They don’t end up on magazine covers, they don’t get flashy endorsement posters, but there is a constellation of Criminally Under-rated Great British Drummers. One of the brightest, the twinkliest and certainly the blondest star in that constellation is Martin France. Combining fluid groove playing with powerhouse virtuosity, Martin has been the driving rhythmic force behind Loose Tubes, Human Chain, Delightful Precipice and most recently his own band Spin Marvel. Check out his rave reviews and impressive list of credits at www.spinmarvel.com.

In-demand as a Jazz and Session player, Martin is also a notable exponent of electronic drums. Fresh from Spin Marvel’s highly acclaimed tour and with an album out soon, Martin took time out to talk to us about all manner of matters drummerish.

When did you first play the drums?
The very first time I hit a drum? I was playing violin in school orchestras and it wasn’t really me. For some reason I fancied playing drums. I used to watch Top of the Pops and the drummers always seemed to have the most fun, Also, I just liked the look of the instrument.  So I started learning marching drum rudiments, just on a snare drum

Somehow my parents found out about a drum teacher named Geoff Riley. He came recommended as one of the best teachers in Manchester and it worked out really well: I went to him for six years. Geoff still teaches in Manchester I believe. When I first started going to him I was about 8 or 9, and he said to me “I don’t want you doing gigs”. Well, I was too young anyway, but basically at least the first year we were pretty much just going Left-Right-Left-Right…

In fact at that time people were really playing with matched grip. And he wrote a book that was published by Premier called “MatchSticks”. A very good book, and that’s what he taught you. I remember my very first lesson he puts the sticks in my hand in a matched grip, and I said “No, actually I want to learn traditional grip”. He must have thought it was pretty weird to have an eight year old kid demanding to be taught old fashioned orthodox traditional grip which at the time was considered secondary to the “superior” and “modern” matched grip.

If you’re playing matched grip, within an hour you can pretty much play a roll – a pretty ropey roll, but you’ve got something together. But if you’re playing traditional grip, it takes six months before you can do anything. So because I decided to learn that way, the whole learning process took a long time. I was still at an age when I just did what I was told. He’d say “Do that, practice it, come back”, and I’d just do it.”

So by the time you had your teenage rebellion, you already had your rudiments and orthodox technique together?
Yeah, I suppose that’s what happened. Months and months of Left-Right-Left-Right. The thing is, with matched grip, it’s symmetrical,: anything you can do, you can do with both hands. You can learn from one hand, apply it to the other one. With traditional grip there’s a whole lot of other stuff, it’s a lot more time-consuming to get together. But I was at the right age, and time was on my side.

Also, Geoff Riley was very tough. If I wasn’t together, he’d just send me back on the same bit. So sometimes I’d be stuck on the same bit for weeks and weeks. So it took me a few years to get just a few rudiments together. And then there was all the co-ordination, independence, all of that to do. I didn’t realise it at the time, but that kind of foundation really helps me now. It’s only the last 15-20 that I’ve realised how important that stuff is: I took if for granted for years.

It seems to me that traditional grip is coming back into fashion. A lot of drummers come up to me and just want to know how it works. A lot of young guys are playing it now; it’s evening up a bit.  People talk about the Moeller system, and I guess what Geoff Riley taught me back in the 70’s was his version of that system.

I spoke to Geoff about a year ago. I would suggest, if anyone has any technical problems, if your hand’s just not working right for you, go see Geoff. He can certainly pinpoint any technical problems and put you on the right track.

Who did you grow up listening to?
I guess first of all it was Jazz swing drummers: Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, Louie Bellson, Joe Morello…I heard that sort of jazz and I just liked it. Hearing someone like Buddy Rich was just mind-blowing for me.

So at that age I was listening to that sort of music. But Geoff Riley also taught me to play a lot of different styles of music. I suppose he was grooming me for session work. He taught me how to play in a live situation. And he taught me to sight read and how to interpret drum parts. So, coupled with all the technical stuff, I was pretty well prepared for work.

I remember one lesson he told me to listen out for the Kenny Wheeler Big Band. It really prepared me for the work of crack British musicians. Of course there’s a long line of fantastic British…well, I suppose you’d call them Jazz drummers but a lot of them were very multi-talented musicians. I suppose they didn’t think of themselves as Jazz drummers; they were just band drummers, dance band drummers, but popular music changed from being mainly Jazz to mainly rock’n’roll.

