K&S:  So right now you’re playing in several bands.

JH:  Yes.

K&S:  Tell us a little bit about that.

JH:  I grew up here but I moved to Arizona when I was 16.  About a year ago I moved back and got very lucky as far as who I fell in with.  About the third week I was back here, I met Joe Nadeau and started playing with him and John Compton on bass.  That’s pretty much what got me started playing around here, and step by step I met new people, and started filling in my dates.  At this point, I’m playing every Tuesday at Noble Savage with John Compton, and he usually brings in one of three or four different people to host.  You’ve been there so you know it is basically just a big jam session.  Then Wednesdays, I was playing with David Deaton at Sharpie’s, and David now is in Dallas for some big gig making lots and lots of money, so Jimmy Wooten took over that gig, and I now play with the Jimmy Wooten Project with Sid Hydro on bass on Wednesdays.  I play with Alan Fox on the weekends.  I do an original project called Bar Stool Prophets, which is a completely experimental improvisational space rock noise, movie soundtrack, kind of thing.  Not much structure, just a lot of people having a good time.  And then on top of that, I mean, I might occasionally do gigs with many other people, but those are my core groups.  John Compton keeps me busy, and there’s a lot of different people with that project alone, because John is usually the only one who’s consistent with that.

K&S:  So you get a chance to play with various musicians. 

JH:  It varies a lot  A lot of times I am not sure who will be playing.

K&S:  Dirty Red?

JH: Luckily, I get to play with Dirty Red all the time, and he’s one of my favorite musicians around here because he finds a way to put the notes into whatever he’s playing, and I respect that.  He’s a very smart player. 

K&S:  Good trumpet player.

JH:  Yeah, very good.  And he has definitely developed his own style and his own vibe.  He’s one of the premier players around here if you ask me. 

K&S:  And so pretty much, that’s what you do for a living right now. 

JH:  That’s what I do.  I haven’t needed to go and get a day job yet, and luckily, I’ve been able to make a living, and make a living also doing what I do as a release and as my artistic output.  I believe that’s a very lucky thing.

K&S:  Ok.  So how did you learn to play the different styles, because I’ve seen you in several different gigs, and I get the idea that you can cover anything from heavy metal to jazz, fusion, funk, or blues…

JH:  Well I guess I have to give props to my dad Stan Hoffman who plays keyboard.  I’m not saying this just because he’s my dad, but he’s one of the finest musicians I’ve ever seen and also a local legend of sorts.  He got me started playing the drums when I was about 18 months old, or so I’m told.  I’ve seen pictures but I don’t really remember because I was still a baby, but he said that he got me started playing.  We’d be driving down the road, and he would have me beat on the dash in time with the radio.  That’s where it all started.  Then I pretty much would just play with him up until I was about 4 or 5.  He was in the band “Killer Bees” which was very popular when I was a small child.  He would assemble projects with his other band members and play with me so that I could go out and do gigs by myself with his band when I was like 3 or 4 years old.  After he got me started, I guess I’ve just always been a sponge, and I’ve always soaked up everything that I’ve seen.  I’ve always been inspired by other drummers and other musicians.  No matter what their style, I try to find where they’re coming from, and there’s always something that you can apply to your own playing when you see somebody, no matter what their level or what their style.  By the time I was about 14, I guess, I started really discovering for myself what was out there, and I started listening to Billy Cobham and all these really original fusion cats.  That’s really where my love is, with those guys.  Dave Weckl, Billy Cobham, Dennis Chambers, you know the guys that you would consider your all-around drummers.  I guess if you can play all those styles, it makes it a little easier to tap into.  If you’re going to play a rock gig and you can play a fusion gig, it’s a little easier to put yourself into that frame of mind, you know, and also it’s just a matter of influence.  When I’m playing a straight rock gig, I always try to imagine that that Kenny Arnoff is sitting in the crowd and think to myself what would I be able to do with this music that’s going to make Kenny go “ok, I like that,” you know. 

K&S:  Now that’s a pretty neat thing to do.  I’ve never thought about putting the drummer that’s who is an ace at the particular genre out there watching you to get into that mode. 

JH:  I do that a lot.  I project a person, whoever I’m thinking of.  If it is a Stuart Copeland vibe or something, I imagine Stuart Copeland.  I don’t even need to imagine it so much cause there are a lot of very good drummers around here, so a lot of times when I’m playing I’ll see one of them walk in and I can draw inspiration from that person thinking “ok, what would they think is cool.”  Daniel Nelson and all those guys like that.  When I see him, I try to imagine what I think Daniel would maybe do.  He’s one of my favorites around here.  Not to get too far into that. 

