I had the privilege of meeting with the very modest and charming Shawn Pelton at the PASIC show in Nashville back in November 04 after his very rare clinic performance. I have not been as influenced or excited by somebody’s feel and groove since I first heard Jeff Porcaro.

The New York session drummer has recorded with Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Rod Stewart, Ray Charles, Sheryl Crow, Eddie Brickell, The Brecker Brothers, Buddy Guy, Joan Osborne, (pause for breath) Michelle Branch, Hall & Oates, Peter Wolf, Marc Cohn, Rosanne Cash, Billy Joel, & Luciano Pavarotti…enough already! You get the idea, the list keeps on going.  Shawn is also the drummer for the New York chat show “Saturday night live”

If you get chance check out Shawn on the modern drummer 2003 DVD or the Sheryl Crow DVD “C’mon America 2003”

MD. You have a great shuffle feel, how do you approach your shuffle?
SP. Bernard Purdie is a great influence over the whole half time shuffle, the famous Purdie Shuffle. I love Purdie’s whole prescience which is all about groove. When I first came to New York I was freelancing and did a whole bunch of blues’ gigs, which forced me to get a great shuffle, feel together. I also have a jazz background, so having a jazz sensibility as far as a sense of swing and the whole triplet feel helps.   So I think there are a couple of different threads there that were influential, having a jazz background and then the whole groove thing, the Purdie shuffle thing.

You’re based in New York and you’re the house drummer for Saturday Night Live TV show, how did that fit into your session schedule?
Well, the very fortunate thing about Saturday Night Live is that it’s a real lucky thing to get involved with because you’re able to stay in town and not have to go out on the road. And because you’re able to stay in town, producers and people know that you’re always around. That was a really fortunate break to get and a great anchor for a career in New York because you’re able to be in town consistently. It kind of allows you to set roots into the session scene.  SNL is cool in that it’s a steady gig but it actually only tapes live 20 days out of the year. It’s not like being on Letterman or Jay Leno where you’re there for 5 days a week for 40 weeks out of the year. It’s really only 20 Saturday’s from October to May so we’ll do two weeks on, two weeks off and 5 weeks off at Christmas, no summer tapings. I’m extremely lucky and it’s a great gig.

Am I right in saying you don’t back the acts on that show?
It’s rare that we do, traditionally everyone comes on with their own band.  There have been a couple of things, once I played drums with Edie Brickell because I had recorded with her and then she came on the show back in the 90s and then there’s been a couple of times where I’ve played percussion to supplement the drummer with Mick Jagger and Willie Nelson. We also did a big 25th Anniversary where the house band played with Al Green and things like that.  So it has happened but for the most part if a band is a guest on the show its generally self-contained, almost always.

So do you read charts for the show?
Yeah, it is a chart orientated band, which is interesting because I’ve ended up having opportunities subbing on all the TV shows in New York, like I’ve subbed for Anton Fig on the Letterman show and I’ve gone down and played at the Conan show as well for Max Weinberg. What’s unusual about the Saturday Night Live band is it’s the only band that has a proper drum book with the music for you to read.  On Letterman there’s a 3 pc. horn section but they’re the only guys that have music, the rhythm section have all the songs memorized, its incredible how many songs that band knows, so when you’re subbing on Letterman you have to do a lot of homework. They don’t just play songs like In The Midnight Hour or Mustang Sally, they will play a lot of non-standard songs as well. Everyone probably knows the general feel of “Dude Looks Like a Lady” by Aerosmith, but there are things throughout like maybe the bridge has got an extra bar, or there is a breakdown at a certain point. It’s amazing that those guys know so many songs by heart; so subbing on that gig is tough. You really have to do your homework and come in with your own charts.

But how do you do your homework on a gig like that?
Well, there’s a master list of tunes that they draw from and you can get those from Paul Shaffer the musical director when you’re subbing.  I kind of went over the top and got the list and tried to learn most of the songs best as I could so when I was subbing they wouldn’t be hampered by not being able to do this tune because the subbing drummer didn’t know it. Paul would maybe take 10-15 songs and say we will focus on these.  The same happens with the Conan band. There isn’t an official drum book for that show either. I think Max just makes his notes…. but at SNL there is a drum book.

What made you move to New York and how did you get into the NY session scene?
I went to school in Bloomington, Indiana. I was a jazz major and I was fortunate because Kenny Aronoff was based in Bloomington, Indiana with John Mellancamp back in the 80s and I got there in 1982. It was right at the beginning of Mellancamp’s first big hit. I was pretty aggressive about trying to learn and I tracked down Kenny for private lessons. It was great getting to see someone like him working and playing, and it helped me not be just a jazzbo cat.  In 1988 after I graduated there was an artist called John Eddie who was signed to Columbia, he was a kind of Springsteen clone. They recorded his album at Mellencamp’s studio with Kenny on the album. He was then offered the tour but couldn’t do it so he recommended me to move out and do the tour.   So I moved to New York with a gig with this artist and then everything that could possibly go wrong label wise did…like the record barely came out with no promotion and then it was dropped and then he was picked up by Electra. We made another record that ended up never seeing the light of day, so all the horror stories that you kind of hear about being involved with a major label situation, happened.