So who are these British drummers; who did you look up to when you were starting out?
Let’s name some names here…Ronnie Verrell, Kenny Clare, Bill Idon, Ronnie Stevenson, Alan Ganley, Tony Crombie, Barry Morgan and Jack Parnell, of course. When you talk to musicians who were around in the 60’s and 70’s, you soon realise that the standard was really very high. These guys could really play. You know, it’s easy to forget how good British players are. There’s that fabulous Kenny Wheeler record on ECM called “Music for Small and Large Ensembles” which was recorded for his 60th birthday, fifteen years ago. Anyhow, Peter Erskine was the drummer on that tour. And one night Peter Erskine just turned to the other musicians with his pint and said “Here’s to the hippest band on both sides of the Atlantic.” Peter Erskine!  Outside Britain, our players are VERY highly regarded. Hermeto Pascoal, who’s a giant of Brazilian music, said the same thing on BBC radio about a year ago I believe.

So who do you rate out of the current British drum scene?
Today in Britain, Gary Husband. I’ve always been a big fan of him. Even if you take away the fact that he’s an incredible drummer, his energy, his force, his underlying musical sense is so strong, he’s got such great intention…even if he was half the technical player he is, he’d still be awesome. But then you add that he’s so accomplished on the instrument…he’s fabulous. Who else? Mike Mondesir…and Ian Thomas, Ian is also a tremendous musician. Bit like I say, I think there’s a long line of British drummers who were doing it a long time before my generation. We’re all just a continuation of that. There’s a long, long trail of great British drummers - Tony Oxley and Tony Levin also spring to mind, and any drummer in Britain should check those people out as well as the American kit players

How did you get into playing to Jazz?
Occasionally I used to do jazz gigs with the top players there in Manchester, who were usually older than me, but it was good, I used to play a lot and I used to practice a lot. It was a time in my life when I could do that so I used to put a lot of hours in. It was an experience, playing lots of clubs with all kinds of acts. There were a few smallish big bands going out playing function gigs. I used to listen to jazz a lot at that time, but by then I was into what you’d call hardcore jazz from the 60’s and 70’s: Tony Williams, Jack de Johnette, those kinds of people, the modern great players. I didn’t listen to a huge amount of Bebop, but all of Miles Davis, everything from ‘Four And More’ to ‘Live Evil’ and ‘Bitches Brew’. At that time it wasn’t that old, it was fairly recent.

So how did you end up playing in Loose Tubes?
I moved to London in 1983 and met Django Bates [keyboardist and composer], and heard about this band Loose Tubes. I went down there and met people in it. The band was already set but they got through a few drummers and I was playing with a lot of people in that band – Django, Iain Ballamy [saxophonist], people I still play with now – and I got to do more and more gigs with them. By the end of it, I was playing pretty much every gig. And that was good, playing really good music. And even though Loose Tubes was quite an unconventional big band, it was still a great big band. I enjoy playing in a big band. Big band drumming and small group drumming are totally different things. You have a freedom in small groups, and you just can’t play the same way in a big band. You’ve got a lot more people to keep in time for one thing. And that’s good, because, if you do a lot of small group playing you can pretty much play how you want to play. But the other discipline is keeping a large number of musicians in time, and make them all sound as one. You have to develop the ability to distill everything you can do into less notes. You get the same power and energy and force and intention but with a quarter as many notes. “A bit more Ringo!”

Do you teach?
Yes, I do. I didn’t for many years but I do now. People write to me and say “this is what I do, this is where I’m at, do you teach?” So I ask them how they think I could help them, and then if I think I can do something to help we’ll get together. But it tends to be a one-off, not a long term student thing.

If you’re teaching beginners, obviously you’ve got to see them regularly for a decent length of time. But the people who come to me tend to already be developed drummers asking for specific technical help. Styles, people can teach themselves; they already know what they want to do.

Sometimes they might be stuck for ideas, or their musical ability just gets stuck at the same level for a while. All they need is a tiny shift, a little push, you just have to say something to them. Sometimes people’s learning is like building with blocks. If there’s one missing, they build round it, but they can only get their ability up to a greater height by going back and putting that block in. It’s like the (anything here?).
 
