Jimmy Chamberlin on Drum Channel - theTitbits!

A very animated Jimmy Chamberlin joins Chad Szeliga, Terry Bozzio and Danny Seraphine in a round table discussion on Drum Channel.

Jimmy talks a little about his recent switch to the ‘Drum Worshop community’ he feels that DW will be able to support “the search for a better sound and evolution of the instrument and artist”. He talks a little about building his DW drum kit online initially; probably using this.

He talked about getting back his (don’t call it leopard) Jaguar print Zwan kit which was leant out to a drum shop, and having that set-up in his home studio at the moment.

A viewer asks; “Have any of you zoned out during a gig?”

Chamberlin: What was the question?

JC would, dependant on the gig and set list - ‘inadvertently’ skip a track or two if he didn’t like them; It was up to the band if they went with it or stopped... Maybe he really hated Starz:

According to Chamberlin shark fishing in Nova Scotia with Taylor Hawkins and Josh Freeze leaves the joints a little sore for a gig the next day.

The one that got away...  Chamberlin talks about shark fishing

A little talk around click tracks and maintaining a pulse through a fill. Jimmy went on to say “No clicks used in the Pumpkins and it certainly shows” but post Pumpkins he started to use one (in Zwan). He talks about ‘seeing time’ and a ‘having a clear musical picture in the mind’ about [how a fill should sit in a beat] before even playing it. He also goes on to say that some of “my favourite drummers are sloppy as hell, but as long as it sounds good [to him] and [the grove] has an emotional basis, it doesn’t matter”.

Chamberlin talked a little about recording some tracks for Mellon Collie at Pumpkinland and a little problem which occurred; apparently transmissions from a local taxicab company radios got picked up on their tapes.  He also talked about how in order to look at his drum parts in a different way when working with Flood, sometimes Flood would remove all of Chamberlin's cymbals in order to force him to approach songs in a different way.

In terms of practising; Chamberlin revealed that he is currently working on double bass playing and experimenting with Swiss triplets and poly-rhythms from African style drumming.  He started off using a couple of books; One on ostinatos, recommended by Bozzio and The Encyclopedia of Double Bass Drumming by Bobby Roninelli. 

Hope you enjoy the slide-show below;

Jimmy Chamberlin on Drum Channel TONIGHT

http://themachinesomehow.blogspot.com/2011/04/jimmy-chamberlin-on-drum-channel-live.html

SKYSAW Messageboard

For those of you into that kind of thing: It be here

Hope JC uses it as much, if not more, than the Complex one...

Just a quick reminder, the Record Store Day exclusive stream of Great Civilizations, should begin streaming in a couple of hours...

Jimmy Chamberlin Interviewed for SPIN

Here's a couple of extracts:

"I want to be 'Jimmy Chamberlin, the drummer, the musician who's done many things,'" the 46-year-old rocker tells SPIN.com, "not just 'that guy from the Smashing Pumpkins.'"

"After I left the Pumpkins, I went home and just sat around," Chamberlin explains. "I have a studio in my basement and I found myself writing all these songs, just taking advantage of the relaxed situation. I wrote about 30 songs in about 30 days."

His partnership with Reina was a total fluke: "I was talking to a friend, saying, 'I wish I could find somebody who looks like a cross between Chris Cornell and Jim Morrison, has a great voice, is independently wealthy, has their own studio, and doesn't do anything but make music.' [Laughs]. Then my friend says, 'I know [Reina]!'

The two started trading songs via email, and then Chamberlin invited Reina to Chicago, where the duo "rented a proper studio for a couple of days," says Chamberlin. "We went in and wrote a song specifically for the exercise of getting to know each other. It sounded great and from then we worked together."

The collaborative experience was refreshing for Chamberlin, who had taken a backseat to Billy Corgan in the Pumpkins. "I always wanted to be in this role, as a songwriter," he says. "In the Pumpkins it was always impossible because Corgan would wake up and write five songs. He was so prolific there wasn't a lot of room for anyone else."

With Great Civilizations Chamberlin is exploring a new, more experimental direction from his Pumpkins days, while still respecting the moody elements of his past. The LP is a collection of prog-leaning, psychedelic jams with flourishes of acoustic guitars, keyboards, piano, and more. Think a proggier, more expansive Sparklehorse. "It's symphonic at points and gets really dark, too," says Chamberlin. There's a full string section on "Am I Second," while songs like "Capsized Jackknife Crisis" and "Tightrope Situation," Chamberlin's personal favorite, recalls experimental bands Yes and King Crimson.

Outside of Skysaw -- originally called "This," a name that "wasn't resonating with me," says Chamberlin, "it's a prohibitive name to Google" -- the drummer is a "closet suburbanite," living outside Chicago where he spends a lot of time with his two children...

He's psyched, however, to return to music and move forward with Skysaw, and put his past with the Pumpkins behind him. "It's important for Billy [Corgan] to carry on as the Pumpkins -- that's a lot of his ownership and a big part of his personality," says Chamberlin, who explains that he and Corgan are friends "from a distance." "He's an extremely talented musician, fantastic songwriter, and a great guy at getting what he needs. But as time went on it became less and less about my journey and more about facilitating someone else's."

"I've learned that you can call it a band, but unless everyone is contributing it's not really," says Chamberlin. "It's pretending that it's a band. I wasn't interested in creating another experience like that. Skysaw is predicated on a three-way split."

He adds, "That situation [with the Pumpkins] placed constraints and a parameter on my career that wasn't always easy to deal with. That can stagnate your growth as a musician. Not anymore."

Read the rest here