 Welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart Van Der Zee and today I am joined by freelance drummer in New York City, Warren Odez. Warren, welcome to the show. Thank you, Bart. So today we're talking about basically the roots of Broadway drummers and you yourself have performed on a number of Broadway shows and the Tony Awards like you were telling me and all this cool stuff. So this is a really interesting topic. I mean, I don't think a lot of people know this category of drumming. It's super cool. Yeah, it's and it's a it's not what people think it is. And it's a very specific skill. It's not enough to just be a great drummer. This is a very specific sort of like being a studio drummer. Yeah, you can be a fantastic, great live guy. But I don't think people understand what really goes on in a recording studio or in a Broadway fit. No, no, they're two different beasts. And I think that's a good comparison. And it almost reminds me of I'm sure there's a lot of parallels, which we'll find out about shortly. But like the early trap drummers when you're performing, I mean, it's very similar because you're performing to a show where those trap drummer silent movie guys were performing to a, you know, to a movie. But it's not about you. It's really more about the show. I guess that's kind of the key to all of this. That's exactly right. And really the roots and DNA of all of this goes back probably to the beginning of mankind. I mean, this music, this concert music that you sit and listen to, and then there's music that accompanies something and helps move it along. And I mean, drums have been, okay, there's the drumbeat time to March, you know, there's the drumbeat. It's a funeral, you know, you know what I'm in? Absolutely. And I mean, all the way back to the Greeks and before then some music accompanying something, you know, we're marching to war, we're doing this, we're doing that. And it's a whole other mentality. And I mean, at the root of it is especially music theater and film, you're helping to move the story along. You know, if you go to see a movie, and you're obsessed with listening to the soundtrack, it's kind of not working well then. You know, it's just supposed to get in your subconscious and push you in a direction, you know what I mean? But if you hear it and paying attention, things are not going well. So yeah, it's well, and I mean, I listened to a ton of podcasts about like movies and stuff. And I was just listening to one about how people saw Star Wars and they were like kind of it was kind of flat. And then the soundtrack comes in and it turns it into something completely different. So on that note, it can be the opposite where it's not to take you out of the movie, but it definitely it's a fine line of like distracting you, but it definitely enhances or Birdman, you know, Antonio Stages, it's it's it's one of those things where you can't imagine it without it, but it's not supposed to overshadow the actual performance. Yeah, I mean, sometimes you're right. Sometimes you're it's it's a vital part of what's happening. But sometimes it's just pushing you along. But if you're only listening to it, it's absolutely, you know, absolutely like in a music theater, I mean, in a great Broadway show, you know, the lights, the scenery, the makeup, all of it is supposed to help move the story along. Yeah, the story is key. That's that's the perfect way of putting it. Yeah, the story is key. So this has been going on for a long, long time. I mean, you know, back to I mean, the kind of modern Broadway that we're looking at now probably comes out of Vaudeville. You know, someone a guy guy falls down, the drummer hits a crash symbol or play some percussion sound, you know what I mean? Yeah. And honestly, man, it hasn't changed that much. I mean, it's got a different dress on today. Yeah. But you know, it's sort of like baseball that's still the ball that throwing the ball, they're trying to hit the ball. I mean, they got better uniforms and this and that and the other thing. But it's kind of the same thing. I mean, I started working on Broadway. I was in college and I subbed on a show. I used to be a percussionist in addition to being a drummer. And it hasn't changed that much since then. It's basically a conductor and an orchestra. And the conductor is looking at the stage. And if the dancers are having trouble, they'll change the tempo to accommodate them so they can get through it. Oh, wow. OK. You know, if a singer is having a bad day and they don't have a good breath, the conductor will move the tempo along. Yeah. So this is where it gets interesting, because people who come from what I call the secular world of music, you know, which is kind of sarcastic way of saying other than music theater, they're always angry because the conductors move in the tempo around, right? Yeah. Now, because in the in the secular world, the regular world of popular music, you know, if you go to see someone like whoever you go to see, Michael Jackson, you know, for the most part, the band is trying to keep a steady tempo and they hold on to that tempo for dear life. You know, the great studio drummers and rhythm sections hold on to that tempo, you know, or like Frank Sinatra's drummer, Irv Kotler, you know, unless there's something going on with the song that wants to go a little faster, slower, once you hit a tempo, you stay with it. But in music theater, it's not like that. And it's constant. It's more like classical music is this constant push and pull. Now, some of it, I hate to say it is the conductor is flustered and can't find the tempo. For the conductor, there's so much going on at one time. You know, he's looking at scenery coming in. He's looking at dancers moving. He's looking at people singing. He's trying to give someone a cue. So he might have trouble actually finding it. But if he if he's OK and he can find it, sometimes he just needs to go faster, slower. And that's with the modern shows that are more on click tracks. This is a whole other can of worms. You know what I mean? Yeah, so modern stuff is set to a click. But going back and I'm I am so interested in the modern set up because I've seen Carter McLean, who we'll talk about, he's the one who connected us and he's he posts pictures of his Lion King set up where he's kind of under the stage and like a little box and it's all very interesting. I'm sure that's really common. So yeah, I want to get to that. But I also want to go back and say so. So you said it was vaudeville, which was for people who don't know, I guess the description of vaudeville will be like it was like just if you Google it, it actually says a mixture of specialty acts such as burlesque, comedy, song and dance for people who don't know what it is. It's like, I mean, it is early Broadway. It's just music. It's theater. It's it. But it's kind of very like I always think it just like slapstick kind of like over the top type stuff. Is that a fair description? It seems like more little skits than a long, long story. OK, right? I mean, yeah, I think it was good. And since the start of vaudeville, there was famously drummers who did the trap drummer stuff. But OK, so let's say that it gets into past that it's actual shows. What were some of the like early Broadway shows where there was a full orchestra on a band? Has there has there always been a drummer is what I guess I'm getting at. I think is in turn, once once we hit the land of popular music, there's been a