K&S:  Do you have any advice for the newer drummers who are heading for a rut because they only want to play one style?  I would think you could get more work if you can cover more ground.

JH:  Of course I would recommend it.  I mean, the only thing that you’re going to do by being versatile and open-minded is make yourself better.  Like you said, we don’t want to pick on the metal guys or the rock guys, but I’m going to use them as an example because that’s a pretty common one.  You have a lot of unbelievable metal drummers out there, and unfortunately, when you take them out of their element, it doesn’t seem like they’re quite as good.  Those are the most common ones.  They’re kind of like “yeah, I’m a metal drummer and that’s what I do.”  If you keep an open mind, that’s really what it comes down to, just keeping an open mind and being receptive to all styles that are out there and not being so jaded in your own style that you go “well, that’s not going to apply to what I do,” because it all applies to what you do. 

K&S:  Yes.

JH:  And, you know, if you’re a phenomenal metal drummer and you’re watching jazz guys, you know, you’re only going to be able to see something that you like and comprehend it your own way and turn it into something that you do.  Now, as far as whether they actually open their minds up and actually do start listening to other styles of music, I mean, that’s up to the person, and I think that has a lot to do with age.  If you’re a teenager, I mean, I think everybody kind of goes through a rebellious musical phase.  I wasn’t so much of a metal-head, I was more of a jazz-head.  I didn’t even start listening to heavier music until I was about 18 or 19 years old. 

K&S:  That’s kind of different. 

JH:  A little backwards, I guess, than most people. 

K&S:  You can see it in your playing now.  Lessons – have you ever taken lessons? 

JH:  I’ve never taken lessons.  The only schooling that I had was at Huntington High school, and I guess you could say that was like taking lessons, but it was pretty much just how they did it in their band there.  When I got there my freshman year, I couldn’t do that stuff.  I couldn’t play double stroke rolls with my wrist and make it sound off effectively on a drum set, you know, it was just tat-tat tat-tat tat-tat.  The first day I got there and I saw those senior snare drummers, it pretty much set me on a path to where I just told myself I need to be able to do that, and it took me a while.  My freshman year I carried my sticks around with me every single place I went.  After about six months of practicing for like 8 hours a day, finally one day I was able to pull off the really clean and tight double stroke rolls.  At that point, it was like the whole world opened up.  I could just see all these possibilities in all the other rudiments.  I guess if you could play a tight double stroke roll and make it consistent, then all your other rudiments aren’t going to seem as difficult because you’re covering the double part which a lot of your rudiments are based off of.  Even if you’re talking a flam tap or a flam accent, paradiddles, double paradiddles,  it all revolves around the double stroke rolls

K&S:  Being able to do that clean double.

JH:  Right.  At least somewhere in the rudiment.  Most of my style, my playing, has been a self-taught kind of, road experience kind of thing.  You know, if I see somebody I like, I will watch them and ask them questions and geek out with them for a while and see where they’re coming from.  I’m easily inspired, I guess. 

K&S:  How do you feel like being on the drum line in high school helped you, and how did you make that transition to the kit?

JH:  It helped me enormously.  I’ve seen a lot of drummers that are on drum line and you would think that by watching them play snare drum and doing all these awesome tricks and super tight rudiments that they’d sit on the drum set and be the most amazing drummer that you’ve ever seen.  A lot of times that’s not the case.  I think that my being a drum set player before I started learning how to do that stuff had a lot to do with it, because I had my coordination and independence going for me first, and I didn’t learn to play a snare drum.  I learned how to play a set and then broke it back down to learn to play snare and then went back to a set applying what I had learned.  I can’t say applying what I learned, I’m still learning.  I’m always learning.  But, at that point, that was the transition. 

K&S:  That moves us into the next question here.  How do you manage practicing drums when you play as much as you do?  I know guys out there that play a lot and they tell me their playing is pretty much their practicing, and the best practice that you can get is to play a lot of gigs.  It’ll force you to get better.  At the same time, you can’t really use a band as a pallet to experiment on.  It’s not right or justifiable to them to use them as a pallet and try your new techniques that you haven’t mastered.  So, how do you schedule that?

