A Day with MICHAEL SHRIEVE

Michael, thank you so much for this opportunity, I wanted to start by asking you about the development of Caravanserai, a remarkable album celebrating 50 years since its release and which you were instrumental in developing. What are your recollections about that period of the band and the album’s development? 

 

It was basically that Carlos and I were very excited about what was going on in the jazz scene at that time, with Miles’ Bitches Brew and Chick Corea with Airto and Return to Forever and Weather Report. And then there were some cool groups in San Francisco as well and it was part of the reason Carlos and I wanted to do Caravanserai or go in a different direction than like the rock ‘n’roll vibe and people getting high. In the band at the time, we still had Gregg Rolie, Neil Schon and Chepito, but at the same time we were introducing other musicians and instruments like the saxophone and a little orchestration. So, we were kind of moving outside the original area and wanted to be influenced by what was going on and the things that we really liked and enjoyed, so we did it. We wanted to change, we both got gurus and we both were meditating. We both did this record. It was very difficult in some ways to make, because nobody else in the band liked it. Nobody else wanted to do it and Gregg and Neal left after that record and started Journey.

 

As you state, a period of introducing new members to the fold, such as double bassist Tom Rutley who gave the album such a distinctive edge starting from the opening piece.

 

Tom Rutley was a guy that I brought in because he went to the same college I did, and he taught me so much about, for example slow jazz swing. We wanted to get an upright bass sound, and we didn't really know a lot of those players yet and so I brought Tom in, and he went on a tour of South America, and I think he wasn't sure what he got into! But he was such a part of the sound. I mean, just having an upright bass, is just going to change everything for an electric band, which we were. And I still to this day love it, but I also love to blend it into other things. I'm not really a jazz player, but I have jazz sensitivities, I have jazz sensibilities, let's put it that way. I love it. 

 

In terms of some of the songs, do you recall how your composition ‘Every Step of the Way’ was recorded? Was it a live band recording, to which you later added the well-arranged orchestral section? 

 

Yes, that's how that piece was recorded. And as I was a huge Gil Evans fan and still am, I asked Tom Harrell, who is a trumpet player from New York, quite well known in the jazz scene and also a great composer and arranger, to put a small orchestra together and I said, “I want it to sound just like Gil Evans.” So, I asked him to put it and you know we only had two tracks left on the recording. The tune of Gil Evans was ‘Las Vegas Tango’, to be specific. I love that kind of lamenting music. No matter what style it is. I love, like in Portugal, fadomusic. I love that. And the blues is like that, you know what I mean? I love sad, but then in relation to that is like the joyful side. So, that's what I did with ‘Every Step of the Way’.

 

What about the track ‘Future Primitive’? You had a lot to do with the ambience of that piece, there are lots of beautiful soundscape areas throughout that piece which then evolve into ‘Stone Flower’ which showcases a supreme Brazilian rhythmic feel.

 

I was playing vibes and messing sonically with it. Not that I'm a vibes player, but I was trying to just combine different sounds. I was very big into Brazilian music and to play you know, like those guys do. I did do it also on ‘Yours is the Light’ (from Welcome), the one that Flora sang, and I'm really pleased with that recording, it had that same vibe. 

 

During that period, you were also getting into odd-time patterns, tracks like ‘Waves Within’ on Caravanserai and ‘Flame Sky ‘on Welcome exemplify this, was that a conscious part of your drumming development, a new area to explore?

 

No, not me. I never got into it. I just adjusted to what some other people brought in, like Dougie Rauch brought that tune to Caravanserai and Dougie was completely into odd times. So, I just had to adapt and adjust because I've never been very good at it. I never got into the 5/4, 7/4 signatures, I just never did. I mean I worked on it, but it was by the skin of my teeth! 

 

I remember reading that you re-recorded the drums on ‘Song of the Wind’ after hearing what Carlos and Neal had developed, in those days of limited tracks it would have been a daunting prospect to take on.

