wow!’. It requires everybody to be timekeepers, because if the drummer was the only timekeeper and he started doing a solo, nobody else would know where anything is and it would be a train wreck every song.” Carter’s Top Five Dave Matthews Band Tracks Carter picks out his five favourite DMB tracks for readers to check out ‘Rapunzel’ from the album Before These Crowded Streets (1998) – “It’s like a multi-time-signature song. It’s a basic 4/4 tune but then there are some other rhythms that stand over that. Some people look at that other rhythm – I think it’s 7/4 – and they consider that the root signature and actually it’s not, it’s a 4/4 tune. That would be a good tune for starters.” ‘The Song That Jane Likes’ from the album Remember Two Things (1993) – “We don’t play this very often, but this is a tune that Dave’s sister really enjoyed listening to. It’s a real cheerful song, almost a beer-drinking kind of thing.” ‘Dreamgirl’ from the album Stand Up (2005) – “There’s a tune that we do now called ‘Dreamgirl’ which has some beautiful vocal harmonies in it. It’s a low-medium tempo, very cool lyrics and the groove is pretty steady. It’s a very easy listening kind of song. Nothing too whacked out. That was on the last record we put out, Stand Up.” ‘Ants Marching’ from Under the Table and Dreaming (1994) – “We played that when we were here (in the UK) before. Personally, I felt we didn’t get the response that we normally get in the States. That’s a really great tune.” ‘Two Step’ from the album Crash (1996) – “That’s what I call the attack song. When we do it, it starts out on a low level and it builds into this big crescendo of power. From that point it just climbs all the way to the end. Out of all the tunes I’ve mentioned, that’s the one that would grab people the most.” © 2007 – Future Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.

After reading that, some things which are reconfirmed:

• Carter mentions again Tony Williams and Tony Toni Tone as being an inspiration to him. And it can be said that if Carter “had no loot” then his drum kit would be considerably smaller.
• Carter set his first kit up backwards from how he viewed other drummer’s kits. This helped to contribute to his ambidextrous and open-hand abilities which would later become his signature playing style. Sometimes fuck ups can turn into fortunate learning experiences.
• Carter really likes Under Armour apparel.
• Carter’s philosophy on “knowing where the one is at all times.” Understandable coming from the number one drummer in the world.

Some new things that we learn:

• Carter has no idea how he arrived at that fateful Buddy Rich concert. Give him a break people, he was three years old!
• Carter was a freakish looking kid who mimicked The Beatles.
• Carter’s two year-old son (Marcus) also plays the drums which means he started one year ahead of when his dad started playing. While some fathers and their sons choose to play catch out back, this father and son duo prefers to play Yamaha in the basement.
• The difference between Carter and the Rolex on his wrist is that the Rolex is the one doing the time keeping.
• 20 bucks was a lot of money in the ‘60s.
• UK fans don’t like Ants Marching
• And most importantly, Carter’s advice for other drummers, “Whatever you can do with the right hand, make sure you can do with the left hand. It opens up so many doors for you.” You heard the man, go open a lot of doors with your left hand.

[Tomacco]

Great read. Thanks.

[dancheatham]

realised [sic]

Great read. Thanks!

[bndevils21]

dreamgirl- great sign for the future

good read though

[alexbunke]

7/4 in Rapunzel? Blasphemy, wtf.

[TheNoise]

dreamgirl

[Poth Ead]

Well, Carter always looks happy when they play Dream Girl.

Interesting tid-bid about UK and Ants Marching. Fuck the British (j/k)

[ggies]

"then in your studio thing you can hear the subtle, finer details of the music" where the fuck was that on SU? BTCS, yes, but recently, no. He must be thinking in the past.

[Strugz10]

‘Dreamgirl’ which has some beautiful vocal harmonies in it. It’s a low-medium tempo, very cool lyrics

lolz

[RB3]

Good read

[rmattwill]

very good read... "Dreamgirl" that's interesting... he is the one...

[Strugz10]

Yeah, so now we know why Dreamgirl is being played as much as it is.

[Popeye2003]

Great read, man, thanks

Originally Posted by BeaufordBuddy The difference between Carter and the Rolex on his wrist is that the Rolex is the one doing the time keeping. 20 bucks was a lot of money in the ‘60s. UK fans don’t like Ants Marching And most importantly, Carter’s advice for other drummers, “Whatever you can do with the right hand, make sure you can do with the left hand. It opens up so many doors for you.” You heard the man, go open a lot of doors with your left hand.

[Moses]

cool interview. thanks.

[alexbunke]

It's probably nice for Carter to just lay down a straight and laid-back groove for Dreamgirl and that's why he likes it.

[patsfan39]

good read thanks!

EDIT: I agree with Bunke he does just lay down the groove and gets to sing that sweet chorus. Its new and fresh to them so he likes to play that groove. I guess it makes sense.

[Moses]

Originally Posted by alexbunke It's probably nice for Carter to just lay down a straight and laid-back groove for Dreamgirl and that's why he likes it.

I really don't like all the critique for carters more conservative approach to a few more recent songs because as a musician, and i believe you are to bunke, a good drummer or any musician for that matter has to serve the song for what it is. After the song is wrote you can't just add some wild full drum work if the song really doesnt call for that approach.

[Tomacco]

Originally Posted by alexbunke It's probably nice for Carter to just lay down a straight and laid-back groove for Dreamgirl and that's why he likes it.

Not to mention he has in integral part in those vocal harmonies he mentions.

[alexbunke]

Originally Posted by Moses I really don't like all the critique for carters more conservative approach to a few more recent songs because as a musician, and i believe you are to bunke, a good drummer or any musician for that matter has to serve the song for what it is. After the song is wrote you can't just add some wild full drum work if the song really doesnt call for that approach.

Absolutely. That's not to say I don't miss seeing the BTCS-Carter in the studio. I'm thrilled Cornbread, #27, and IoY all offer him great opportunities to really lay it down in the studio. Let's hope he grasps them.

[SomeDevil17]

Why not Hello Again Carter? How could you not love playing that song?