JH:  Well, this is interesting.  I’ve thought about this a lot, especially since I’ve been a working musician, whereas in Arizona, I was in several bands but they were original projects, and we had a studio.  I was pretty much doing what I do now.  I was out every night, you know, immersed in music, but there, my drum set didn’t leave so much.  I was able to sit down—if I had ideas, I could sit down for four or five hours or however long it took and just practice on it.  Now, my practice regime is a lot slimmer, and I get to maybe practice once a week, if I just have to set up a set of drums and just try the stuff that I’m not able to do on the gig.   But like you said, playing in a gig situation, especially when you’re playing with professional musicians that are experts at their craft, is practice times ten.  I’ve seen drummers that are technically amazing, and when they’re playing drum solos and doing all this stuff, it’s amazing, but then you put them in a situation where they’re having to lay it down and play for a band and play certain songs and styles of music and they struggle because they don’t have that element of practice.  So at this point, I try to make the most of everything, and I consider my gigs and my playing out as practice and playing.  I try not to get too crazy, but if I get an idea, sometimes it’s kind of hard not to stop the presses and just try to do this thing in the middle of the song.  That’s the hard part, getting an idea and maybe having to delay it and keep in mind until you get a chance to woodshed with it.  That’s pretty much how it goes.  I mean, I get to (practice) but when I was playing before and had my own studio and I was practicing a lot of different things, the kinds of things that would only sound good if you’re writing songs that are geared around this kind of crazy beat or something like that.

K&S:  That’s what some of the big guys do.  Marco Minnemann’s music is written around his style.  Thomas Lang’s stuff is written around or focuses on the drums. 

JH:  That’s how my old project was.  A lot of the music we came up with was based around some completely quad independent thing, you know.  It sounds just like a drum exercise repeated over and over again, but then when you put music to it, it turns into something crazy. 

K&S:  Well, how do you feel about—and I guess it depends on the gig you’re playing in—technique versus groove in a gig? 

JH:  I believe that, first of all, without the groove it doesn’t matter, and I’ve seen a lot of drummers that can groove so hard it makes my stomach just turn because it’s so good.  Ideally, I like a drummer that can play technical and also hold the groove down.  I guess that’s the ultimate goal, you know.  Groove, groove, groove, groove, groove, that’s where it’s at.  I mean, you can’t do any of the technical stuff if the groove is going to falter, and it’s pointless to even practice anything technical if your time is not right. 

K&S:  So groove will always at least get you a job.

JH:  It’s always going to get you a job.  If you can hold that groove, you don’t even need toms.  Certain people, that’s what they want out of you.  I mean, like going back to my dad, as technical as he is as a player, he prefers a drummer that’s just going to lay that pocket down.  He doesn’t care if that drummer ever plays a fill. 

K&S:  Well, that’s Jay Frank.

JH:  That’s Jay all the way, man.  You can’t take anything away from Jay as far his groove.

K&S:  I’ve watched you play several times, and John Compton is one of the guys around here who we consider professional bass playing royalty in this town. 

JH:  Sure.

K&S:  Nobody will deny that.  So, when you can bring a smile to his face—you know, when John is really into the vibe that you’re producing, he’ll close his eyes and smile.  He ain’t looking at anybody.  He’s just right there, and he’s in that moment, and he’s feeling it.  You make him do that a lot with the pocket that you’re laying down there.  So, there’s something to be said about that because you’re also able to do the technical stuff, but you’re pocket is undeniable.  That’s just advice for the guys that may be reading this later.  They’ll understand how to get that balance that you have.

JH:  A lot of my pocket is underneath because I’m a reasonably busy player.  I try not to overdo it.  Sometimes I do cause I get carried away, but generally, even when I’m laying a groove down—there are so many ways to keep a 4/4 time, you know, and it doesn’t need to be generic.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be four quarter notes on a high hat, two half notes on a kick, and two half notes on a snare.  I mean, it doesn’t have to be that way.  You can mix it up as long as you’re keeping the flow and you’re keeping that back beat, and people can understand where the 1-2-3-4 is.  I mean, really it’s limitless as to what you can do.  Although sometimes I may get carried away, I usually try to create something that’s going to be different.  I try to make my groove so that when somebody hears me, they can go “well, that sounds like John.” 

K&S:  Well, you definitely have uniqueness about your playing that sets you apart.

JH:  Thank you. 

K&S:  As you’re still growing, what are some things that you feel like you need the most work on in your playing?