 

I took a recording of what the tune was developing into, because I originally played the track along with the bass player and the percussion. But then Carlos and Neil were playing all this beautiful stuff and that I'm thinking “I want to play with you,” so I took a copy of that home, and I told the engineers, “don't tell anybody but I want to record over my tracks,” which is like, “don't do that, you'll stuff it up!” but I did it and it's better for it. I basically brought a copy of what happened that day and practiced with that all night, learnt what Carlos and Neil were doing so I could really play with them. 

So, the band would record live but then Carlos and Neil would also spend time overdubbing parts of their solos?

 

Yeah, they kept perfecting them. Like, Carlos became masterful at making a perfect solo.  It was like, “okay, punch me in here,” and he's got the sustain going. He wanted his solos to be like forever, he didn't want jam and stuff and Neil is naturally that way. But I was like, “damn, they get to change theirs and perfect it.” We basically recorded live, it was all about the energy, it was all about sweat in the room you know. But the way it was set up, Carlos was able to punch in and he got really good at it.

 

What about the role of percussionist Mingo Lewis, he would have been really inspired by what Caravanserai was offering?

 

Absolutely. After we found him in New York City and directly from there, he came with us on a South American tour, then when the tour ended, he ended up moving to Francisco. He was really talented, I mean, he still is. So, we had Chepito, we had Mingo, we had Armando you know, everybody bringing anything in. It was really on fire, just for this record Caravanserai. It was a direction that Carlos and I really felt strongly about. Even as Clive Davis (Columbia Records president at the time) stated, “you're committing career suicide,” and that’s a true story! Now, Carlos is texting me every day like, “let's do another one, let's do another one,” you know. And sending tunes, we are exchanging tunes.

 

Do you recall much about mixing the album? Were you also involved in the process along with engineer Glen Kolotkin, physically doing moves on the desk as each song was mixed?

 

Oh yeah, physically doing things. Like, everybody had something. Carlos, Glen and I and maybe somebody else. And you do a mix, and it is as exciting as doing the track. Everybody's got to do their part and then you know when you got it. Because you had no automation back then, so, it was all very emotional. Some of that was trippy, and some of it was like, “oh, too much.”

 

You mentioned that you have a new album coming out. Is this the percussion-based album you have been talking about for a little while?

 

Yes, 20 years, yeah, this is Drums of Compassion. Its music I'm really proud of. It's coming out probably this fall on Trey Gunn's label which is called 7D Media. He does interesting projects and this is definitely interesting. The front and back cover look really beautiful. The album features Jack DeJohnette, Zakir Hussain, Airto Moreira, Pete Lockett, Jeff Greinke, Trey Gunn, Skerik, Raul Rekow, Karl Perazzo, Tarik Banzi, Farko Dosumov, Dave Hill Jr, John Fricke, BC Smith, James Whiton, Amon Tobin and also now this guy I've just discovered and really love Stephan Maass from Germany. I just love what he does, because he makes it sound not just Latin or African or Brazilian, its cinematic. And Babatunde Olatunji does an incantation. So, I got the artwork done, got the label, and so I got to get it out of my system and move on.

 

I have been really interested in your Drums of Compassion project, I have read so much about it over the years. I would love to hear more about the development of your album, how did you develop the tracks? The recordings? The guests?

 

It was such a process. I initiated the album with a soundmaster named Jeff Greinke, and he just does space music, but it's very delicate and beautiful, and so I love that kind of stuff. I'd already worked with Klaus Schulze and Steve Roach and Jeff was here in Seattle. I used to go out to the clubs a lot after the family went to sleep and check out groups and stuff. And what happened is I came home one night to wind down, and I just wanted to listen to choral music and beautiful music. And one night I thought to myself, “what kind of album could you make that you would love to listen to at this hour, and you're a drummer, so what's it going to be?” So, I made a set-up, which of course I learned from the best, like Stomu Yamashta and I had 14/16 toms in a semicircle. I wanted to have that feeling, to put that drum stuff, I didn't want to be all groove based or anything. 

