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Brant Bjork
(July 2005 Issue)
Fu
Manchu RocksLet's put
it this
way: Brant Bjork's parents were all for him playing the drums. He got a
snare and a hi-hat for his eleventh birthday,
and his folks eventually
bought him an entire kit - but they weren't about to give it to him
gratis. "They wanted me to work
in the yard for each drum," he recalls.
"So I had to do a month's worth of work to get the bass drum, then
another
month's work to get the floor tom, and on and on 'til I had the
full thing."
Once Bjork finally had the full kit,
he was off playing in a
number of California desert punk and rock bands, including the
underground wunderkids Kyuss. Brant
first met up with Fu Manchu ten
years ago, and eventually produced their 1994 debut, No One Rides For
Free. After the
band's original drummer was asked to leave, Bjork got
the call.
Though he was a fan of the band's sound,
Bjork admits that
switching bands was a tad difficult. "It's always a change when you
start playing with other
musicians," he says. "Musically, Fu Manchu
rocks. In my other bands the guys used to do a lot of improvising and a
lot of
free jams. We do a little bit of that in Fu Manchu, but the band
is a little more straight-forward. It's all
rock."
While Bjork joined the band in time to work on their break-out
The Action Is Go, his playing has flourished
after a number of tours
and another album, King Of The Road. And as he has grown as a player,
Bjork has seen Fu Manchu
grow as well. Indeed, he's excited about the
band's future. "I'd like to think that our formula of rock music
will
make some kind of impact again," he says. "I don't mind some of the
music that's popular these days, but I
think there's room for just some
good old-fashioned, in-your-face rock."
David John Farinella
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