drummer. Yeah, they used to the Broadway orchestras used to be a lot bigger. But, you know, once we start to hit Gershwin and and those shows, yeah, I think there's been a drummer unless it's sometimes those shows that are more classical kind of in nature. But once I think for the most part, there's always been a drummer and drumming goes back a long time now since, of course, you know, the beginning of the 20th century. Yeah. So the idea of a guy sitting at a drum set. Yeah, I think it's been a long, long time. OK. And now, would the drummer in these shows because everyone knows Broadway tunes and musical theater and going back. Yeah. Are they typically playing? And I'm talking early because now you have your shows like Hamilton and you have these these kind of like more modern music where they're they can be then translated to like almost like pop songs in a group in a good way. Yeah. Early on, were they doing more, you know, roles and orchestral stuff or would it be more kick and snare kind of supplementing? If that makes sense. Was it straight beats or was it more like you're following a sheet of music, hit a cowbell now, hit a hit a triangle now. Well, this is the part that kind of hasn't changed that much. And it's all of the above what you just said. I mean, OK, and that's why they call it like show drumming. It's a different animal. So, yes, sometimes you're playing a beat like a kick and snare, whatever you say, and you're accompanying some dancing or singing or some underscoring and then kind of out of nowhere. It becomes more like a film score. Uh huh. You know, where the drummer is playing roles and cymbal swells. You know, you're really closest thing is like a film score. You know, a moment of fantasy, you know, or maybe a little March or a little of this or a little of that, where you're leaving the world of popular music and drumming and you're entering that classical slash film score mentality. And this happens even today. Yeah, of course. No, that's that's really interesting. And you have to be seems like you have to be really good at reading. I think that's probably an essential thing, right? Going back to the beginning, you have to be able to read and follow along and know where it is the interesting thing. You really only know how to know how to read when a show is starting. And when a show is starting, that period is really, really, really intense. And I'll take you quickly through the process. If you're ready to please. Yes. So you go to the first day of rehearsal, everybody introduces each other. Now you're into it. And it's usually a drummer and a rehearsal, piano player. Just those two components, sometimes the conductor, usually the associate conductor. And at that point, they're rehearsing scenes and you're mostly working for the choreographer. And this is the chance for the choreographer to do his magic. That's when he does his composing, OK? And you have to be super alert and it's really intense because sometimes you could be sitting there for 40 minutes and nothing's happening that out of nowhere, he gets an idea and he wants to run it. And over the course of five minutes, he's going to say, oh, no, when I put my foot up, put a little ding and somehow you have to write this in this little part and scribble it in and being able to give it back to him. You know, say, no, no, move the ding to the next beat. You know, when you go back and forth and he's he's in a very creative mode and you really have to stay with him or else they're not going to want to hire you again. Got it. And, you know, this goes on for two six weeks or two months until it kind of sounds like what the show is going to sound like. And here's is the interesting part. All the things that you put into the music at this point, the short notes, the long notes, the attitude, an orchestrator is going to come in the room then and he's going to listen to maybe one or two rounds of this. And that's going to be his template for orchestrating. So if you're all over the place and varying it, that's what's going to come back from the orchestrator. So this is the very blueprint. So in other words, if you said, I want the floors to be concrete, you know, you better make that clear. Yeah. And it's great, man, when you're the drummer and you you go into that first rehearsal with the orchestra and you hear like, oh, my God, that thing I was doing on the floor, Tom, whatever, that is now in the trombones. Wow. Yeah. Oh, it's really it's so it's a very intense period. And you really got to be fast. You know, like a stenographer, you know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. Like even even like you said with stenographer, like they have that weird keyboard where it's like got the like I was going to say you're doing short, you're really like you must have like a good shorthand where it's like you must be able to write something clearly for you and then remember it. But but be be quick. When you're talking about this, are you talking about for like a brand new show that's being written? Or can people modify like if someone's going to do like Oklahoma or something, can you change anything or are you like you're going to hit that ding here and you're going to do a snare roll here? It's done. Does there is there any leeway in existing shows? Yeah. Well, look, I mean, if you're talking about community theater and they put on Oklahoma, pretty much it's going to be what's written and maybe the local choreographer will do some of this and some of that, but not like a brand new show. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, look, if you're a music fan, you know, you listen to these Beatles outtakes and you hear like what started as like a folk guitar and a guy singing, yeah, yeah, and into these gems, you know, and it's it's sort of like mimics that. And if they do Oklahoma on Broadway, pretty pretty good chances they're going to want to reimagine it. So you the process is still kind of back to ground zero for a lot of it. The choreographers and the director, you know, that they're all working hand in hand to try to get this going. And man, you've really got to stay on your toes for these people. I bet they work so fast. I mean, it's it's funny, man. It's like boredom followed by terror. You know, you're sitting there for a half an hour and you kind of, you know, you start in a space out. It's hard to sit in one spot and not space out. And and then out of nowhere, you're off to the races and it could be intense for 40 minutes with constant changes. And you just have to some remember with this hand and write it down. And a lot of times the orchestrator will say to the drummer at the end of this period, hey, can I have your parts? And he'll look at the parts and see all the little places where you said, hit the woodblock here and hit this there and hit that there. You know, the woodblock is a whole other thing to an orchestrator than a crash symbol. You know what I mean? Yeah. Or a triangle is a whole different thing than a symbol roll in the way an orchestrator imagines this flushed out in an orchestra. Hmm. Does that make sense? It absolutely does. And just to keep the history stuff in mind and it sounds like you kind of answered like like we did the history in about 35 seconds where you said it hasn't changed much. So like give me a date. When would you say so? Like the early 1900s was was was was Broadway. And I guess we go through the vaudeville stuff in the 20s. But since then, like let's say 30s and on gear