This was 89/90 when that started to fall apart. I was freelancing more and doing a gig everywhere I could and that was the beginning of breaking into New York. Everything that happened was by word of mouth. You have to have a good attitude and a great feel and then people will remember that and you’ll get calls. So it is a kind of word of mouth thing. As far as the SNL gig happening, Chris Parker had done it forever in the 80s, Matt Chamberlain did it for a year and then the chair opened up and they had auditions.  I knew the SNL bass player from playing around town freelancing and he recommended me to come and audition.

You have been compared to the way Kenny Aronoff plays was he an influence off yours?
Yeah, there is no doubt that he was a big influence.  Kenny’s kind of known for hitting really hard and strong which is awesome, he can do anything and has a huge range musically. One thing in New York I had to learn was that you can’t overplay a room volume wise. So a lot of the singer/songwriter stuff I ended up getting involved in, like the Shawn Colvin record which got a couple of Grammy’s for song of the year and record of the year back in 97 or 98, was more about intimate playing. I was surviving playing with a lot of songwriters using a lot of mutant brushes and rods a lot of grace notes a feathered kind of feel and sound. Stuff that’s much different than the really strong, straight-ahead thing, so the point is that he was a huge influence. I just think he’s awesome. But living in New York, kind of forced me to develop a certain thing that had to do with a lot of the venues I was playing with singer/songwriters at the time which don’t necessarily allow you to come in and hit as hard as you can. The mind set of touring and playing for stadiums and arenas. Projecting to the very last row is very different than playing to an intimate club. I think, as a drummer, the more range you have dynamically and stylistically, and the more settings you can make music in, the more you’re going to work.

When I have seen you play you seem to want to push the boundaries.  The thing today about the washboard on the kit, strapping the shaker to your leg, how and why do you think like that?
Yeah, that’s kind of a double edge sword what that brings up, because they’ll be times, like the clinic today and recording with certain artists, where people will really love what you bring to the table with a lot of different percussive colours. The track from Peter Wolfs record with Keith Richard… I remember on the session people thinking that was really cool but I also remember it making Peter Wolf a little bit nervous thinking “what’s he doing, and why isn’t he just playing more straight ahead. What is he doing with a washboard behind the kit?!?” I think this thing about re-inventing the wheel or feeling pressured to do that every time you go to a session isn’t necessarily a good thing, but when you can bring something different to the table sonically or part wise and you’re in a situation where that’s appreciated, I think it can be a great way to bring a creative sound to it.  As fun and creative as that can be
 I’ve been in a lot of situations where they don’t want that; they just want straight ahead drums.

I remember this session I did with Bruce Springsteen where he wanted a cross stick thing. It was a ballad and I thought it was the most pedestrian drum part.  I had this great idea for a drum part with these blasticks and it was this little really amazing heartbeat of a groove and I just thought it was awesome, but Bruce wouldn’t go for it. He just kept hearing the cross stick and so you have to have the sensibility to let go of whatever it is you might be into, you don’t want to force anything, it’s a very fine line that whole thing pushing the boundaries with parts. One man’s food is another man’s poison, so its interesting that I’ve been in situations where I’ve had a lot of conviction about what I thought was going to be a great sound or a great part and its just not worth it.  So like the Springsteen thing for instance, listening back to the cross stick on that track, I think, well that could have been an amazing drum part to that song but the cross stick is really simple, bare and basic and his lyrics are really coming across.  There’s a lot to learn from putting yourself in the other persons shoes.  But it’s a trip this thing about pushing the parameters part wise. It’s really interesting how people can treasure you for that or it can backfire.  There are times when I’ve done things with shakers on the sticks or the blasticks and it seemed really organic and people loved it. But later, when they went to mix they bummed out because they wanted to have more control over the drum sound without the shaker. So it’s interesting… you have to know whom you’re working for and if they cool with left field parts.

What is your favourite recording that you have played on?
The Shawn Colvin record “A Few Small Repairs”. It won 2 Grammy’s for song and record of the year. I’m pretty proud of that one. There were two Peter Wolf records that I played on.

“Fools Parade” and “Sleepless” I’m proud of those because they had a real nice, warm, organic, kind of thing with interesting parts and sounds… and “Safe and Sound” from the last Sheryl Crow record “C’mon C’mon”.

