This, La nuova band di Jimmy

I was fortunate to be front and center for Jimmy Chamberlin's drum clinic at SSE Music in LaCrosse, WI on Dec 3, 2009. Here are some of the details.

The focus of the night was pursuing your dreams, where he’s at musically today and tips for drummers. He said he never set out to be a huge rock n’ roll drummer, but he was dedicated to perfecting his art of drumming. And because of a chain of events, he became a member of The Smashing Pumpkins, and later Zwan, playing in front of millions of people.

Jimmy played 3 songs off of the Complex’s Life Begins Again, all of which were accompanied with the actual track playing through his iPod into the stores sound system. He started the show with Streetcrawler. After a near 8 minute performance, he broke the ice. He apologized for being late (which he wasn’t, but he was supposed to be there earlier for a drum warmup and some interviews with local media) due to icy road conditions. He also said it had been a long week due to 2 new additions to the family. Well, they added two cats to the family (one of which they had already named, the other he’s still taking suggestions).


The Jimmy Chamberlin Complex:
Chamberlin discussed the lifestyle changes as a musician going from The Smashing Pumpkins to Zwan to The Jimmy Chamberlin Complex. He said being with Zwan meant flying in business class and, at times, coach. Moving to The Complex meant traveling coach, but mostly renting a van, not having proper casing for equipment to space limitations and setting up his own gear. His wife was insistent the band be self-contained and not financed by their family. His time with The Complex was very humbling and he found it an honor to be on stage each night with other musicians that were completely humble and genuinely wanted to create and play music together.

Jimmy discussed the importance of percussion to a song. How drumming fills the wholes and can lead songs into new areas they weren’t originally intended. He went on to give a few example of how different tempos affect a song (demonstrated with new demo from This). He also joked that as a drummer, sometimes you want drown out the lead singer, and then in all seriousness he explained that it’s his job to support the vocalist as well. He then played the new song

Anything can be a percussion instrument. During the Gish-era, the band tended to wear bells around their necks and he said if you listen closely to Gish, you can hear random bells in the mix. He said the percussion for Cupid de Locke can be found in your medicine cabinet. Apparently, some of the percussion instruments in Cupid de Locke are Hairspray, a Tylenol bottle and rusty scissors…as well as maybe a triangle and some more bells for good measure.


Jimmy on leaving The Smashing Pumpkins and his future with This [Transcribed Verbatim]:
“I didn’t feel like I could give the music what the music deserved anymore. I didn’t feel like I was into it as much as I needed to be to push it where it needed to be and I have a deep respect for that music! Enough to know when enough is enough and it’s time to go do something else. And I also felt like I had so much inside of me that couldn’t fit into those brackets that I really, as a human being, as an evolving human being and an evolving musician I needed to, kind of, move on and let some of this stuff out and I really found a great outlet to do that in the band “THIS.” I’m really happy. We’re going to go…we got about 18 songs that we’ve written now, we’re going to go into the studio in Janauary…January/February, with the illustrious Roy Thomas Baker..does anyone know who he is? [Two people clap, myself included]. Roy Thomas Baker produced Bohemian Rhapsody, has anyone heard of that song? [Jimmy laughs] Oh that guy?...Oh cool! [Crowd sighs in acknowledgment and laugh] Actually Roy and I got to be really good friends on the Zeitgeist sessions. Roy’s going to come and help us out. Umm…rumor has it. So, I’m excited about that.”

“Ummm, what else was I going to say? So yeah, I felt like there was stuff inside of me that I needed to, as an individual, as a father, as a husband, and as a musician that I needed to kind of explore my inner studio space a little bit more. And I didn’t think that being a drummer was what I needed to do at that particular point. Just if anyone has any questions…I am still friends with Billy. We still love each other. And more power to the Pumpkins, I think he deserves to go on with the name and the guy’s a great songwriter and he’ll go on to make a great record. So, let’s give it up for the man! [Crowd claps] As will I go on and make great music as well! [More crowd applause] As WILL YOU! [More Applause] Because it’s not rocket science. All’s it takes is a spot you can see in the distance that’s where you want to get to. The rest is kind of easy. Once you have a vision of where you want to take it…you’ll get there!”

THIS
A bio was printed and it said, "Jimmy is now working on a new band with DC songwriter, Mike Reina and New York guitarist, Anthony Pirog. The band is planning on recording in January and realeasing music in the Spring of 2010.

Jimmy also went onto add (as posted above) 18 songs have currently been written. Roy Thomas Baker is set to produce the album. Jimmy played drums to one of the THIS demo's, which I have recorded and will post video. The song played had Mike Reina singing and a beautiful piano melody. It was hard to hear all of the audio since I was in front of the drum kit.

There's more information to come....I have a video, some audio and photos. The enture clinic was recorded and I am currently trying to get a copy of it. If I can, I will distribute.

~Joe