DRUMROLL! Jorg Schneider (Jealousy Mountain Duo) interview Shawn O'Connor (Yowie)
When Boozine asked me to do an interview with one of my favourite drummers the choice was really easy. I had the chance to chat with Shawn O´Connor from the amazing St Louis band Yowie one of the most interesting instrumental band on the planet. They will release a new full length album through Skingraft in April 2017 and tour Europe later this year.
Jorg: When and why did you start playing?
Shawn: I started playing when I was 16. I wasn’t allowed to have drums at my home, so I got some discarded broken drumsticks from the band room at school, and I would sit in my room and try to play along with my favorite songs by hitting pillows, and other such stuff. After a while I befriended an employee at the local music store and he would let me sneak in to practice on a real drumset that was there for lessons, when it wasn’t being used. I started playing because drums were the most visceral and powerful instrument to me. I was also very interested in the coordination it took; I rode a skateboard a lot at the time, and something about whole body coordination really appealed me and still does. J: Who was the first to inspire you?
S: I think the drummer that really did it for me was Dave Lombardo (of Slayer, at the time). He had great precision and speed, coupled with tremendous intensity. The first time I heard “Reign in Blood,” I literally felt nauseated; it was so good and so powerful. To me, the drums were 90% of that.
J: Yowie is on Skin Graft Records, one of the most dedicated labels to experimental music. How is
that ?
S: Well for me it has been incredibly meaningful. Once I started branching out from metal and punk as a young man, and started looking into more adventurous forms of music, bands on Skin Graft Records were really formative for me. Bands like Ruins, Flying Luttenbachers, Cheer-Accident, and local heroes Dazzling Killmen were in rotation as I learned to try to write music, rather than simply play the drums in bands wherein other people wrote the music. There was something very unconventional about the compositional style of nearly every band on the label, and it was a natural bridge for me from more traditional metal/punk to more avant-garde and progressive music. So when they offered to put out our first album, it was incredible. I had never had an album out before- for it to be on this great label meant a lot to me. J: Did you guys ever have the chance to tour with label mates? Any personal contact with the other bands ?
S: Well, no tours with them, but plenty of contact. As I think through the roster, we’ve played with Arab on Radar, Chinese Stars, Made in Mexico, Athletic Automaton, Cheer-Accident, Child Abuse, Flying Luttenbachers, Gay Beast, Korekyojinn, Lovely Little Girls, Melt-Banana, Point Line Plane, Ruins, Satanized, US Maple (a whole bunch of times), and Xaddax. So, a pretty good representation!
J: You are part of the St. Louis scene what is it like these days? And how did it change over the
years ?
S: Saint Louis is doing very well musically these days. It has been through lots of ups and downs, though, like the city itself. When we first started playing shows, I think around 2001, back then there were not that many venues for unconventional music. Lots of art spaces, a local music collective, and a few crappy punk/metal venues. Lots of terrible “alternative” music that was not particularly adventurous, and there was a lot of snobbery, as I recall. And we were at first not all that well received- mostly people would stand there and look perplexed while we played. After a while, some people started to kind of get what we were doing, and now we are having more and more people come out. Saint Louis these days is brimming with talent and creativity. Particularly our metal scene- bands like Fister, Everything Went Black, Lion’s Daughter, The Gorge, Alan Smithee- really great bands that are doing really cool stuff. We also still have a good experimental music scene- both improvised stuff and a fair amount of more composed music. J: Yowie seems to be one of the most dedicated bands making their own music, how did you come up with that work ethic?
S: I think it’s the other way around- the ethic is the product of the demands of the music. We simply can’t write and reliably perform these compositions without insane amounts of practice and revision. I really wish it were otherwise. Seriously. It is a hell of a commitment, but it is what the compositions demand, and no less, no matter how much we try to bargain. I keep joking that one day I am going to start a punk band and write 4 songs a month sometime, just for a break of the intensity of it. J: Do you guys ever jam ?
S: Hell no. I can’t even imagine that. It would be unnatural and creepy. Not our thing. J: What is it like writing a new Yowie tune?