Can you give any tips on playing to a click and loops?
Well the click thing is interesting.  Its almost like the more experience you have doing it, the more comfortable you get. Try and get a click track that feels good to play to, just a cow bell playing on quarter note can be great cutting through a bunch of distorted guitars, but my favourite click track to play to is a cross stick quarter note with an eight-note shaker going along.  I remember Larrie Londin who was a great drummer in Nashville, saying it all depends on the tempo of the tune.  If your playing a ballad at 70 bpm or slower, he would have every 16th note articulated somehow in the click track pattern so that when he went to do a fill he could hear the slot for everything he was trying to play in the pocket.  I thought that was an interesting approach, if something was really slow he would make a click track actually have more subdivisions to it.  I think sometimes making a percussion loop to play to that’s musical and has some kind of groove can influence the feel of how you play to it as opposed to say just a cow bell beating out quarter notes.

There’s a real art to playing to a click track. The more you do it, the more comfortable you get, but also realizing what the trouble spots are, where they lay when you’re tracking a song, like when you get to the chorus you will probably want it to feel faster so you need to find a way for you to imply that without actually getting faster.

Recently I picked up the new Ray Charles album, which has got a lovely groove on the last track “Crazy Love” with you on drums, a live recording with Van Morisson. you’re really in the pocket on that groove, but then again there’s so much movement in the song, again it’s a live performance, can you remember anything about that recording?

I remember it was for the songwriter hall of fame TV taping and we did an afternoon rehearsal and also an evening performance and they recorded both of those to pro-tools. Then they had to repair the evening performance because Ray completely blew the bridge that night.

On paper it seems like a dream come true to play with Ray Charles and Van Morrison at the same time and it was awesome they’re two of my favourite musicians but I remember that Ray wasn’t feeling well. He was ill at the time, and Van is notorious for being in a bad mood and it was a little bit like that. 

Paul Shaffer talked about the secret of playing with Ray is that you have to watch his feet.  Ray is such an amazing soulful musician and his thing with time is very rounded and organic. You could be really listening but its one of those examples where by just listening it could be so easy to go astray of what it is he’s laying down. That’s why the visual thing of being able to see Ray Charles’ feet is so important for a drummer. It sounds crazy but that really has a lot to do with playing with Ray successfully.  I remember it was a brushy kind of groove and I made a point of being able to see his feet!

You play hard when you’re playing, now for you to keep that going throughout a two hour show, How do you work on that, you talked about your hands earlier today, how do you approach that?
That’s a good question.  Today at this clinic I did kind of play hard because it was in the concept of the Sheryl Crow thing when we were out touring bigger venues, but there’s other times when I don’t really play that hard and it really depends on the room and the situation I’m in. There are some artists that if you were to play with that kind of big physical presence and intensity they probably wouldn’t like it, they’d look for someone that had a lighter more contained feel. Then there’s other artists where you’d better have that kind of big presence and intensity or you wont get the gig.  The whole point about the more range you have dynamically and stylistically the more situations you’ll work in from singer/songwriters all the way to a Ozzy Osborne tour… but this ideal of having a big sound, playing hard, this thing of playing arenas and trying to project to the back row, you’re right, It is a real physical thing and I think that there’s a real art to getting a big sound behind the drums and realizing, too, that a lot of the little notes don’t come through in arena situations. I think you have to be in shape for that kind of physical playing. Having the dynamic range as a drummer who can create heat and keep good time at a very soft dynamic and also beat the shit out of drums and keep good time too, will help you get paid.

Do you use any particular stick technique? 
One influence on my grip was Tony Williams, his later grip, where he held back at the butt with his last two fingers and it was very wrist orientated. When I play rock n roll stuff I like that approach with the grip, its more wrist orientated and there’s not a lot of finesse there necessarily with like a classical match grip.  I usually wear a glove on my left hand to absorb the shock of bashing out 2&4 all night. But then again there’s other situations where I might change sticks to a lighter stick and totally go to a more finesse orientated touch and feel.  I try not to have a lot of rules when it comes to music. Whatever feels good and makes the music happen is good with me.

What have you been up to lately and can we expect to hear from you?
I am freelancing around as much as possible.  In the studio with Michelle Branch, Shakira and I’ve been messing around with my own thing, which is kind of an extension of the House of Diablo band that I performed with at the modern drummer fest 2003. Kind of wigged out swamp music mixed with electronics. Imagine if Booker T. and the MG’s crashed into Dr. John’s backyard in 1968 with King Tubby at the grill and then they woke up in the year 2010 with DJ Shadow’s cousin in the band…

Did you just make that up?
Yeah.

When can we expect a recording of that out?
Check out HouseofDiablo.com.   Hopefully it will be ready.

We definitely want to know about that, it’s been a great hang lets see you in the UK soon.
Definitely!!