has changed. Shows have changed. All this stuff has changed. But the real the the makeup of being a drummer in this in the pit. Hasn't really changed much. Is that again, you said that before, but is that is that really the case? There hasn't been many, you know, you know what? It's it's interesting today because there's there's two windows of this. I mean, I don't know, three or four years ago, I did an American in Paris. And that was for the most part could have been done in 1920. It was an old fashioned model of a show. It was an acoustic orchestra. There was a lot of dance. There was a conductor following the stage. There was almost no amplification in the pit. You know what I mean? Yeah, it was real old school. And then I just finished this show, King Kong, which was all on a click track, playing to sequences and and click tracks and all of that stuff and very little conducting. I hardly looked at the conductor at all. It was more like a recording session. So those two things are living concurrently on Broadway at this moment. You know, these old fashioned, conducted, driven shows, you know, we are breathing along with the dancers and singers. Yeah. And then you got these incredibly high tech shows, you know, running Ableton's and click tracks and sequences and headphones and monitors. I mean, the other thing now is which started, you know, a long time ago as these remote hits. I feel like I know what it means. But where are you? Like, where is any other part of the building? Oh, man, that's crazy. The pits have got the, you know, the setups have gotten bigger. This pits have gotten smaller. I think producers want more seats. So the pits have gotten smaller and some of these percussion setups are insanely big. So they usually put the percussion player in some other room. And they usually put the drummer in another room because with the AdVentapop music, the drum is playing incredibly loud a lot of times in a very small space. You know, so let's go back to a show like West Side Story. OK, the original West Side Story. It's basically an acoustic orchestra and people are balancing themselves to each other as if they were playing in the Philharmonic or playing with Count Basie or, you know, accompanying Ella Fitzgerald on a concert stage. Right. Yeah. So you're only playing loud enough so you can hear everybody else. And but with the AdVentapop microphones and pop music, the drum, you know, someone on stage can be singing really softly and you could be pounding the drums, you know what I mean? Yeah. And the mixer controls all that. So, you know, someone like Ethel Merman in the old days was she was worth her weight in gold because she could scream. Yeah. Yeah. The preamplification just with everything across the board with drums and music is just so interesting and Broadway is no different. I obviously that's why they would. I mean, it makes I'm guessing, but it seems obvious where they would the shape of the theater, the acoustics. Everything was so important for that. God, it's so interesting to think back in like days of like Shakespeare with like the Globe Theater and all this stuff where, I mean, like in a quiet thing, I'd be in the back like, what I can't hear it. But, you know, it was the job of the orchestrator in the old days, pre-microphone. If the singer was singing something soft, but there was some underscoring, it was his skillful job to orchestrate and thin out the orchestra and make it quiet. So the person would be able to act and sing in a quiet way. But like I said before, like now with microphones, they can be whispering and you could be bashing away. Yeah, because you're in a different room. Whole other room. And I know I've seen Carter set up again, like I said, with the pictures on Lion King. Is it really common for you to be in like a small little box that has like a video screen where you're seeing what's going on? Like, yes, that's that's kind of, honestly, that's the norm now. The norm is the drums and maybe the percussion and in another room with TV screens, headphones. That's pretty much the norm today. And everybody's has a TV on their music stand. That's kind of like standard fare now. And wow, I had no idea. Yeah, no, it's a whole other thing. I mean, I'll tell you one interesting story. Promises promises to show from the 60s. So Burp Akerak, who, you know, is great at making records. He was frustrated with the Broadway sound. So he gets Phil Ramon, the famous record engineer and producer, Phil, can you help me out with the sound and the pit? So Phil comes down and, you know, he's analyzing the sound down there like it's a recording studio. And he put up baffles and put this person over there and that person over there. And that was really, I think the beginning or one of the beginning things of the modern pit, which is now has baffles everywhere. And, you know, starting to mic things, you know, turn it into more of a recording studio than something like the Metropolitan Opera. The old days, when I was a little kid, someone gave my mother tickets. I saw a funny girl with Barbara Streisand at the Winter Garden that I remember in front of the stage, you could see the pit, like when you go to see at the Met and you could see the instruments, you heard the instruments acoustically, which is a whole other world than today. Today, most of it is piped through sound system in the theater. And a lot of times people walk out and go, wow, I didn't know there was a live band. I, you can't blame them because they don't see them. They don't see them. And, yeah, it's kind of wacky, man. And that with the click track. So no one's speeding up or, you know, it takes some of that drama out. It's another world. What is your, you've obviously played, done all this stuff for a long time. What do you prefer? Do you prefer the recording studio baffled clean sound or I should say clean setup where people are in other rooms? Or do you prefer the, let's call it the more like visceral, you're in the pit, you're like the old school way of doing it. You can see the conductor, he's speeding up. What do you prefer? You know, that's a great question. I mean, I think the most thrills for a musician come when everybody's in the same space and you're balancing and playing off each other. The modern world, it almost feels like I'm going to a recording session every day. I mean, at King Kong, you know, I walked into my room and it was exactly like a recording session. And we also played along to tracks because the composer, he had these tracks that we played along to. So it really felt like I was doing a film date. I mean, I could see the screen, but it didn't really matter. And the conductor had very little to do other than getting you in and out of vamps. You know, of course you got to look for that. But in terms of the playing, I felt like I was just, like which happens a lot for me and people like me is, hey, Warren, can you come in and add drums to my tracks? There's a lot of people do tracks on their, you know, Pro Tools set up and they want to replace the drum pattern they had with a real drummer. And it feels more like that. So yeah, I think it's more, I guess it's who you asked. It's more thrills, everybody together. The good thing for when you're lazy, which I can be is when you have the click tracks, it takes all the drama out of what's the tempo. And that drives rhythm section people crazy, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. If you're trying to follow this guy and he's trying