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Web Exclusive Interview
Charley Drayton—Web Exclusive
 Charley Drayton—Web Exclusive
by Billy Amendola
By the time he was five, Charley Drayton knew exactly what he wanted to do in life. Born in Brooklyn, New York into a successful musical family, Charley spent his childhood watching his dad, Bernard, work in recording studios. “I’d meet my dad in the city and go to his sessions,” explains Charley. “The musicians that I heard on the records I was listening to were the same people who did jingles during the day. So I got to meet all these great musicians, and they started to become part of my life. It was my education; that was school for me.
“So from very early on,” Charley continues, “I felt like I knew that music was going to be it for me. I felt like I wanted to be there so quickly that I needed to be with the adults. I never felt like that in school. I couldn’t relate to the innocence of a young person figuring out what it is that they want to do in life. I already knew.”
The youngster’s love for playing drums expanded to his playing guitar, bass, and keyboards, as well as singing, writing, and producing. Charley’s produced the Australian band divinyls (featuring Chrissy Amphlett, who later became Charley’s wife), and was a member of Rolling Stone Keith Richards’ solo project The Xpensive Winos. He’s also played bass with The Cult, Seal, Iggy Pop, Neil Young, Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, and Janet Jackson. And he has sat in the drum seat for the B-52’s, The Brecker Brothers, Herbie Hancock, and Mariah Carey—and with GE Smith, drumming for the Cleveland Browns home games. Charley’s also become quite the ladies’ man, touring and or recording with Phyllis Hyman, Chaka Khan, Roseanne Cash, Wynona Judd, Marianne Faithful, and Michelle Branch. Currently he’s out with Fiona Apple. MD Online caught up with Charley during the second leg of Fiona’s tour supporting Coldplay.
MD: How’s the tour going?
Charley: It’s wonderful! It’s been the most fun musically that I’ve had on the road in a long time.
MD: How did you hook up with Fiona?
Charley:To be honest, I didn’t really follow her career closely at first, but I would see her on TV occasionally and hear people talk about how fascinated they were by her music. When I met Mike Elizondo last year, he approached me about the idea of doing a couple of promo dates for her new record. After I heard the music to see if I would suit the situation musically, I said “Yes.” And it’s been a wonderful ride.
MD: Mike’s her bass player and co-producer.
Charley: Mike’s a multi-instrumentalist. He’s someone who is new in my life musically, and he’s renewed my spirit. It’s been a wonderful experience playing with him. He really cares about what he’s doing. There’s a bit of a history about how this current album, Extraordinary Machine, finally hit the streets. And I think Mike has done a great job.
MD: There are quite a few drummers on the CD: Jim Keltner, Abe Laboriel Jr., ?uestlove…. How far do you stray from the original tracks?
Charley: To learn the music, my approach is to take the song from where it is on the record. The first thing I might change is my approach to the feel of the songs, not necessarily a part. When a part sounds right to me in a song, that’s what it is. But Fiona is a mature musician. I really credit her for surrounding herself with musicians who she’s comfortable enough with to let them to do what they do. Live, she’s open to everybody’s interpretations, as long as we’re still playing the same song. To add to that, there’s such depth to her lyrics that she goes through an emotional experience dynamically from one night to the next.
MD: She’s a very passionate artist.
Charley:Yes. All you have to do is listen to her, and that guides you where the dynamics will be. That’s the beautiful part about playing on the road with her. There’s no machines driving anything, and you’re able to just play the music. And it’s fresh because every night you play the same songs, but dynamically they’re different. I think the audience responds to that because they know her music so well. That communication is a responsibility we have, and it’s something that I’m very passionate about.
MD: Any playing along to a sequencer?
Charley: No, I stay at home when that invitation comes. [laughs] I just feel if you surround yourself with people that really have the experience and the ability to listen, then I think anything is possible to reproduce or play. And the best players are the ones that listen the best. I’ve been lucky in that sense throughout my career, and I always feel that you are no better than who you are surrounded by in a musical situation. Of course, economics sometimes play into that.
MD: While we’re talking about playing live, what do you usually like to hear in your monitors?
Charley: Generally I don’t play very loud. I’m in the quietest area onstage. And I don’t use in-ear monitors. Regarding my mix, I usually start with a little bit of drums then most importantly would be Fiona’s vocal, and her piano. I always like to hear as much as possible coming from the source itself. Generally the bass is pretty close. I don’t add things unless I can’t hear them. I just don’t like the way some instruments sound through monitors. Like guitars: I like it to be quiet behind me because the sound that comes through your monitors ends up going back in through your drumset, which sometimes makes your drums sound weaker. And once things are too loud, you tend to find yourself physically out of your zone, and you end up hitting harder or playing louder.
MD: Are you using different sticks at different times?
Charley: Yes. I’m using brushes, Blastix, Hot Rods…you name it. I love all the different tools I can get my hands on.
MD: I noticed when I saw you with Michelle Branch that you often changed your snare drum between songs.
