DRUMROLL: JORG SCHNEIDER (JEALOUSY MOUNTAIN DUO)
Tom: Name and briefly describe the musical projects (past and present) that you are involved with.
Jorg: My present bands and projects are Jealousy Mountain duo, weird abstract free-form style music with kind of Captain Beefheart craziness and some real beauty. With that band we toured the world like never before in the past six years, so far we got amazing response, maybe my most original drumming ever in it. I also drum with Nicoffeine, super crazy noise rock with kraut and psychedelic inspiration, band exists since 15 years, six records, three with me on drums, for people who love Lightning bolt, Flaming lips and insanity.
I also play with Havre de grace from Chicago, a new project with two long-time friends. They came to Germany last summer to record four hours of music, mellow jazzy vibe with Tom Waits, indian kind of singing, and tribal drums. Finally, I’m in Roji , a new band with albatre bass player and Colin Webster on sax from london, for people who like bands like ZU or free jazz in general.
Some of my former bands are: Les hommes qui wear espandrillos, from 1990 till 2005. We did ten records, noise rock with more darker elements ,most of them for the great German underground label Blu noise records, that was created in 1994 from our former bass player Guido Lucas. I created Fischessen, my own solo band with my wife playing bass and piano, kind of noise rock with lots of keyboards on the first record, in the future probably more piano and minimalistic drums. I was also in a bass and drums duo, Tarngo, kind of Nomeansno and Death from above 1974, only instrumental. We did two records which I still really like and broke up after 6 six years, the bass player is also the new bass player in Nicoffeine.
T: Do you remember the first time you sat behind a kit?
J: Absolutely, it was one day before my birthday in feb 1984. My mum knew a young guy from my high school at the time, he was maybe the first drummer ever I really liked. He didn’t have a practise room, but a drum set, so we decided to put the drum set in my parent’s basement. I waited for two hours in the dark and was super nervous before he came over with his drums, I will never forget the first time I sat behind the kit and started to play some ac/dc beat, it was total magic to me ,and it still is to this day. I still think drumming is the greatest thing on earth, I still do it every day, live in the studio or alone, the basement is still the place where we rehearse and it has become a super great studio with the best sounding drum room I ever played in, 90 percent of all my records were recorded in there.
T: What was you first drum kit?
My first drum set was a really cheap aria, standard five piece with shitty cheap paiste cymbals,and I added roto toms to it to have some kind of Stewart Copeland or Terry Bozzio thing, although my playing was really bad in the beginning.
T:Who was the first drummer that inspired you?
J: I think my first really favourite drummer was Mark Brezezicki of Big Country, I loved the way he created all those amazing tribal things to big country on the first two records. The biggest change came when I saw sonic youth and caspar brötzmann massacre in berlin in 1986,after that show iI decided that I wanted to become a touring drummer for the rest of my life, noise rock and the whole experimental music became my thing from then on.
T: Are there any new drummers that are inspiring you?
J: There are a lot of great drummers like Thomas Haake from Messhugah,Danny Carey,the guy from the norway band Staer is amazing, I really like the abstract stuff from Aids wolf, Thomas Pridgen from mars volta, also Jon Theodore in Mars volta, of course Zach Hill, Paal Nillssen-love,Glen Kotche,Chris Corsano.
T: What was the first gig you attended?
J: The first show was Simple minds in 1983 in Düsseldorf
T: What was the first record/album you purchased?
J: ac/dc back in black and the 7“of hells bells,It scared me to death hehehe
T: List a few songs you feel every drummer should know/listen to?
J:Talk talk,spirit of eden and laughing stock, both records of storm and stress,the former band of Ian Williams of Battles and Don Daballero,Messhugah catch 33 ,Tool aenima, ZU the way of the animal powers, Aids wolf cities of glass, everything from the necks, US maple the record talker, Bark market the record is called gimmick, from unsane scattered smothered covered, primus, sailing the seas of cheese, jay dilla, caspar brötzmann massacre album,koksofen, first record from Smashing pumpkins gish
T: What is the writing process like for the bands you are in?