to follow them and every, it's hot. Like what's the tempo, you know, and there's so much drama around what's the tempo, you know? Mm-hmm. Just that's across the board. That's playing in a rock band, that's anything. When you're off, there is no worse feeling than like, what is going on? Like everyone, and then the audience is probably like, not hearing these minute little changes, but everyone else there is. You know, a lot of pop acts out there doing big concerts are using a click track. Yeah, of course. It's not like going to see the Beatles or the Stones or something, you know what I mean? Yeah. They're playing to a click. Yeah, no, when I- To keep the tempo steady. Yeah, I saw the Stones last year in New Orleans and it was like, this is not to a click, that's for sure. No, but- In a good way, in a good way. No, no, I know this, you know, musicians were so hyper neurotic about every note being out of place and, you know, and really the records that we grew up listening to, they're kind of like a little reckless, but there's so much fun, you know, because that's the human blemish. It's great, you know what I mean? Yeah, it, I don't know. It wavers and all that, but, and now this, I'm asking just because in the back of my mind, it's like, well, you know how like in the modern world now, everything is being replaced by robots, what is keeping minus, I'm assuming the answer is because of the vamps and the slight changes. If no one can see the drummer, what is keeping them from playing the show to a recording? The musicians union. Got it. No, seriously, man, there was a strike, I don't know, over 10 years ago and they threatened to use tracks and we had a strike and the strike was settled and then they got rid of some musicians in each theater. That's one of the big things people are always fighting for which is minimums. Yeah, I don't know, man. I mean, all over the country, they use tracks. Yeah. And it's kind of, you know, between using the click tracks which makes the band sound more perfect and the technology, it's getting further and further away from the thrill of that Rolling Stone concert that we went to with all the blemishes, you know? Yeah. It's hard for me, I don't know the exact answer but during the strike, The New York Times had a pie chart and I think the cost of the orchestra to the ticket price was 3%, which is so small, man. That's nothing. I mean, honestly, though, tracks just sit there like a lump, you know what I mean? They do, they do. Of course, yeah. It's like canned laughter and I'm not, it's just canned laughter. It's just not as much fun as the vibrancy even with the click tracks and the technology of people fighting it out, you know what I mean? Yeah. With all the tension that goes and it's very intense every night, man, in a Broadway pit. It's like, you know, it's a concert. It's a serious experience. There's nobody's phoning it in, you know? Yeah. No, and I'm obviously pro drummer and I think that question has to be asked though and then someone has the question, well, why go to a Broadway show? Why not just pre-record it and everyone sits and watches a screen? And I think that's the same mentality of like, because we're there to see it live. Even if you're there listening, you're there to hear it live, you know? It's like, because we wanna hear things that are different from night to night. Absolutely. I mean, absolutely. It's just, it's just more thrills, man. Yeah. It's just more thrills. There's no, you know, would you rather watch Paul McCartney on a YouTube video in your house or was it a giant stadium and, you know, for the thrill of being in an audience and everyone's doing it, it's really for the first time. It's that only time, it's that moment. Exactly. There's no comparison. No, and you mentioned before, which I wanted to bring up and I was curious. So obviously you're in a union. There is musicians union. I've had a discussion with Dr. Matt Brennan who wrote a book called Kick It, A Social History of the Drums Kit and we talked about musicians in the union and I'm sure it's not the case anymore, but drummers, it was a law that they were to be paid two shillings less and it was all this thing with drummers. But that being said, not related to payment and all that stuff, what is it like? So to get into the union, I mean, do you need to be in the union to be on Broadway shows? Absolutely. The union is very strong on Broadway. It's actually one of the last strongholds of the union in New York because, I mean, you know, you're a Pro Tools user. Since file sharing, everything's gone crazy. I mean, this is New York City. There's hardly any big giant recording studio to go to. I mean, the old days there were these fantastic studios, CBS 30th Street, RCA, on and on and on, A&R, you know, Clinton Studios. And you got to remember in the old days, I guess pre-Middy, pre-Synthesizer, everything was handmade. Everything was handmade. Even the Dopeus Jingle demo had at least a guy playing piano, you know what I mean? And he went to some recording studio and did his little piano demo for the guy from the Jingle agency. And, you know, like I used to work at Chapel Music at a recording studio on 7th Avenue, just playing song demos. Yeah. Who does that now? I mean, every, you can make a song demo with GarageBand. Yeah, I mean, and where I work, we used Warner Chapel as like a stock kind of thing for a little bit. We've switched to another one now, but and I can tell you, so where I work, Gwyn Sound, formerly called Sound Images was a jingle. I mean, for a studio to be around for 35 years, 30 years ago, they were churning out jingles. And that is just, I've played on a few car commercials, a few like if you live in the Midwest, there's a pool and hot tub place that's really big called Watson's. And if you hear that, that's me. But that has basically gone away. I mean, there's, it's so few and far between, but okay, so you do have to be in the union. You need to, I'm sure that's good protection, all that good stuff. Yeah, without the union, forget it. The shows would pay like 25 bucks, you know what I mean? And, you know, it would be, no, it's, I mean, it's very friendly to the musician, the arrangement on Broadway. You can take off 50% of the time, the sick days, there's leave days. So let's say I'm doing a Broadway show and Michael McDonald calls me and says, hey man, can you do my two month tour of Europe? I can fill out a piece of paper and if I have good enough subs on Broadway, the conductor will say, yeah, we love your subs, go away for two months and my job is protected. It's really an incredible arrangement. That's awesome. It's a health plan, it's great, man. Wow, okay, so that's super important. Well, it's super important because, you know, in the old days of Broadway, the old days meaning when I was a younger guy, you couldn't take off. You were at the whims of like the conductor and the contractor. Yeah. Now you can, you find like incredible musicians playing these shows. You find the best guys in New York City because you're allowed to take off and for whatever things are around the film date or the, whatever, the this and that, even though the recording scene is a shell of what it used to be, there's still a recording sessions. Yeah, they're there. I mean, you, like you said though, it might be remote or it might be budgets have fallen and all that stuff. Subbing on Broadway on the drums is a nightmare. In the old days, when I was younger, you know, guys would come