JH:  One of the things that I’ve always kind of gotten mad at myself about is my consistency as far as being able to play at 100% as soon as I start a gig.  That goes into a practice routine, which some of the time when I’m playing these gigs, I don’t get a chance to warm up the way that I would like to.  I mean, ideally I’d like to be able to spend as much time as I need to walk around, carrying my sticks, getting loose, starting slow and all that— not necessarily on a drum set but just kind of getting my mind right, and walking around with a pair of drum sticks even if I’m not using them.  If they’re just in your pocket, I think that helps a lot, because if you all the sudden get inspired, you can just pull them out and deal with it.  Sometimes I just sit there and do this.  I just feel them, you know, and just kind of hold them.  It helps me get into the mode.  That’s one of the things that I’ve always thought I could maybe work on a little bit is consistency.  Being able to sit down on your drum set every time, no matter what or when the situation is, and being able to perform at your optimal level every time. 

K&S:  Instead of it being the third or fourth song before you’re fully up to specs?

JH:  Right.  In my case, sometimes I’ll play a whole gig and really not feel it.  I’m just struggling and it’s not anything—it’s not like I’m trying to do anything that I can’t do or haven’t done before.  It’s just a matter of I didn’t prepare myself correctly before I started.  That’s the main thing that comes to mind. 

K&S:  What goals have you set for yourself over the next year or two?

JH:  Over the next year or two, I would really like to step up my overall game a notch.  I mean, I’ve been playing for quite a while, and I’m 25 now.  I feel like I’ve reached a point in my life where I’m ready to at least make an attempt to rub elbows with these people that I’ve grown up admiring.  I don’t need to be rich and famous or anything like that.  At the end of the day, what I really would like is just the respect of my peers, respect of the people.  Like if Dennis Chambers came up to me and told me that I did well, he saw me play and started talking to me and said that I was a good player, I will have arrived.

K&S:  Well, first, you’d probably crap a brick.

JH:  Of course, you know, but when it comes down to it, I want to play with as many people as I can.  I want to play on as big a stage as I can.  I want to play as many styles of music as I can.  It’s because I want to contribute something to music itself, you know, and if at the end, when my time is over, if my name is among the list of the people that I grew up listening to, then that would be my ultimate accomplishment. 

K&S:  Okay.  Well, recently you came out on top here in a local drum contest.  You’ve competed on some national levels, too.  Tell us a little bit about how you felt about going into that.

JH:  Well, I was very excited about that.  I only found out about the competition about a week before it happened, and that whole week, I was just very nervous— I don’t normally get so nervous, you know, but that week before going in and actually getting there and seeing all the people and everything, it put some butterflies in my belly.  I went and I really wanted to win.  I wasn’t there to cut anybody’s head off or anything so to speak.  It’s all about going and even if I didn’t win, I knew I was going to come back and be inspired by something, cause there were a lot of really, really great drummers.  I can’t really say that anybody was there that didn’t have something to offer.  Everybody was very good.  Winning, of course, that was great.  I felt completely happy, and I got a beautiful set of drums out of the whole thing which I’ve been gigging with for the last couple of weeks.  It made me feel really good.  It really set in motion some of the things that I’d really like to make happen, like you were talking about over the next year or two.  It seems to be a catalyst for some of these things that I want to make happen.  Overall, it was a really great experience. 

K&S:  Your style—let’s talk about your style a little bit.  You play many styles, but you have indeed created a sound, at least locally here, that is undeniably you.  You do a lot of stuff where you really know how to get the sounds out of a drum set.  And we had spoken earlier about thinking of it as a pallet of colors or box of crayons.  You can color with eight crayons or you can color with a thousand crayons, and you really embellish a lot of your grooves by playing the sides of your cymbals, using the rims on your toms, and using a wide dynamic range.  How do you come up with that stuff?  The off meter and syncopation and stuff that you use. 

JH:  Well, as far as the off meter and syncopation, I guess first it’s a matter of practicing playing to the point where you can execute what you hear in your head physically.  That’s really all practice is, you know, getting your arms and legs doing what you hear in your head.  As far as the dynamics and all that, I’m just completely paying attention to the musicians around me and hearing the dynamics they’re setting for me.  Depending on who you’re playing with, sometimes you have to take charge yourself and put the dynamics there.  Most of the time I’ve found that whenever I’m creating the dynamic, the guys follow right along.  It’s all set up that way, you know, like they’re just kind of waiting for it to happen. 

