ConcreteBeat: Bucket drums, African jembe, bass drum, hand drum, shaker, saxaphones: The Drumadics

Full song from The Drumatics

Spliced pieces of a really, really long song. Yeah, I know, the video doesn't synch up in the middle section but it's still awesome.

Founder Will Johnson talks about the idea of the band and the music.

The rest of the band talks about the music and their lives.

Medium: Bucket drums, African jembe, shaker, bass drum, African dun duns, alto sax and alto sax
Artists: William Johnson (buckets), David Park (bass drum), Alla (jembe), Alissa (African dun duns), Joel (shaker), Welf Dorr (alto sax), Nick Gianni (baritone sax)
Location: 42nd Street Times Square Station

William Johnson, Bronx resident, is responsible for this motley and highly talented crew of musicians. Founder of the Drumatics, he has been playing in the subways and on the streets of New York for well over 10 years. After being around for so long, Will has become an innovator has created a band which incorporates many of the cultural sounds unique to New York areas like Times Square, 34th St., Herald Square and Penn Station into a coherent art form. So, for example, you would normally see an individual instrumentalist playing by his or herself, a sax here, a drummer there. Will decided to combine them with his drums to make a whole new style of music that is uniquely American and uniquely New York. Will takes great pride in the extent to which his band’s music captures the sound of America, a well blended combination of several styles of music and types of instruments. “America has one of everybody…we actually have 15, 20 of everybody. So take all that rhythm and all of that culture and you put it in one room you have America.” So when people are on their way to and from work we like to lock them into that culture and diversity. Will himself lends an urban, industrial tone with his bucket drums while others blend in African, Carribean, jazz and funk flavors. Will’s goal is to make his and his original partners’ drum work more musical and accessible to people who are not necessarily into just the buckets or just industrial rhythm.

Will has been playing music his whole life, starting with the violin, flute and piano. In high school he began playing the drums with the original bucket drummers Larry Wright and JR. They would invite him to play with them and challenge him to improve. Now, after playing on the streets with them he’s living it up in the Subway. Of course, the Drumatics also do gigs, though, and right now have an off Broadway project called “Drumatics: American Culture Defined.”

David Parks plays the bass drum, the really big one that requires him to stand. Well, he plays a lot of other things as well but here he plays the bass. He moved to NY about three years where he met Will. He explains that when they met he happened to have his drum with him, Will mentioned he was looking for someone and “ever since I’ve been part of the group.”

David truly enjoys playing in public. “[T]o be honest with you, it gives me a chance to do what drumming is actually intended for, which is to bring communities together…Whenever you see a circle around drummers, that’s an ancient thing and, in this day and age, that I get to participate in that process, I feel that’s a big thing in my life…I dig playing the drums for the people who enjoy it.” He adds further that “this isn’t necessarily performance for us…we’re not pretending at all.”

David says that initially stardom is what brought him to New York. He picked up the drums after going to cooking school and was looking from something “a little more challenging, a little more grassroots/up-start…a little less corporate.” After playing in several different African dance companies and traveling to Africa, he found what he was looking for in the Drumatics. He likes the band so much, in fact, that he turned it into a family affair.

Alla is David’s son. Nine at the time of this interview, he has been playing for 7 years (since he was two if you’re too lazy to do the math). Alah came to join his father from Portland, OR. Alah explains that originally he came to NY with his father one summer and began playing with him on cans, noting, though, that “soon enough we got some new drums.” After returning to Portland at the end of the summer, Alah was invited back by David after he joined the Drumatics. At first Alah was a bit hesitant to play with the new band but now he’s really into it and says that he would like to be drummer when he grows up.

Alissa, the only female of the group comes all the way from Trinidad. After witnessing some amazing drumming in the Trinidadian “Best Village” competition Alissa knew she had to play. Unfortunately there are not many female drummers and she found it difficult to find a teacher. After tenaciously beating on any solid object she could find, however, she was finally accepted into a drum company. She has continued with her passion to this day and is now attending Marymount College for a degree in performing arts.

Alissa met Will and them in the subway about a year and half ago and has found the experience quite educations. Having been traditional African drumming for 5 years, Will has been trying to get her to open up and try new ways of drumming.

Joel, like Alissa, is from the Carribean. A drummer from Jamaica Joel is actually in the U.S. to study science. After school Joel plans to have a traditional career in his field but, in the meantime at least, finds drumming really fun. He’s been drumming ever since he was a baby but has only been working the shaker since he joined the Drumatics about three years ago.

Joel really likes working the Subway. “I love coming down to the subway. High energy, a lot of people…there’s different people from all over the world. It’s not a club scene, it’s a subway.”

Welf Dorr, familiar to Concretebeat veterans from his work with the Underground Horns, met Joel in the subway and, through him, started playing with the Drumatics. Welf then brought Nick Gianni, another Underground Horns member into the fold.

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