in and actually sight read. I, it seems insane. There wasn't this craziness of like, you got to sound exactly like the guy who's there now. So in the old days, Steve Little, the great drummer who, who was the original drummer for Sesame Street and played with Duke Ellington did a ton of studio work. He was legendary for, hey Steve, will you come and sub by show? He would come and sight read the show. And they weren't so nuts about, wow, the other guy played the fill on the floor, Tom and you didn't, you know, as long as it was like swinging in the ballpark, that was cool. Today, man, if you went to sub on a show, you take that music home, you'd go watch, first of all, you'd watch the guy play at three, four, five, however many times, you make a recording of it. You study this thing as if your life depended on it. You know? Yeah. And there's no rehearsal, man. There's no, you know, you just come in and do it. But I'm assuming the way you get, and I want to, a future, a question in a minute, is I want to hear your story and how you got into it. But I'm assuming for guys now, seems like the way like anything you get into this is, maybe you do kill a couple subbing gigs and you do a great job. And then they say, and then your name spreads, right? Is that a safe assumption? Okay. Absolutely, I mean, how did I get into this? Yeah. Okay, I used to be a percussionist. When I was at Manhattan School of Music, my drum teacher from when I was a kid was playing the show, Irene. He said, do you want a sub? I didn't even know what that meant. Anyhow, I subbed on percussion and the conductor of the show liked what I did. He said, hey, I have a show, do you want to do it? I said, no, because in those days, this is 1974. There was so much work around. And I'm a young man, I'm like 20 years old and I'm thinking, well, I want to change the world. I don't want to play a Broadway show. You know, play the same music eight times a week with these old guys, you know what I mean? Yeah. And so I said, no. And I went on to do a million other things. And so, but how did I, and you know, the associate conductor, there was Wally Harper who liked me and he hired me to do this record with Barbara Cook at Carnegie Hall. I was, yeah, I guess I was 20 years old. It was her return to show business or something. So one thing leads to another, but then a million years went by. So how did I get into Broadway? So I'm playing in a, this is such a crazy story. I can't even believe it. I'm playing in a free jazz group with this guy, Kirk Neurock, okay? And he was working as an orchestrator on Broadway. He recommended me to Gordon Harrell and Red Press to play this show three musketeers. Okay, now I'm playing a Broadway show. The show lasts a week, but I got to meet these guys and Gordon liked me. And years later, between him and John Miller, they hired me to play at Cy Coleman's show, The Life. And before that, I was subbing in some shows, but I was really an outsider to the scene. So that's one way to get in. And basically, man, just play wherever you can and knock it out of the park. There's no, there's just no cutting to the front of the line. I mean, maybe your father is friends with the famous conductor and that'll help you cut to the front of the line. But if you don't have the goods, you can have a short career. Yeah. So like anything else in life, it's easier when you're really talented and do a really amazing job. I mean, it's easier for young guys to get into it off Broadway because the pay is really lousy and they always need great subs. But the cream rises to the top, you know? I don't know if that answers your question. It does. And then my other thought would be, so you said the first show you, the first real show you did was The Life by Cy Coleman. Is that right? That was the first real show. I mean, I did Three Musketeers. That was a real Broadway show, but it only lasted a week or two. It was a huge failure. And then there was some little off Broadway this and that and the other thing, but the real big grown-up show was The Life with the great Cy Coleman who's beyond a legend. Yeah. How did you feel? I just want to know, like you're sitting there, I'm assuming you're down in the pit. Obviously you're not in another room with Mitty running and you're watching a screen and you're totally, you know, night one, first time out there, how did it feel to be doing that? Were you nervous? Were you excited? What was that like? Well, night one. First of all, there's a long lead up into it. Like I said, there's two months of rehearsal with just the cast, then there's a week or so of the orchestra and then the orchestra with the cast and then you do a dress rehearsal, you do a couple of these things and then you have like a month of previews. So you're kind of gearing yourself up, you know? Yeah, you're into it. That's the other thing we didn't talk about. The preview period is nerve wracking because okay, you play Tuesday night, you come in the next day and on your music stand is a ton of notes, cut this measure, do that, make beat four, a quarter note, blah, blah, blah. And this is back to where when the show is starting you really have to know how to read. You have to be a studio musician at that point, you know, because every day you're gonna come in and you gotta be sharp as a tack, man. To play this thing flawlessly as these guys keep throwing these changes at you, you know? Yeah. Once it gets going, then it's, they say Broadway is terror followed by boredom. That's so funny. That's like, there's a lot of things in, there is, I would say in the world of like, like working at a studio or it's, or like doing some film and TV stuff, that is exactly what it has been where it's the setup and then the connecting. And can you hear me? Can I hear you? Can you hear me? Can you hear the talent? It's just, it's, that I guess is the opposite. It's terror followed by once you're up and running, then it's sort of like, not boredom, but it's like you're running. You're, then the next two hours are calm and you're just, you know, recording cues and stuff. But now what is a little bit more in the day and the life, day in the life kind of thing. What time does your day begin? The show's already running. It's you've, you've been doing it for a month. Let's say like you said, King Kong, like what time do you get there? Everybody's different, man. Some people, some people like just walk in, like at the, like, you know, by the union regulations, you're not late until they say places, okay? Places, please. Oh boy. Yeah, I know. So, you know, and then you see someone running in, usually the brass players get there early because they need to warm up. I like to get there at least an hour before. I like to hit the practice bed. I like to settle down. You know what I mean? Yeah, totally. But also, you know, you're doing the Broadway show, but you're doing other things during the day. You're going to a recording session. You're going through a rehearsal. You're kind of running around all day. Some days, you know what I mean? But I do like to get there at least an hour before and settle in and get relaxed and warm up and maybe tune the drums a little, you know what I mean? Yeah. What time do the shows usually run? Is it like you're working from like 8 p.m. to like midnight on a show? Or are you obviously not released? Usually a show is two and a half hours. Uh-huh, okay. And eight o'clock used to be the standard time for everything, but the producers have, they're