K&S:  I’ve watched you go from playing a really fast cymbal flurry, Buddy Rich style snare and tom roll all the way back down to a real, real soft reggae feel inside a half of a second.  You just bring it up and bring it down that fast and everybody was instinctively right there.  That’s amazing that you guys all lock in like that, because it’s unrehearsed. 

JH:  Oh absolutely.  Most of the stuff that I do is unrehearsed, and most of the people that I play with, if it sounds tight at this point, it’s because we’ve been playing together on gigs for a while and we kind of read each other as to what we’re going to do.  I consider all my favorite drummers to be more than drummers… I consider them to be musicians as well.  Just like you would consider a classical violinist a musician, if you’re a drummer who listens and wants to do more than just hit a drum head, then you yourself can become a musician.  That’s a big controversy between people--  the difference between a drummer and musician who plays the drums.  I at least aspire to be a musician. 

K&S:  You mentioned that your favorite drummers are definitely more than just drummers to you.  If you were stuck on an island and only had three drummers to listen to and that was it, who would they be? 

JH:  Well, you know, three is a small number.  I have a lot of favorites.

K&S:  I know you do, but this is a hard choice. 

JH:  I can say that number one on those three just because of his entire scientific, musical approach to  drums would have to be VINNIE COLAIUTA.  Number two, just because when I was 13 or 14 years old, this person really emerged on the scene and I just soaked it up, is DENNIS CHAMBERS.  He set the bar, I think, for some of the newer cats that have come out in the last few years—you know, guys like John Blackwell and Carter Beauford, not to say they’re emulating Dennis, but Dennis was considered to be technically at the top, and he is one of my big influences there.  Number three, since I have to wrap it up, I guess I’d have to say STEVE GADD also for his musical approach.  The man has recorded a lot of work, and every single recording, no matter what the style, you can always say, “That’s very Steve Gadd.”  Secondly, you can hear how much thought he’s put into everything.  From Fifty Ways with Paul Simon, all the way to Chick Korea.  He and Vinnie are the two drummers that I really think about a lot whenever I’m trying to play musically.  When I’m trying to play technically, I’m leaning more towards Dennis Chambers.  Not to say he doesn’t play musically, but he’s more known for his insanely fast rolls and, you know, five strokes, six strokes, single strokes, doubles, and his accents…

K&S:  Well, you probably already mentioned this a little bit, but who do you like in the local area of all the drummers that you’ve met in this town?

JH:  As far as the drummers that I’ve met, some of my very favorite people to watch are Daniel Nelson.  As I was saying, I’m a bit busier player but when I watch Daniel, it’s like a reminder that I don’t have to play that way all the time, because Daniel is so capable of doing the coolest stuff, and it’s not really anything that’s causing him to flex his muscles very hard.  It’s just very smart, very tasteful playing.  And so I really love watching him play.  Another is Chris LeFebvre, you know, he’s pocket all the way.  He feels it when he’s playing.  There’s several others that I don’t know so well but have caught glimpses of, so I really wouldn’t even know their names.  I don’t want to try to call them out. 

K&S:  You’re so busy playing you don’t get to get out and watch these guys a lot.

JH:  Not so much.  A lot of the times, whenever I meet these people, it’s because they come in to jam.  I don’t often get the chance to go and just enjoy music, and I’ve found a lot of times whenever I do, I walk in and they want me to come and jam with them, so I don’t really get a chance to just drink a beer and sit there and listen to some music.  Also, because I’m playing so much, on a day when I don’t have to play, a lot of times I just want to chill out.

K&S:  Let’s talk about gear a little bit.  You’re a Premier player, and you recently started playing a Taye kit because you won it in the drum contest.  You’ve probably had several drum sets coming up.  What do you think about today’s drum technology  Things are getting more innovative.  Are you a vintage guy or do you like the new innovative stuff?

JH:  I’m not so much a vintage guy.  I mean, if you show me a set of 64 Ludwigs with mother of pearl, in mint condition, I’ll respect it just as much as anybody.  However, my sound that I like doesn’t necessarily come out of those drums.  I think that nowadays, the science of drum manufacturing has gotten to the point that no matter what you buy, it’s going to be pretty nice.  Your higher end sets with pretty much every drum manufacturer are amazing, and it’s because of all these scientific evolutions.  Scientists sitting around figuring out what sonically is going to work the best and what kind of hardware, different bearing edge angles and woods work best.  There’s so much to it.  I think it’s all a matter of preference and what you like.  Maybe even what drums you think look the coolest.  If you’re going to pay thousands of dollars for a high end kit, chances are you’re probably not going to get a lemon.  I have my favorites, and it’s more because of the way that they feel, and the sound, you know, but a lot of it has to do with the feel of it.  Especially on the toms, like how well they bounce back.  Also, the kick, if it’s got a good attack and a very low end at the same time, that’s what convinces me.

