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Q
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Please introduce yourself and the name of your band? |
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A
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I'm Jay Barnes (or just "J(ay)"), drummer, and occasional (frequent) whipping boy, for Q. |
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Q
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Where are you from and who were your earliest musical influences? Do you remember going to your first concert? |
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I'm from Western Massachusetts - more specifically Chicopee, originally, but I live in Easthampton, at the moment. My earliest musical influences started with The Police and The Beatles, and sort of expanded from there into metal and industrial. My first concert was going to see Kiss in Worcester in '93 or '94 on their "Revenge" tour - sick stage show!!! |
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Q
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What about non-musical influences? Who or what else has been influential to you personally? |
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Non-musical influences? I like to read fiction (Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, etc), when I can, and tweak my PC to get just a 'little' more performance out of it. As for other personal influences, it was my father, who was also a drummer, that got me started drumming, letting me play on his old Slingerland drum kit. That was the beginning of a long, downward spiral of percussion addiction...hehe...."It was you, alright?? I learned it by watching you!!" |
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Are you self taught or did you take lessons? |
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I started with taking lessons - learning the rudiments and basics. After several years of that (and, partially due to a lack of funding), I struck it out on my own. |
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How did you originally connect with your band? |
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I had known Missy since about '95 or so, through common friends and a few parties here and there. In Jan of 2006, I had run into Missy in a local watering hole, when she mentioned that Q's original drummer, Eric, would be leaving to move out-of-state. After a couple discussions about where we each were coming from, and where we wanted to go, it more or less became clear that we had more than a few parallels that would make collaboration a no-brainer. After that, the rest was history. |
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What stands out to you about your first recording sessions? |
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Oh, man....a better question would have been "what /didn't stand out to me?"! Coming in for that first session was a flood of questions - I mean, I knew, theoretically how it was all 'supposed' to go down, but there's the preconceived notions, and then there's the actual 'doing'. My first sessions were pretty much entirely spent taking direction from the engineer (who doubled as the producer, more or less). I spent a lot of time watching and learning during those sessions, and, I did learn a lot (hell, I'm still learning more about the recording process to this day, and don't see an end in sight for....well, I guess I just don't see an end to learning at all!) |
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What is your band currently up to? |
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Currently, we are working with Q's original guitarist, Jason Hyde, and are working on writing new material with him. There are a lot of interesting dynamics that come into play, working with this line up, and I'm really psyched about the possibilities. |
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Do you get involved with the song writing process? |
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I haven't really had an opportunity to contribute too much, outside of my work behind the kit, in past bands. With Q, however, I feel more comfortable with letting my ideas breathe and develop a little, writing, with the rest of the guys, so, who knows where things will go? |
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Q
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Do you have a favourite brand of drums? |
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I've always been sort of partial to Pearls - they're the acoustic kit that I play on now. That kit has been with me through thick and thin for 11 years, and, when the time comes to consider buying a new kit, I'm pretty sure they'll be the first brand I look into. |
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Who has given the best live drumming performance you've seen? Recently I saw Tommy Aldridge and that just blew me away. |
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Tommy Aldridge is a sick drummer! (Ozzy's Randy Rhoads tribute album was one of my favorite live albums - with Tommy's playing being a huge standout for me) Thinking back to my first Kiss show, Eric Singer put on a hell of a performance. Outside of that, I caught a clinic put on by Mike Portnoy, which just about blew me away. A lot of his patterns seem to find their way into my playing (or at least my own bastardizations of his patterns....hehehe!) - even today. |
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Q
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What do you do to warm up? |
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Before a gig, I try to warm up on basic rudiments, when I can. I usually stick to single and double-stroke rolls on the hands and feet. More importantly to me, though, has gotten to be stretching before playing. Whenever I consider going on without stretching, first, I think back to one gig where my calf cramped up towards the end of a set (hurt like a motherfucker!!!!). After that, I usually end up stretching!! |
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Tell us about your current kit set up. |