trying to find new ways to get people in. So a lot of shows, like the beginning of the week, shows have started seven. There's a lot of that going on, you know? And then usually matinees would be, in the classical sense, two and eight, but those sometimes switch to one and 6.30, that kind of thing. Got it, wow. I mean, the other drama is, I've been the in-house contractor on a bunch of shows, which is, do you know what that is? No, no. The in-house contractor is kind of the straw boss. Uh, and your job is to do the payrolls, your job to make sure everybody's, somebody's sitting in the seat and when it's time to start, you're the liaison, you know, for the conductor. You work with the music coordinator and the conductor. The music coordinator is the fancy term for contractor. Okay. And it has a lot of responsibilities. So back to the famous places, please, you're the in-house contractor and you don't see Johnny who's supposed to play violin. You're like, and then you're kind of sort of freaking out and then you start, you get your phone and you go, hey man, are you nearby? And, oh yeah, I'm down the block at the deli. I'll be right there. And it was more stressful before cell phones. Oh, I bet. Yeah. Yeah, God, I mean, because you just don't know where people are. Well, they went from the doorman, the Johnny calling from his car that's broken down to the doorman, the doorman sends a note down, Johnny's going to be late. And then it was the beepers, which was only half of the nightmare solved, but the cell phone really changed how the efficiency of the situation. Yeah, people are more accountable and all that stuff. Yeah. Now, do you have any crazy stories of either in that role of kind of being the ringleader or as the drummer where you're in the middle of the show and someone, you know, a shoe flies off and hits you or the lights go out or anything like that? Yeah, well, the answer is yes to all of the above. I was doing this show for Silla and I was seeing house contractor and at the end of the show and the exit music or whatever, two times people fell into the pit and knocked over the trombone player. And I think, yeah, the guy was okay, but it could have been a real nightmare. Yeah. No, but things do happen. I mean, sure. I mean, God, it's a horrible story, but the great Broadway drummer Ray Marchica is, he's playing some show. I can't remember which one. And his spare snare drum, which was over his head, fell off the shelf and onto his head. I hope I'm telling this story correctly, but things happen, man. Yeah, of course, yeah. Geez, it's not on the same level at all, but I was Harold Hill in my eighth grade play and my pants split open on my butt. So not quite as high of stakes there, but things happen. Things happen all the time, man. And if you've worked on live TV, you know how nutty that could be. Yeah, I've done some TV, but it's always pre-filming stuff, doing, I assisted on a couple, some TV shows, but it's different. So my experience with TV and movie is doing dialogue replacement in studio, where you'll be, it's a little bit more controlled, but even there, things can go. I was working on a really big animated TV show that's on Netflix now and there was some screaming and it clipped the mic and then you get a call from DreamWorks saying, what happened? And it's like, oh, dear God. I mean, once in a while, things blow up. There are some stories where the conductor, a sub comes in, the conductor just hates this person and doesn't want to even finish the show and they'll say to the in-house contractor, get rid of this guy, get me someone else on the intermission and that's like a complete nightmare. Oh my, wait, during the show. During the show. Geez. Yup, during the show. Because you gotta understand, there's no, there's no audition, there's no rehearsal for the subs. So the first time the conductor's getting to hear this person is at the show. Man. And that makes the person who recommended the sub look really bad too. That is exactly right. So there's two streams of thought. If you're a bottom feeder, if you're down there in the swamp in the bottom, you're thinking, let me get a sub that doesn't play as well as me so they'll miss me and love me when I come back. That's the one approach. The other approach is, let me get someone better than me. So the conductor and the orchestra just love this guy and I can take off and they're so happy to see my sub come in. The second one works better than the first one because, you know, man, especially with the drum set, if you bring in a half-baked dude or gal, it brings down the whole production. I mean, there's no better way to change the sound of an orchestra than change the drummer. And you can, you know, no disrespect to our violin friends out there, but second violin will not ruin a show in the same way a drummer will. Yeah, no. And, you know, it's not just the playing of the drums, it's all this kind of leftover, you know, sometimes there's a scene in a Broadway show where you're looking at the monitor and you have to, okay, Warren, look at the monitor. Now, when the actor goes to punch the other guy, that's when you hit the ratchet. And, you know, so you make a film of this, you bring your phone in, you film the thing, but you're not used to seeing this guy on the, it's hard sometimes to see them in real time. And, you know, you can miss the ratchet with the guy and, you know, ruin some of the comedy there, you know? Yeah, definitely. But that's even not as bad as a bad drummer, just jumping the cue and starting some other crazy section of the tune during some ballad or it's, it's gonna be nutty, man. Yeah, that's like, audience is aware. That's like, have you seen, I mean, obviously it's happened in the history of Broadway, but where things just literally have to stop and restart that last number? Or, I mean, do they usually just try and roll through it? This happens occasionally. King Kong was a very highly technical show. And one of the things that King Kong was, I think everybody was running on the same simpy. You know, the lights, the music, everything was together. And sometimes Kong would fall apart and we'd have to sit one time we sat for an hour and a half. But there is a very famous story from England. This is very famous jazz drummer, Phil Seaman, who was Ginger Baker's mentor, okay? And I'm not saying anything here that's not in print, but Phil, he liked his drugs. He liked to have a good time. So they're doing some show and in the most quiet section of the show, he hits a gong in the wrong place. And this gong goes off and everyone's staring at him and he just said, thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I mean, there's no way to go from that, right? No, he was probably smoking a cigarette like in a lot of the videos you see of him. Yeah, yeah. That's funny. I said before, SIMTI, which SIMTI, it's time code. So it's interesting for, so people, everyone knows that. That's an interesting thought too of everyone being on the same time code, the technical stuff about getting everyone on the same page. It's like studio stuff. People take for granted, literally a headphone system. You think, oh, just plug in a pair of headphones. Well, what if you need 15 pairs of headphones? What if you need 35 pairs of headphones? There's a lot of moving parts with these shows, obviously. Yeah, that's another thing, man. Like in the old days, if the director said, you know what, I want the couch to be on the left. That was easy in the