K&S:  Big kit?  Small kit?

JH:  I’m a big kit player.  You know, if I had my way, my drum set would probably look something like Tim Alexander’s from Primus, but I gig so much that it’s kind of impractical, not to mention hard, to set up 19 cymbals and 22 drums.  No, I guess if my drum set is fully set up, my Premier Genista set is a 7 piece set plus I have several little auxiliary toms and that kind of stuff.  It’s about a 10 or 11 piece drum set and probably 13 or 14 cymbals.  Whenever I’m playing out, I’ll usually never play more than a 5 piece set with 5 or so cymbals.  I’ve been playing with this Taye kit lately; the one I got from the competition; and I’ve really enjoyed playing that a lot.  It sounds really good and it looks good, and it’s new, so I’m all geeked about it.  Lately, I’ve been going a little crazy and setting up a little bit bigger of a set just because I’m excited about the new drum set, but I think it all depends on the practicality of it all and the kind of player that you are.  I’ve seen cats like Brian Blade who could probably sit on a set with one tom, ride cymbal, snare, kick and a high hat and make it sound like the best thing you’ve ever heard.  It just depends on your style and how much you feel like carrying around in your car if you’re gigging. 

K&S:  Chris LeFebvre and I were driving back from the lake one day and he said you get to playing and the more you’re playing, stuff will just start falling off your drum set.  You’ll start shedding gear.  If you’re at the end of a week long run playing every night, you find yourself playing a way smaller kit at the end of the week than the beginning of the week.  But he’s like you, he plays a lot. 

JH:  Yeah.  Well, also, depending on the dynamic—like on Tuesdays at Nobel Savage, it’s a little jazzier.  Most often I’ll set up a 4 piece set with 3 cymbals or something.  Wednesday nights at Sharpie’s with Jimmy Wooten and Sid Hydro, we get to get a little more experimental and slightly louder.  I might set up a little bit bigger of a set there because I get to play a little bit more energetic.  I do a lot of stints in Texas on the weekends and little shots out through the Ark-La-Tex and whatnot, and most of the time I don’t bring a very big set for those just because of the load in and load out and just the whole thing. 

K&S:  Do you find that less drums and cymbals cause you to play a little more creatively?

JH:  Yes, I do actually.  Sometimes if I’m feeling big set oriented, I find that out of nowhere I realize that I’m not necessarily playing what needs to be there, I’m just playing what’s there.  So, I’ll strip down to a basic kit, you know, and think of it that way, and a lot of times I find that it puts everything back in perspective, because when it really comes down to it, you’re just a guy with sticks, and you can express yourself on anything that you feel the need to. 

K&S:  You play a small set of primary hats.

JH:  Those are 12 inch Zildjian, special recording, A Series high hats.  I saw Dennis Chambers using them and just bought them cause he was using them.  Then after I played them, there are really not too many other hats that I’ve found that I like as much as those.  Sometimes in the studio, when I’m doing session work, I’ve gotten plenty of looks from the engineer because they don’t like them because they are such crisp hats.  They don’t create a lot of body.  So, a lot of times, if I’m doing like a rock session, I’ll use 14 inch hats instead.  I have a set of Paiste Sound Edge 14 inch hats, which are very much the opposite of what I play with the Zildjians.  Those often work tremendously in a rock setting because they still have a lot of crispness but they’re full and heavy.  It just depends but I prefer a tight, crispy high hat, though. 

K&S:  They definitely are.  I sat in on your kit one night out at Cash Point. 

JH:  Yea, they look funny when you’re used to playing a 14 inch high hat. 

K&S:  Daniel has been playing 16 inch hats that are actually 2 Sabian crashes.

JH:  Yeah, I talked to him about that. 

K&S:  He has been into that big funky vibe lately with a real loose snare and just a fat sound.  It just stands to reason that there are so many different sounds out there, you guys do different things. 