Charley: What inspires me the most, to pull me into the songs, is the tone that you bring into the band. It’s especially important in this band, because the bass guitar is the only stringed instrument. I have about four, five snare changes a night…but you’ll never really see them, you’ll just hear them. I feel sometimes if something is high-pitched in a song, it doesn’t work the same for others, so it doesn’t inspire you to play the drumkit in the same way. At least I’m that way. And it’s great to do that as long as it doesn’t get in the way of the flow of the performance. A trait of mine is to inspire sound that inspires everyone else to dig more into the song.
MD: Let’s go back to the beginning. What attracted you to the drums?
Charley: To my memory…I feel like I was playing drums before I even had sticks in my hand. I’ve been told that by the time I was two it became evident that rhythm was a very big part of my day. I was in my mom’s kitchen, quite often, and had access to her pots and anything that produced sound and had the shape of a drum. I think it was a very natural progression. My parents never encouraged me or pushed me in any direction.
MD: Do you think coming from a musical family made it more natural?
Charley: It was in my blood…very infectious.
MD: And I’m sure there was always music playing.
Charley: Oh, yeah. My father being a musician, producer, and an engineer…all the companies and all his friends sent promos to him, and lucky for me, he brought everything home. My sister is a musician, and my mother just loved music and also inspired me.
MD: How old were you when you got your first drumset?
Charley: I must have been about three or four. I remember getting a junior set. I don’t think it lasted more than half a year. I remember getting a kit every Christmas until I got my blue Telestar set—I still have a shell or two from that out at my folk’s house in Brooklyn.
MD: Who were the first drummers that you noticed?
Charley: Max Roach, Philly Joe Jones…. Fortunately, my dad made sure there was a mix. When I became able to operate the record player, then I started to open things up a bit and start to hit some rock ’n’ roll [laughs] and whatever else. I would gauge what I wanted to check out by just looking at the album covers. You’d listen to records and just stare at the cover. Back then we didn’t have cable and you rarely saw bands on TV. You had to hope that Mike Douglas or Merv Griffin would have some band on. Or you’d wait to see Buddy Rich on Johnny Carson.
MD: What records did you start listening to?
Charley: The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix…. I also was discovering all this Latin stuff my father would bring home, because he was very into salsa. And my sister was very much into opera.
By the time I was about ten, I was listening to the Brecker Brothers, Stuff, and definitely Sly & The Family Stone. That band inspired me so much, and I would start to hear things in my head. I then realized that drums were not the only instrument that was going to get that sound out. And that was when I started playing bass. I wanted to teach myself everything, because I was surrounded by so much. I met Will Lee on a jingle session. At sessions with my dad, I would always sit in the drum booth, which was next to the bass amp. And I’d be sitting next to Rick Marotta, Steve Gadd, Andy Newmark, Bernard Purdie, Grady Tate, or Billy Hart. And then one day Will Lee walked in. It was so inviting to watch what he was doing and how he did it and the sound that he delivered. To this day, when we’re in a room together, I think we both feel youthful and approach music with that first-time sort of feeling.
MD: When he plays, Will is always smiling, singing…he makes that stage come alive.
Charley: That’s a very important point. Sometimes we’re not presented with a piece of music that is inspiring. Every day you have personal stuff to deal with, but to play your instrument, you have to be free of all of that and try to communicate a musical message to someone. Certain days it can be a struggle to feel loose. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I want to bring that joy and remember what it was like the first time I played, that spirit. And you also have to remember that each time you play could always be your last. That’s just the reality of life.
MD: Do you remember the first time you went to the studio to record drums?
Charley: I was ten, eleven years old and in a band in Brooklyn, and we had a horn section that played originals and covers. We’d do gigs along the East Coast. My dad brought us into A&R recording studio a few times to sort of hear what we were doing—to gain some experience and see what we needed to work on. A few years later I met a musician named Bernard Wright. It was his album on GRP records that I recorded professionally for the first time.
MD: How did you learn to play with a click?
Charley: I knew that it was going to be part of my job. I remember when we first got a piano there was a metronome. My mother, my sister, and I had all taken piano lessons, and I would sometimes practice with a pad and the metronome. In the studio you have to listen to all the other instruments, and also hear the click, but not really hear the click. The best way to treat a click is as though it’s part of the percussion section and you’re just grooving to it.
When you go into a situation with a group or musicians you haven’t played with before, an easy way to get right to the source of the music, if you’re using a click, is to mix a little subdivision or something percussive-sounding in there. Not necessarily something they have to hear, but something that gives you a guide of where the music can go. In certain situations there are times where the music sounds best if it’s strict to the time. A lot of recordings are playing to pre-recorded tracks and you have to be really articulate. But at other times, when things need to breathe, the click is just a guide to keep it in the ballpark.
MD: Were you one of those guys who would shed and practice?
Charley: When I was younger I practiced a lot. I didn’t take too many years of formal lessons, but I’m still studying now. I’ll take music books on the road, and I’ll play every day.
MD: How did you learn to read music?
Charley: Through playing the trumpet and then through the piano. When I got to Music & Art High School, I had a wonderful teacher, Justin DeCioccio. He was the one that put the spark in me and helped me break through. There were many musicians who came out from under Justin’s wing: Billy Cobham, Omar Hakim, Marcus Miller, Sterling Campbell, Steve Jordan, Bernard Wright, my sister went there…the list is incredible.