old days. Okay, put the couch on the left. If you put the couch on the left, it's gonna take a day for all these departments to rewrite their programs. The lights, the sound, the whole thing, man. You know what I mean? All the scenery is so motorized now, computerized. Yeah, absolutely. I forgot about lighting, God, that's... Well, it puts a little bit more into perspective of why tickets are so expensive because there's so much going into it. There are so many people involved and so many moving parts. There's so many moving parts to these shows. And yeah, man, a show's gotta really be close to sold out a lot of time to function. Because it's just, it's very complicated, you know? Yeah. It's very, very complicated. Yeah. Now, as we kind of wrap up here, do you have any advice for a drummer who would want to get into this world? Like let's say modern day where it's 2020, how would a really good young drummer, old drummer, doesn't matter. Anyone who wants to get into the world of Broadway, what tips do you have? Boy, that's a great question. Let me give you a good answer. A couple of times I've done this thing at NYU, Jonathan Haas is the director down there of this program for wannabe Broadway drummers, okay? It's in the summer at NYU for a couple of weeks and the students, you send the student some of the music from your show and they learn to play it. And then they come down and watch you play it at the show. And then you go down to NYU on a given day and you play that excerpt and then they play it, you give them suggestions, okay? And then they ask a question of you, like you just asked me. And what I tell people is the number one thing that has ruined it for me, I can't tell you how many shows I've ruined and how many experiences I've ruined and I've watched other people ruin is not being able to follow the conductor. Yeah, sure. Even though I went to Manhattan School Music and I won't call myself a classical musician, but I visited that scene, trying to decode and interpret what the conductor's doing is everything. Now, unless you're lucky enough and you only play on shows with click tracks, but you can't depend on that because even coming out of, they'll stop the click and then it goes into the little Roboto section following a singer. And I can't tell you, I mean, there was a whole myth of let's get studio drummers to play on Broadway. Those are the worst guys to play on Broadway because you get a killer like a John Robinson guy, you know? Yeah. You give John Robinson a tempo, he's gonna play that tempo for 10 seconds or 10 minutes or 10 hours. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. These guys are masters and that is not what music theater is. Music theater is creating the illusion that we're actually playing this tempo, but all of a sudden it's just a tiny bit faster for these eight measures. You know what I mean? Yeah. And studio type drummers, pop drummers are completely lost. So when I get to this symposium that I do, I go, look, I know all you guys can play. Everybody's good. If you weren't good, there's nothing you need to even talk about. Everybody's gotta be good. That's the, you know, you wanna get into the Yankees, you gotta be able to catch the ball. We're not even gonna talk about that. No. But man, you gotta be able to figure out that conductor and that is really hard, man. It's hard for symphony guys. It's hard for music theater guys. It's just tricky. You know, the conductor's skills are not skilled. He's dealing with the stage. You know, he's just dealing with so much. He's dealing with a singer that's freaked out about their entrance. So, you know, he's trying to help them and you might interpret his actions as meaning, oh my God, does he want us to go faster? And it can be really confusing. I would say to any drummer who's thinking about doing this is find every community theater you can and just, you know, get in there and do this over and over until you feel comfortable interpreting the conductor. That's extremely good information. And I would assume like anything in the world of production or music or anything, I think also a big thing, which it sounds like you were saying earlier, is being on time, being responsible, being a good people person, kind of being a good hang, you know, no one wants to hang out with someone who's not fun. And I know nothing. I mean, I've never been on the Broadway scene ever, but I'm just, I feel like those are good rules of thumb in general with any kind of, any job really. Yeah, being in a Broadway pit. I mean, I've heard contractors say, well, I can't hire that person because you know what, they're kind of cranky and the conductor's not going to like them. I don't hear, I don't hear a contractor say, I, you know, it's not usually about playing because like I said, everybody's pretty good on a certain level. Some people are better at certain things, but I'll tell you, man, being a Broadway pit, it's like putting miracle grow in your character defects. People get nuts down there. It's the same music, you know what I mean? And they just get loopy, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, I think a lot of that sounds like those types of situations where it's a pressure cooker that you're put in where things come out when you're in the situations of a gig where you go, wow, that person just really didn't handle that well. I've seen that in studio situations where it's like, oh my God, that guy just had a meltdown. It happens, man. And you gotta, you know, you gotta be really cool and you gotta be part of the solution, you know? It's, there's enough pressure down there. You know, it's enough departments so everybody's the wig guy's worried about the wig falling off. You know, everybody's got something to do. I don't want to make it sound like it's just everyone's nervous all the time, but it is a highly professional environment like TV, you know? Oh my God. I mean Broadway, the term Broadway. Yeah. It just, it's like a, there's a glimmer in your eye like kind of thing. Like it's like, I'm going to get to Broadway. Like it has, like Hollywood, it has the connotation of just being like the top. I mean, that is the, you, congratulations obviously. It's a little late for me to say that because you've been doing it for a long time, but you are at the top. I'm very grateful. I mean, this is kind of cynical, but I kind of say to people, look, if you have a modest amount of talent and you're okay with people yelling at you, you could make a living. You know, look, you don't want to, when the conductor says to you, you know, can you measure three, do the thing? And you don't want to say to him, well, but you told me just before to do it the other way. No, you want to say, okay, you want to make people's lives better. You know, everybody who you're working for is also under pressure, you know what I mean? So if you get to say to the guy, well, gee, you just told me to play it softer a minute ago, you know what I mean? There are so many parallels to just every kind of world of production where people change their mind. And I've seen that where people go, they lose their cool and they say, like exactly what you just said, verbatim, where it's like, well, you just told me to do this. It's like, well, just, no, you need to shut up and do exactly what they're saying. How long does a show typically run? Like if you're doing King Kong, how long, I guess ideally you'd be doing it for years, but how long do you typically have a standard Broadway