JH:  Sure.  I think if you’re a gear head like me and like yourself, you’re probably going to sit around and find out what is going to fit best for the situation that you’re in.  I see that you have snare drums just sitting around randomly and cymbals, so you’re probably one of those people that likes to sit around and find what works. 

K&S:  Oh yeah.  Do you have any advice for the younger drummers that are coming up behind you? 

JH:  I guess if I were going to give advice to younger people, and I mentioned this earlier, but when it comes down to it, keep an open mind.  No matter what facet of music you’re into at the moment, just realize that you might not always feel that way as time goes on, because there’s a lot of life to live when you’re 17.  You’ve got a long way to go, and it’s just very important to realize that there are really only two kinds of music; Good music and Bad music.  As long as you keep an open mind and respect what other people do and apply what they do as inspiration to your own playing, I think you really can’t go wrong.  You’ll only be as good as you’ll allow yourself to be, but when you start shooting yourself in the foot by saying “well I’m only going to play this one style of music,” that’s a very, very small percentage of what music is out there.  There’s a lot of it and there’s always something new.  That’s the advice I give I suppose.  Just open up. 

K&S:  Tell me about some of your favorite bass players and what it was like playing with them. 

JH:  Well, first I’ll mention a couple of names, a couple of shots out to my boys out in Arizona.  Brent Laraway who is one of my absolute favorite bass players of all time.  People around here don’t know him cause he lives there, but these are my Arizona guys.  Brent Laraway and another person named John Landy who’s also great—he’s one of the fastest bass players that I’ve ever seen.  I’ll get them out of the way, I just had to mention their names because they’re very respected by me, you know, out there.  Around here, there are so many good players, you know, on all instruments, but bass player wise, I would have to say, of course, John Compton, as professional and solid a journeyman bass player as there is.  Sid Hydro, absolutely.  He lays it down as tight as anybody can lay it down.  And when you get him excited, he’ll bust out some Les Claypool times ten kind of stuff, but he doesn’t do that very much.  He can though.  I love playing with Sid and actually, surprisingly enough, one of the most talented people I’ve met probably ever is Jimmy Wooten.  He plays Guitar, Bass, and Drums.  When he picks up a bass, he plays it like a bass player rather than a guitarist who is playing a bass.  He approaches it as a bass player, and I really love his style because he’s very good.  He’s also very energetic when he plays, so it inspires me to play more energetic. 

K&S:  Yeah.  The bass player is usually what the drummer a lot of times feeds off of or tries to lock into, and so that’s why I asked you that, just to see what their influences were on your styling. 

JH:  Yeah.  I have to also mention a bass player named John Rossiter who is the bass player behind the Barstool Prophets project that I mentioned earlier, the improvisational thing.  Another absolutely phenomenal bass player.  He kind of does his thing.  He’s one of these people who gets these ideas in his head, and that’s the way it turns out.  It’s his idea, and we kind of run with it.  But it’s also a great deal of fun playing with him because it’s a little less conventional than some of these others that I’ve mentioned.  Yeah, he’s a great player. 

K&S:  And you had also mentioned that you see yourself maybe doing clinics later on down the road in the future. 

JH:  I would love to do clinics.  I think if all the sudden somebody said “well we’ve got this clinic thing and you’re going to do it,” I would probably need to go and make sure that my chops were as tight as they could possibly be, but I’ve always enjoyed the sort of “rise to the occasion” feeling.  I’ve always really enjoyed that “this is the time, now or never” kind of thing.  In a situation where it’s a clinic and you’re having all these drummers that know what their talking about coming out and looking at you like this, going “what’s he doing”, I think that would make me only be a better player.  Although I’m not a very good teacher, if there is anything that I do that could inspire somebody else or somebody has questions or anything like that, it’d be great to be able to show them.  So, it’s very important to kind of bring what you do to other people who are receptive to listening and learning, because you’re passing the art along.  I believe that drummers are the tightest community of musicians.  A lot of guitarists and singers have an ego kind of thing going on where they just kind of butt heads a lot and do not really hang, whereas drummers are very embracing of each other and for the most part, very much of a fraternal order. 

K&S:  Right and that’s definitely what we’re trying to accomplish here. 

JH:  Sure.  I think drum clinics especially are very important as far as that, because it’s a very personable kind of thing, where somebody who is deemed an expert can be talked to by people that want to learn, and that keeps the ball rolling.  This is a Prince quote I believe, but, you know, we have to pass the music along because if we don’t pass the music along, we’re going to end up with a world full of computer programmers.

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