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Right now, I play on a 6-piece Pearl Session Prestige Select kit from '97, with 2 hi-toms front and center, and two suspended floor toms to my right. My cymbals are all Zildjian, simply because I've gotten so used to (addicted?) to their sounds, and, for some odd reason, I seem to go through other brands' cymbals like paper. I also have a set of Roland V-Drums at home that I use (for demo and writing purposes, and so as not to piss off the neighbors). I've thought about combining the two kits into one hybrid acoustic/electronic kit, but have had that thought on the back burner for a while, now... |
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Any endorsements? |
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I currently play SilverFox drumsticks (2B, wood tips!) - At my first gig with Q in New Hampshire, I met Jeff from SilverFox, who offered me a pair to try on for size. I found them to be well balanced, and durable as all-hell (it took me 5 gigs to splinter them beyond use - they didn't even break!), so I kept on playing with them, and Jeff offered to work out a deal with me. Jeff and SilverFox have been great to me, and, even if I wasn't in a deal with them, I'd happily recommend them to anyone who was thinking of trying new sticks (though, I'm sure everyone's heard or used that line before.....hehehe!!) |
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What is your take on file sharing? |
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Man, that's such a multi-faceted subject (and a hot button for some), I don't know if I have, or ever will, come to a point where I can feel confidant I've heard all the possibilities and can form a completely informed opinion. Right now, though I think that the music industry, for musicians and the music fans, are in a unique position right now where they can dictate the market's direction. Thanks to technology, music fans can obtain music and share it however and wherever they want, mostly free of possible legal repercussions resulting from how they obtain or distribute their music. Is this good or bad? It doesn't matter - once the technology is out, it simply can't be stopped. So, at this point, the music fan can have a direct impact on the success or failure of the artist, based on their choice to financially support (possibly commission?) him/her/them, or not. In a perfect world, people would download whatever they wanted, throw out or delete the music that they didn't like, and voluntarily pay for what they liked and wanted to keep. Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world, and some people, be it through misguided rationalization ("oh, they make all their money from live shows/merch/endorsements, anyways"), lack of money to buy what they downloaded, or simply because they don't care, aren't going to pay for music that they download. Whether this is going to lead to a decline in the quality or frequency of new material from artists down the road is anyone's guess, but I think that, while new markets and experimental avenues are being tested to take advantage of new technology (Trent Reznor's and Radiohead's experiments with their recent releases, not to mention online market places like iTunes and Yahoo Music), the underground and independent artists may be the ones finding it hardest to adapt and/or take advantage of them, and will continue to have to find their own ways to continue subsidizing their work. |
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Have you ever done, or would you consider, a drum duet? |
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I've never done one, but, with some of the tandems that have been out there (Martin Atkins/Bill Rieflin with Ministry on the "Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste" album (sick, SICK album!!!), and the work Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann of the Grateful Dead) - hell, if I find another drummer where a groove clicks with, shit, I'd give it a shot! |
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Any advice for new drummers? |
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Play because you love playing. Don't waste your time comparing your chops to those of other drummers, because you will develop your own sound. Don't be afraid to expand your musical interests beyond your primary genre - there's some amazing shit out there, just waiting to be heard, and it's often in the last place you'd think to look! |
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Everyone has their own perception of success, what is yours? |
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Being able to comfortably make a living, making music that I love to play. |
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When do you know you've had a satisfying day? |
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From a musical perspective? When I'm riding home, sweaty, exhausted, and cramped in a tiny Jeep Liberty for a 2+ hour drive at 3AM, knowing that I gave it all I had on stage, met some kickass people during the night, and am working off a nice buzz....yep...that's a good day!!! |
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What are you looking forward to most this year? |
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This year? I'm looking forward to seeing what Q will be able to write - I'm really psyched about the possibilities there. Hoping to be able to get out to the clubs we've been at before to reconnect with old friends, and get out to some new places to make some new friends, and, well, playing the drums!!!! |
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And lastly, should there be drum rooms in the gym? Research has suggested that a rock drummer needs extraordinary stamina comparable to top athletes. |
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Heh....wow....drums in the
gym...I don't know if that would be a good idea at the gym I go to,
because I'd probably try to monopolize it!!! I think that it does
take a good degree of stamina to play the drums for any length of
time, though probably utilizing muscles outside of those that, say a
football or soccer (again, football!) player would use. There
probably are some parallels, though! Either way, thanks for checking in, and asking for the view from behind the drum kit! :-D -J(ay) |
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To check out more
about Q, visit |
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I would like to thank Jay for this interview. Keep It Loud! |
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