 

Like, one of the things about Stomu that when I saw him playing classical music, he looked so gorgeous playing the timpani, so emotional and visual, beautiful to watch. And I thought, “I love that because I feel the same way.” He had that kind of setup when we did the band Go. And so I did that set-up because it allows you to be in and out of time, just like free or not. And so the basis was Jeff Greinky and myself. I recorded everything in this one place, but it was like too big and boomy. So, I had to redo it all in another studio and then I lived with that a little while and then I thought, “it's too new agey,” you know, it needs something more. And then there was a festival here in Seattle called Bumbershoot and Airto and Zakir were there, and so they came to the studio which was close to where they were playing. I played all the tracks for them, and they each added their stuff. And so that turned into a whole other thing. Then I started adding keyboards and it was really kind of brick by brick.

 

But the initial performances are all live and I didn't punch in anything, it was all free. Then I started building on it thinking, “what kind of environment do I want these drums in?” I want them to be slightly regal, but not overdone like 70s English music or something. But I wanted it to have dignity and I wanted it to be elegant. And I wanted it to be meditative or transportive, so that it takes you somewhere. It is about a bunch of drummers, but it's more than that, you know what mean? You have Jack DeJohnette in there, and people would think “Jack's going to be burning it up,” but he just played right in it, and he loved it, you know. I'll send you a copy. Now that I've added Stephan, I've got to mix him in. I am putting together another percussion thing, that kind goes through a bunch of stuff that I did, but not Santana, just the solo stuff, the film scores. I have a tendency to go pretty out there and so this shows a lot of that as well. I'll send you that, I'm working on it, I'm editing it.

 

It’s funny, because I just released a percussion album myself. Something I had been working on for over 10 years, and I kept thinking about it and thinking about finishing it. I would love to send it to you.

 

Really? Send me a copy.

 

It's just tracks with electronic stuff that I put together.

 

Yeah, that's what I do (laughs).

Similarly, I've got tracks by myself and some with Pete Lockett, Raul Rekow, Hossam Ramzy and David Jones, who is a wonderful Australian drummer.

 

Oh, love him, I love David Jones. Oh, man, I tell you. I was at a Nova Scotia drum festival and when he played, I related to it so much. It was like his touch is just magical. I fell in love with him right away, you know, him and his playing. He sent me a couple of very cool things to rub on the cymbals. I have a special place in my heart for him.

 

That’s lovely Michael, David is certainly exceptional. I wanted to ask you about your recording set up, do you have home studio where you get to record, edit and mix? What equipment are you using?

 

Well, I'm trying to get there, I'm learning so much right now about software and learning chords. I'm also editing a lot. Editing it’s like the thing to me. It’s like if you kind of improvise and then you want to make something out of something, take the best parts. I want to do that, so that the initial thing is from the heart, and then I don't mind taking that and then messing with it. I'm using Logic Pro, but today I was working with PreSonus. For years I tried to get Ableton together because a lot of the people that I like in Europe used that, I just couldn't take to it. It's all about the workflow, and that's what I'm working on all the time. I want to be able to put stuff together and to be able to record either electronic drums or acoustic drums. So, I’ve got the DrumKAT back out. I've also got what do they call a JamKAT, which is a hand one and Pearl Mimic Pro for electric acoustic drums. I'm trying to get everything working, so that everything's plugged in all the time, and I can really flow with making music. On a new album that I'm doing that I'm really liking, the acoustic drums are going on last, so I can put like whatever humanity I want into it, and then I have atmosphere where everything else is. I like that. To tell you the truth that’s all I have been doing, making music in my little studio. I've got a lot of music coming. Beautiful stuff, as far as I what feel, which is, I think the way you should do it, you should love it yourself.

To close I wanted to ask you about the book you have been writing on Elvin Jones, it sounds so interesting, is that soon to be released as well?

 

Yeah, I got to take a look at that, I think it might be done. It's just going to be conversations with Elvin. And I've got these great conversations with Elvin. In different places, like in Greece on his vacation, Detroit going back to see family, in New York, here, like, everywhere. I focused on it last year, and then it kind of stopped. Then I said, “okay, I want to get Drums of Compassion out” and Elvin is there, it just takes time to focus attention and complete everything. I'm trying to learn and work on myself for time management. I have an issue of working on five things at once, and I'm thinking that might not be so good, unless I block it out into two hours on a particular project, like every day.
 

michaelshrieve.bandcamp.com


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