I know what it’s like when you’re young to be anxious, and really wanting to feel like you want to know it all and do it all NOW. It’s much easier to get better at technique than it is to get better at playing but ultimately the music and sound are the most important elements, technique is the means. But technically there’s usually things to sort out. People tend to run before they can walk and a lot of people tend to have bad habits. Maybe part of their technique isn’t working for them, so they’re over-compensating in other areas. And that causes tension in their fingers, wrists, arms wherever. You have to get people to think about the movement and pressure of the different parts of the arm and the execution of the stroke.

You’re known as being a very elegant Traditional/Orthodox grip player. What do you think about the different grips?
I think a lot of people like the look and feel of playing orthodox, but can’t really do it. Or they don’t think they want to. You meet people and ask what grip they use and they say “Oh, I play matched grip”. And you ask them how they play with brushes and they say” Ohh...I use…traditional grip”. When they want that sensitivity, or better feel, they’re playing traditional grip.

I think there are advantages and disadvantages to both strokes, but I think traditional grip can offer you a change in the way you play. It enables you to play a lot more grace notes with your left hand, you can feel them, it’s a totally different thing. I don’t feel them so much playing matched grip. There’s a certain sensitivity and touch that I just can’t get with matched grip.

Certain things fall very easily with matched grip, so a lot of matched grip players tend to play the same and therefore sound the same. But when you get someone who plays traditional grip, it makes you think about what you’re playing in a different way, and makes you sound different to other people. For instance I notice that people who play matched grip tend play a lot of double strokes with both hands? The grip seems to lend itself to enable you to play certain strokes very slick and fast. A lot of people do that, but it ties you to a certain feel. Of course, matched grip has some advantages too; it can free you up around the kit a lot more. But generally I prefer traditional grip; I like the way it makes you play and the things it makes you play.

You’re known not just as an acoustic kit player, but also for playing a lot of electronic gear. What do you use?
I use Roland electronic drums, they’re good. I’ve been playing them for quite a few years now, maybe I’ve just got used to them. But when I first started using electronics, they felt right for me and I’ve stuck with them.

I’ve use Octopads and outboard pads, foot triggers and controllers, a sampler and loop machines. I trigger all kinds of samples, not many drum sounds really. The sample may start out in life as a percussion sound of some sort but you process the sound and twist it to create something new. Then you start creating and composing your sounds and shapes. Also, you can bring any basic sound to life once you effect it and so on. I do this a lot with a pedal I use specifically as a midi controller. For each set of sounds you can assign this pedal to do a specific job, in this case send more effect. But there is so much more you can do too. Layering samples on top of eachother that are all velocity sensitive is interesting too, you just have to store all this in your head and remember what’s where. You can use velocity to change many different perameters within the sound too. This means you can improvise to an extent with your sounds depending on how you play, sometimes with suprising results!
Working with sounds in this way makes you think about sound itself. That seems obvious but actually it leads you to think about music in a different way, in terms of what it is your actually hearing and, more importantly what you would like to hear, and hopefully create.

Have you tried trigger bugs on acoustic drums?
I prefer to keep the drums and triggers apart. I struggled for a while with lots of triggers on the drums. I could never really tell what I was playing, whether I was playing the drum or the sample or the drum to get the sample. I like to keep them separate. Drumkit over here, samples over there. 

How do you approach playing electronic kits? Isn’t the feedback totally different from your acoustic drums?
It feels pretty weird. Working with sound engineers in a live situation you just get it sounding as good and balanced as you can. But usually what happens is I’m playing away and I’m often thinking “this is hard work”, but you’re not getting the full picture. What usually gets me through is just the confidence to think “OK, I’m just tapping this little rubber thing over here, but I KNOW there’s a big fat sound going out over there”. You just have to not even think about it, ignore what you can’t hear, or the weird effects you hear and accept that it’s going out to the audience OK, whatever feedback or noises you’re getting where you are. It’s blind faith. Or deaf faith, perhaps.

What’s been your worst experience of using electronics?
There was one time I’d just arrived back from the airport with my Octopad in the flight case. I thought I heard a rattle from the case, so I opened it up and lifted the Octopad out and the whole thing was like a huge flat maraca – all the electronic components were just swishing about inside. Stuff is always breaking. It’s not uncommon to see a buch of people staring blankly into a sampler or computer trying to coax it into life 5 minutes before the gig.
 
It’s getting very difficult now. The airlines won’t let you take anything over 34 kilograms, no matter what it is. And I’m on the cusp of that, so what I’ve got to do at some point is to reduce the whole thing to just run off a laptop. It might take me a few months to move it all over but it’s got to be done. Get to a gig with less gear and there’s less chance that something will go wrong.