S: Looking back on the process for this new album (“Synchromysticism,” due out on Skin Graft Records in the first half of 2017), we averaged about 10 months per song. That’s practicing as a band 3 days a week and then usually a lot of writing in between. A couple of them we wrote several times- so we will write it, get the composition up and running, get frustrated with some macro issue, and then break it back down into its constituent parts and re-assemble entirely, from the ground up, adding and subtracting all over the place. We record parts of every practice, and then we send out the recordings to everyone for review and commentary. We go through and decide what’s not working, argue, come up with alternative parts and arrangements, argue some more, and then keep going at it. It is really fucking maddening. I think we had 38 versions of one of the songs on the new album (“Mysterium Tremendum”), and that is at the macro level- each one of those had lots of different versions and movements. We take the composition process really seriously, and for this album in particular, there has been a non-negotiable emphasis on flow. Getting these jagged, odd, notey parts to flow nicely into one another can take a crazy amount of revision and thought.
J: Are you self taught? Drumming influences over the years?
Yeah I am basically self-taught. I literally never even paid attention to technique until I hit a wall with the material for this album. There is one song (“The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You”) that has a particular pattern I have to repeat for long periods of time with one limb, and I just kept cramping up really bad. So after a lot of frustration and having to work through my own resistance to the idea of learning to play music properly, I took some lessons on technique specifically so I could pull that off. It helped tremendously. Then I realized that since I have been playing the drums for so long, I really should take some lessons and improve my technique. As weird as it may sound, I never really played the drums for their own sake. I only played them as part of a contribution to a particular song, but I never sat down and practiced what drummers are supposed to practice (rudiments, etc). I just played songs, or parts of songs, over and over until they sounded somewhat like how I pictured them. Turns out my technique was really horrible (surprise!). But for this one we have a lot of dynamics and really intense polyrhythm stuff that I just had to work on technique in order to be able to pull off. I still don’t like playing the drums for their own sake. I am not a drummer nerd. I just like music and drums is what I ended up with. So influences- I think my favorites are probably Thymme Jones (of Cheer-Accident), Dave Lomabrdo, and Billy Cobham. And again, I don’t think I would go to one of their drum clinics or watch them solo or whatever- I list them because of the contributions they make to their compositions. J: After Chris from Grand Ulena came into the band how did it change Yowie?
S: Well that has been a huge difference. First off, Chris, as compared to his predecessor, is much more concerned with melody. Prior to his joining, we were basically an all-rhythm band, and the melodic interplay was rather random, and to us, largely irrelevant. Also, Chris is extraordinarily solid and consistent, whereas his predecessor would somewhat randomly change his parts to a maddening degree. And so that has allowed us greater precision and compositional forethought. He is a consummate professional; always there on time, practiced up in between band practices, ready to work his ass off. Hell, he doesn’t even drink. And Chris joined the band just as Jeremiah was moving several hours away, so basically everything you will hear on our new album was written by him and me, with Jeremiah’s parts being added later. I think it has been a really great change. J: I always asked myself what kind of influences Yowie had as a band, wild guess: Primus, Don Cab, King Crimson?
S: Well that’s a hard question to answer. Jeremiah doesn’t really listen to very much music, and so he is sort of a non-contributor to this question. I may be mistaken but I don’t think anyone in the band likes Don Cab. I have never heard one of their albums, so I can’t really comment on them. I keep hearing people mention them so I should probably check them out. I definitely like some King Crimson stuff. I guess for me, a lot of metal, prog, and punk. I was always really into Nomeanso, and am mourning their recent decision to retire. I can say for sure that one of Chris’ favorites has always been Dazzling Killmen. J: Best thing about drumming or being in a band?
S: All the ladies. They are really into microtonal polyrhythms. Just can’t get enough of em. Also, the other thing that is awesome is at every show, in every band I have ever been in, the guitarists move their 2 things onto stage in a big hurry and plug them in while I move the first 2 of my 25 different things with dozens of adjustments onto the stage. That’s always good. That way they can supervise what I am doing, and provide any necessary commentary. Also, as a drummer, if you have a specific idea for a part, it is perfectly acceptable to simply scat it to the other band members, thereby demonstrating conclusively that all this chord knowledge is superfluous wankery to make the guitarists feel special. J: You toured Europe before, differences between Europe and the US?
S: Dear US readers- please skip to the next question or go to your safe space. Basically, Europe has the US beat by a long shot. In Europe, the bands are treated with greater respect and courtesy. In the US, usually we beg for some floor to sleep on that has cat shit on it and we get two drink tickets for Stag and then after the club makes its money, we might get a cut of what is left over. In Europe, the bands get paid first (a “guarantee,” as I believe it is known on the continent, among other strange customs), and then the club gets a cut of what is left over. You are fed, you have a place to stay, you are often treated as a guest rather than an annoying nuisance that is making it harder for the bartender to hear the drink orders. J: Best show ever, worst show ever and why?