gig? Well, there's no standard. I mean, most of them fail. Yeah. The longest one I ever did was like two and a half years. And then you get these other shows, like The Lion King, Wicked, you know, The Book of Mormon, these shows just, where they hit a nerve in people and they just, they're like the Beatles, you know, the Beatles and their popularity just never fades, you know? Goes on forever. But most fail. Yeah. I think it's the hardest art form because, you know, if you're making a film, you can reshoot scenes, you can go to the editing room and make magic. If you're doing a record and you go, you know what, these songs are not good, you can stop the record, you can write other songs, you can add a tambourine, you can take the tambourine off, put an orchestra on, a Broadway show, man. If it has a bad design going in, you go to that first rehearsal and that hourglass thing with the sand running down has begun. And all these unions, everybody is plugged in. And you have this short window and it's very hard to change your mind and make a miracle out of a mess. So the design, so I mean, what's the analogy? If you come into that first rehearsal and you have a song as good as yesterday, it's a pretty good chance things are gonna go well. But if you have a show that's not yesterday, you know, a show that's got problems, it's really hard to write that ship because of the nature of all these unions and that two or three month window of fixing things. And then, you know, the creative guys, they get burnt, they see this every day, they, I think some of them can't see it anymore. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. They're right in front of their face. Yeah. And they're so, like we keep saying, I think, I mean, I would assume we're drummers so we think we're the most important thing in the world. But we're probably one of the lower things on, if you're doing your job well, you're probably not gonna be on their mind top of mind going, you know, how's the drummer doing? He's probably worried about the composer, the director, everyone's worried about everything else, the actor, this famous actor who's there. Yeah, it's yeah. They usually only talk about the drumming when it's not going well. Yeah, you wanna be noticed, you don't wanna be noticed, I guess, in that regard. Yeah, I mean, the director, he's got his hands full, man. You know, he's responsible for saying, that song doesn't work. I don't like those lights. This and that, they are the director. Hello, the word director. Yeah. You know, they are responsible for the whole thing, man. Yeah, man, wow. I have learned so much about this. I mean, I've been to a bunch of Broadway shows, and I like them, but I've never given it, even as a drummer, I've never given it the respect and the thought. Last question, and then we'll wrap it up. What is a typical drum set? Like, is there a preferred brand? Is it a five piece? Is it a four piece? What's the setup like there? Yeah, okay. In the older shows, like the West Side Story shows, it was kind of just a drum set. And then they went through a period where it was what they'll call a mixed chair. The drummer plays a little drums, and he's surrounded by a xylophone and something else. You know, and that went on for a while, and then you get these dedicated shows where you got a real pop drummer and he's just going cuckoo playing the drums. But now we're getting into these really elaborate setups where these, I think it's because of sequencing, these orchestrators, you know, they sit at home and can write all this stuff on their sequencing program so that they're expecting so much sound. So the drum setups for some of these shows are sometimes they're insanely big, man, like with tons of crash cymbals and tons of miscellaneous percussion. And then you get a show like Hamilton. I haven't been down there, but they want everything in real time. They don't want to play to tracks. So I think on Dress the Drummer has five snare drums. As opposed to hitting some trigger button and changing the sound of the snare, you have five different snares for different songs. That's elaborate, man. That is elaborate, yeah, a lot to remember. The setups are really intense. And when you go to sub on these things, you have to model these setups in your practice thing. You know, it's like, it's intense. Yeah, the setups can be insanely big. And I think maybe if they're trying to cut budgets too, they try to have more of these mixed chairs, you know? Yeah, more people doing. I personally try to keep things as simple as possible. I guess a little old school, I kind of feel if I add too many things because what's also happening is the sound guys don't have a lot of time to pull this together. So if you build these elaborate setups, the sound guy comes down to mic you and he looks at what's going on, he goes, okay, there's a million things. I'll put one microphone here, turn the noise gate on and we'll see if we'll get the best that we can. You know, you listen to a record like Bridge over Troubled Water. That thing was mixed over many weeks, you know, to get the triangle just in the right spot in the left field of vision, you know? And also, I want to make it easier for my subs, you know what I mean? Yeah, really. And there's the old like, you play with a side snare that's like a 12 inch side snare, you hit it once and they're like, I miked that. I mean, there are, this shows now where the drummer runs the Ableton. It's really complex, but there's a lot of, a lot of foot pedals to trigger things and it could be really, really, really intense and requires an enormous amount of repetition to pull it off. Man, well, I'm sure it's always interesting and do you have another show lined up that you're gonna be starting soon that people- No, there's no show starting soon anywhere, man. Oh, duh, duh, yeah, nevermind. I was hired to do a run of Sister Act at the Papermill Playhouse. Cool. And then the pandemic hit and now we're in, I don't know what we're in. I don't know what we're in either. Yeah. It's affected, it's just affected everyone. It's affected everyone so much. And right now it's August, 2020 when we're recording this and it's been going on for quite some time. So, well, I hope it all turns around for all of us. When Warren is back up and running, maybe people can reach out to you and try and get in touch. I guess, yeah, that's all we can really say. So, Warren, I wanna thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show and share all this knowledge and thank you again to Carter McLean for getting us in touch. I asked him and he said, I'm a new school guy. I do one show. He's the Lion King. I know Carter. I was talking to Carter last week. Carter's an amazing drummer. He is, he is. And he said, you're the guy, so that's- That's very sweet. That's very sweet. Well, this has been great. Carter's great. I mean, he's a classic case of the guy who came more from playing gigs and found his way into the Lion King. Like he said, he didn't do this since he's eight years old or something. No, no, but it worked out. So, no matter how you can get into it, that's the best way to do it. Well, I hope you got what you were looking for. I did. I did. This was great. Thanks so much, Warren, and hope to meet you someday. If I'm in New York and we'll, after all of this, hopefully to catch a show you're playing in. That would be fantastic. Thank you. And listen, stay safe and put your mask on and wash your hands. Thanks, Warren. Bye-bye.