What do you think makes a good drummer?
Drummers get hired for their understanding of music, not necessarily because of the notes they can play. People still want good well-trained musicians who…are just very good at making music. The important thing is to get the best people who you feel are going to play the right thing for your music.

I just like to hear people playing music. You sense the music coming out the musician, not just the notes they’re playing, or the technique. The first thing you think is “What a great musician they are”, not “What did they play, what fill was that?” What’s going on musically in them, what are they expressing with the instrument they have in their hands.

Some players are technically not very good at all, but the music still comes out. I did a workshop in Denmark a few years ago and this guy got up behind the kit and he had absolutely zero technique. He was almost standing up, he couldn’t play the bass drum or high hat in any conventional way at all. But the music was just pouring out of him.

It’s about expressing yourself through the instrument. You’re a musician, not just an instrumentalist. In quite a lot of situations, looking at it in a commercial sense I think there probably is a difference between being a drummer and a musician. I could be put in a situation where I’m given freedom, or put in a situation where I’m given no freedom at all to express myself. You’re in the “engine room” as Jo Jones once said. You have a responsibility; you have to do the job you have to do on your instrument. People book you as the drummer, you can’t get away from that role of just playing the instrument: you have to play the drums!

I think that sometimes people don’t understand the drums and what they’re doing. If you’re a very extrovert player and you’re playing in a very open place where you’ve got space to really do what you like, then people can really hook into that. But this goes for music critics as well, I think a lot of them don’t really understand what drummers do. Which is a shame. A lot of it goes back to that cliché of the drummer just keeping time in the background which is something we all have to do now and again – it’s part of the job, but not the end of it.

If you do a gig like that, that’s what you’ve got to do. But I think that sometimes people don’t really understand what it takes to just be the drummer. Even if you’re just stuck at the back, keeping it all together. But musicians do understand it. If you play in a big band, for example, all the rest of the guys know that when the band is really happening, it’s the rhythm section that’s doing it. You could have the world’s greatest band and a really average drummer and it would be pretty crap. But you could have any average band and a good drummer would make everyone else sound good. Other musicians rely on the drummer to create the basis for the whole music to sound good, so everyone can enjoy it and play well themselves.

What advice would you give drummers just starting out on the professional scene?
As a drummer you have to rely a lot on your wisdom, being able to enter a situation and work out what’s going on and what’s needed, your musicality, your sense of arrangement and proportion. And in a commercial situation, in session work, you have to be really quick. You have to work out exactly what’s going on and not just sit and read the part, not just play the parts - sometimes there’s not even any parts! You have to get a sense of what the whole song is - understand what the composer or writer is trying to get across. Someone like Steve Gadd is the master of that. Well, he’s had so much experience of that hasn’t he, he should be good at it by now. I like his Jazz playing too. But he’s also got that thing, like Elvin Jones, where you distill yourself, boil down everything you know about playing into just a few beats in the right place and it sets the whole thing off, it’s an art.

Usually, but not always, you can find something in the music you are playing that you like, that’s one of the perks or lucky things about being a drummer. You can specialise in something, of course, but as a musician, if you want to work, you have to have lots of things that you can do. Try to keep an open mind. Play all sort of music, different styles…but more importantly, try to be able to connect with people musically.

So play less?
Yeah, try playing less if necessary. Sometime we like to go nuts though don’t we? It’s getting back to sound though, drums can fill the sonic spectrum which we have to share with other instruments so it’s good to be aware of this and what’s going on around you. I think with drummers, it’s very easy to play a lot due to the nature of the instrument. Double bass drums going, double strokes going all over and before you know you get numbed by all that, playing every possible subdivision of every beat, and it seems that everyone can do that now. What interests me more are players who go the other way, people who can do that if they want to but don’t.

It’s like double bass drum pedals. Put it this way; if I had double pedals, I’d be going dugadugadugadugaduga all the time. But when would I ever want to do that? Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you have to. I like to hear people going duga, duga, duga, duga on a single bass drum. All these things have to be thought about in musical terms, not just technically.

The Metal bands have got these simply ridiculous double bass drums going, and that’s hitting the spot musically for that style of music. But in other genres, it can end up as just a special effect.

For more information visit www.martinfrance.com