Steven Gillis (September 2005 Issue)
Filter's Power Source

Steven Gillis was five when he stumbled upon a drumset in a neighbor's basement, discovering the instrument that would become his life's passion. "I started banging on these drums and it just zapped me," he admits. "I knew from that point I'd be playing for the rest of my life. Since college, I've made my living solely playing music. I've never had a day job."
Gillis, who counts Tony Williams and Dennis Chambers among his biggest influences, was playing over three hundred gigs a year in various Chicago-based jazz bands when he joined alternative hard rockers Filter on the verge of recording their second album. Five years later, Filter are touring in support of their latest release, Amalgamut.
Because they're from Chicago, home of the industrial-minded Wax Trax studio, and because vocalist Richard Patrick once worked with Nine Inch Nails, Filter often gets rubber-stamped an industrial band. But Gillis insists this label is misleading. "Maybe the first album had an industrial flavor," he concedes, "but the press puts that stamp on us because it's easy, not because it's true. Listen to the records: There's great songwriting in this band.
"I don't think that there's any song on Amalgamut that's heavy just for the sake of being heavy," Gillis continues. "So I Quit is our ode to Ministry and is fun to play live. But on every other tune there's something being said. It's not fluff at all; we're trying to write songs that people can have their own relationship with and interpret in different ways. We do what we feel is necessary musically to represent the song."

Gail Worley

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