MD: So what about now, you say you take drum books out with you. What do you feel your weaknesses are that you would like to get better at?
Charley: That’s a good question…I think good practice is to just keep your eye sharp reading music. Even musicians, like string sections, they mostly just read to play music. I think that you can never practice that language enough. It’s endless what you’re going to learn about music. I’m always inspired by rhythm. As a professional I’m only hired to play certain kinds of music. When I’m away from the kit, most of the music that I listen to is from a different country, so I’m always trying to rejuvenate the sounds of world rhythms, at least in my head. Playing modern commercial music, it’s always best to start with a fresh canvas every day. Once you already think you’re going to walk in with something, you sort of eliminate the other possibilities.
MD: When recording, how do you prefer to lay down your tracks?
Charley: If I’m going into a recording situation with a new artist, in some cases they may want me to play bass and drums. If there’s already bass on the track, I have to play articulately to that and think about things differently than if I was going to replace the bass part. If I’ve been asked to play the bass as well as drums, I know to pick the spots where I’ll put a certain feel or movement. Or if I know Anthony Jackson is going to play bass, I might already know how he would make it feel according to what his clock is.
When I’m building a track at home or writing a song, I’m usually playing guitar or bass and coming up with some of the music, so I’m always inspired quickly to just start laying it down. I always start with a drum machine. I used to start with a recorded drum loop or something of mine, if I have that in the library. But I want to start getting to the music so fast that I go to the drum machine, lay down a simple beat, and just start layering and building things. Then I can go back and develop the beat some more.
MD: If you had to pick three drummers for inspiration that you still like to listen to, who would they be?
Charley: Good thing you narrowed it to three, because every day I try to be so open-minded where anything anybody’s playing is an inspiration to me. Even if I don’t think it’s my cup of tea, I still know that I’m going to learn something from it. In fact, I’m going to learn more from something that’s not my cup of tea than something I already listen to.
There are so many names that I want to mention, but most importantly, I’d say Art Blakey and Elvin Jones. And then singer Billie Holiday is in my mind every day as far as rhythmic inspiration. Her phrasing…. When I hear a sound I want to play on the drums, it’s usually coming from the rhythm of another instrument, as opposed to wanting to hear the drums per se. Lately I’ve had to go back into history a little bit, and in terms of passion and rhythm, Gene Krupa took the kit to another place. I think some of his inspiration was from African music. If you hear some of that early big band music, just the way he approached it with his rhythm, with four on the floor and his independence, that drives me. It doesn’t sound like drums at all—it just sounds like music. Blakey had the same abilities.
MD: If you’re playing drums, who would you hire to play bass?
Charley: Right now, I’d say Mike Elizondo makes the music magical for me. Will Lee and I really connect and make the most of the music we are presented with. I would sure like to play with Chuck Rainey again. He was very important to me. And I would love to play with Larry Graham & Willie Weeks.
MD: And if you’re playing bass, who would you call to play drums?
Charley: There’s so many, it’s hard to pin down one guy. I miss Jeff Porcaro. But to talk about Jeff is a whole interview in itself. Imagine Jeff playing another instrument, with all the experience he had, what his approach would be. I imagine it would just be off the hook.
Carla Azar for sure is someone who will inspire me. I’d like to have that experience with Jim Keltner. I’ve recorded with Mickey Curry, and he’s got a delicious groove. He’s more special than he gets credit for. I’m sure playing with Bernard Purdie would be like being airlifted. I’m spoiled; one of the first people with whom I played an instrument other than the drums was Steve Jordan, in Xpensive Winos.
MD: You and Steve switched off: You played drums on some of the Xpensive Winos material.
Charley: Yes, both live and on record, we would sometimes switch. We did whatever worked.
MD: How have you seen time’s change in music the last few years?
Charley: It’s all in the music. You’re no better than what you’re presented with. I think what made our legends legends—like your Bernard Purdies and people of the soul era, Motown, Stax—they’re all great musicians. And day in and day out, they were given great music to play. That’s where our box has gotten a lot smaller in America, and that’s why it’s so important for you to go as far as you can to listen to everything and anything. I just feel that we are limited a bit, and I feel it’s easy in these times for musicians to get pigeonholed into one sort of style.
In the real world, unless you’re in a band that grows up together and has success, you’re just an independent musician, and there’s not a lot you can choose from right now. You don’t throw everything in on one gig, and do everything you know. You try to present the image that you do have some range and that you’re aware of the different styles that you’re open to. All the musicians we love, they must feel homeless for a good song. We hear a lot of our old music re-recorded—why? You can think that everything has been done, but your imagination will take you as far as you want to go. It takes hard work, but it’s possible to reach new places. Sometimes you have to dig hard to find it. But when you’ve got the right nucleus, and the right day, and everybody’s on the same page, it’s incredible what can come out of something. And at the end of the day, that’s the feeling that you starve for the next day. When you’re in a situation like that, there’s no better high in the world.
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