J: These days in jealousy mountain duo is more about improvisation. In nicoffeine most of the time I come up with some drum patterns sometimes even the whole piece is pre composed by the drums, besides that I love drumming and recording drums on my own and putting parts together, even if they don t fit. I love recording mistakes and making it your own, too much perfection is boring to me, I always try to go in opposite directions and try to do something unique.
T:What is the recording process like?
J: After we built up this great analogue two inch tape recording studio at my mums home we have always everything ready for recording, so most of the time we just meet and record, I still think it s the best for me when you just don’t know that the things you are just playing might become your new record,so its mostly that kind of fresh original feeling to a song, that you can never rebuild,i recorded in the beginning in so many different studios and we were never happy with the results, thats why we started to do it on our own in 1993.
T: Do you prefer playing live or recording in the studio?
J: I like it both, there was a time around 2005 to 2009 where I really loved being at home and recording all the time, but then I wanted to do as much touring as possible again, and it started with jealousy mountain duo again in 2011,for me being on the road and driving, was always the best feeling, playing to people is also amazing, even if they don t like it sometimes.
T:Are there any musicians (past or present) you would want to work with?
J: I wish peter kowald would be still alive, I once got invited to his last recording session before he died, nobody knew it would be the last, but i had to do some pre production with a former band on that weekend,and so i missed it,really a shame,besides that peter brötzmann was always a dream of mine,also there are some unknown great people i met on the road during the past seven years ,that i would love to improvise with,and i think i will do that and do more recordings soon
T: What is the best gig you have played?
J: There are two that come to my mind, one was in 1996 with Les homes qui wear espadrilles at Roskilde festival in Denmark, we were the first band ever that got booked without having a big record contract, we played with REM, The Cure, Morphine and played to thousands of people, it was mental. The other show was in Benicarlo in Spain in last Dec in a small club with Jealousy mountain Duo, I nearly cried on stage and I was really overwhelmed the whole time by emotions, really amazing.
T: What is the worst gig you have played?
Also two shows under all those thousands come to my mind, the one was on the first les hommes qui wear espadrillos US tour in 1996, it was in New York city at the end of a 30 day tour, we were last of a seven band bill at the night. Like most new york shows there was lots of audience and then less of audience during the evening and when we started at three in the morning only the bartender was there. After one song he told us to finish, we waited for seven hours paid maybe 75 dollar for parking and 30 dollars for the bridges to get into manhattan and the we couldn’t play our set, embarrassing. The other was last year in Vienna, we were just too loud for the club and the club owner went four times on stage while were playing and turned the volume of the guitar down, the few people hated us, and we had to finish after four songs and while loading the stuff back in the van the door guy told me that we sounded like stupid idiots who crash and empty garbage cans, fuck it.
T:Can you play drunk?
J: Yes,but i always know my limit,i love beeeer but nothing else
T:What is you current drum set up?
J: I mainly use three different sets,in the studio i play an old pearl yello fiberglass drum set from the seventies,amazing warm full sound with an old hayman snare drum 14x5 ,live i play since fifteen years blue vistalite from ludwig,got them really cheap in 2000 in america,on one of the jealousy mountain duo records i used an really old sonor rosewood jazz drum set with the original drumheads from the 70ies,they were so dead sounding amazing,nearly no tone came out of the drums,but with close microphones it sounded amazing,the cymbals i use are mostly the same 14“hi hats from dream cymbals bliss series,20 inch crash from dream cymbals,amazing cymbals like old k zildjian only warmer sounding,my ride is an old 22 inch avedis from zildjian and an old 22 inch constantinople from zildjian,and my second crash is a light 19 inch dark custom from k zipdjian
T:Finally do you know any drummer jokes?
J:NOOOOOOOOO why ;-))))))
Listen to and watch Jorg in action:
www.jealousymountainduo.bandcamp.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42dqB8IqHpg
nicoffeine.bandcamp.com, https://soundcloud.com/havre-de-grace
www.blunoise.de https://vimeo.com/12642880