S: Our worst show ever was at the Fireside Bowl in Chicago. It was my and the band’s first time ever playing in a different city. I had seen my favorite band there; no one knew who we were at all, and it seemed like a really cool opportunity. We were opening for Wesley Willis. Then, two of the band members (I won’t say which ones, for their confidentiality) decided that it would be a great fucking idea to get fucked up right before we went on stage, because I guess we are in the Doors or something, and being in an altered state of consciousness really adds to the spiritual and psychedelic vibe we are really going for. So these two unnamed band members did that, and then we played like complete dog shit, and one of us (I won’t say which one for confidentiality reasons, but certainly the most attractive member of the group) seethed with rage for, well I guess it’s been 15 years or so now. This is not the sort of music you try to play if you are in the least bit impaired, at least according to that very handsome gent. I think the best show we ever played was in Budejovice, Czech Republic. We had gotten an email out on the road that said the club was closed, so we thought we were out of luck. But they told us they figured something out- we played in the theater in the university- and people carried our instruments up the stairs….what the hell!?!?!? Everyone was super into it, and then afterwards, they had an after-party at a local bar until the wee hours of the morning with the people who had been there. It was really amazing- people were so kind and so supportive of us. And so excited to have us there. It was really touching to meet people who were very acquainted with obscure music I wrote in a basement in Jennings a decade prior. (I know you probably don’t know what Jennings is- but you may have heard of Ferguson, which is directly adjacent to it. Ferguson is where people who live in Jennings wish they could move to). J: Your new record will be released soon, any differences in the recording process?
S: Well we are not the richest band in the world, so we recorded the most demanding material we have ever written in 2 days, which was completely insane, but somewhat out of financial necessity. In fact, we have recorded each of our albums in 2 days, now that I think of it. We prepped for this like nothing I’ve ever prepped for in my entire life. Practiced every day for months and months and we recorded over and over and made micro-changes on the performance over and over before we ever got to the studio. No overdubs on this album- it’s all single track stuff. The previous two albums had significant guitar overdubs. And this one sounds really, really good. I have never said that before. J: Any crazy tour stories?
In Bratislava, when we got finished playing, some folks said “follow us to where you are staying” which wasn’t that unusual, but then we ended up at what looked like an office building. We came in and had to show our passports to a security guard, which was really weird. And there was an elevator- and it was clear there were dentists and stuff in this building…and we were kinda concerned we were gonna wake up in an ice bath missing some organs. So then they just took us up to this floor and gave us keys. And we were walking down the hall and there are all these pics of nuns. Nuns? The rooms were nice- like sort of hotel rooms. Then we figured out that we were staying at a Slovakian homeless shelter. Slovakian homeless shelters are better than a lot of US hotels. J: Best drinking moment and best band to party with?
I think as a band our best drinking moment was in Faenza, Italy. We had one night off (not our choice) and the owner of this club- one of my favorite people I ever met- just let us stay there with her for our day off. So we wandered around the area and at night we found a vending machine that sold beer. So we just bought a lot of beer from it and drank and made too much noise in the streets and answered our own question as to why we do not have beer vending machines in the US. Best band to party with is EA from Brno area, I think. J: Any drummer jokes ?
S: I think I might be the wrong guy for that. I can make a referral though, if you like. J: Last show I saw from you guys in oct 15 my impression was that the new tunes were the most complicated dance music I ever listened to. The crowd was totally freaking out. Was that the plan for the new album?
S: Was that in London? With Doomsday Student? Fun show! Well yeah, that is exactly the plan for the new album, but I need to tell you- you haven’t even heard any of those tunes yet. You heard mostly songs from “Damning with Faint Praise” and heard an early-proto version of one of the new ones (“Mysterium Tremendum”) but it is very different from that version now. Basically completely re-written. I am gonna tell you right now- if you thought that made people freak out- this new material even makes Americans dance. Even American guys. Even American guys with beards. Yeah, that is basically it- it is crazily intense, oblong, and meticulous music that flows and grooves, inexplicably. That was the whole idea- we wanted this stuff to appeal to something more primal and intuitive, while being composed of completely non-intuitive ingredients. It takes a lot of sleight of hand tricks, both compositionally and also in terms of execution, but I really think we did it. If you try to understand it, you will fall over. Don’t do that; don’t think. Just let it appeal to the “Altered States” hominid that has been dormant inside you all this time and do whatever it commands. Eat a goat. Dance primally. Injure yourself.
