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Derrick McKenzie
Wicked
Host: August 2001.
by Claire
Special thanks to Romian and
David R. for finding this interview.
From selling lingerie in M & S to
falling off his stool whilst playing, Derrick McKenzie -Jamiroquai's drummer has done it
all! It's sticks at the ready as Derrick finally reveals the face behind those infectious
beats and spills the beans on the infamous Jay Kay, as our Claire gets chin wagging...
Jamiroquai has been going for some 10
years now, you have been in the band since 1994 do you think your adaptability, as a band
is the key to your success?
Yes, what we have done is obviously moved
with the times, within reason, but always kept the sound of Jamiroquai - through Jay's
voice and music. We have found it difficult but it's been okay.
Why has it been so long between albums?
Our last gig was in 1999 and then we took a
rest for 3 to 4 months so that Jay could see more of his girlfriend (the then Denise Van
Outen), and it gave us all a chance to have time with our families and to get to know our
girlfriends again. I moved house and so did Toby and I also set up my studio - Jay was
also getting his house together. We then started work on the album, but we were held back
what with one thing or another. Then last year we started on the album again, and were
working on it right until last Friday!
It wasn't really much of a break then?
Not at all! In fact we are all tired now!
Your new album 'Funk Odyssey' comes out
in September with a single 'Little L' in August how have you progressed?
Well, what we have done is made more use of
machine samples and things. It is something we have always tried to steer away from but
obviously we have to stick with the times and so we brought in the other element of
machinery. It made my job quite difficult obviously but the way we got round that is by
recording bits of me such as my high hats and then cutting me up and putting me back
together again! It made me approach drumming from a different angle. In terms of the
keyboard, Jay went out and spent bucket loads of money on old keyboards and it really
helped the sound. We also have a new guitarist now called Rob Harris; he is wicked and has
been a huge influence. We are all really getting on - he is a lovely person. In fact he
was famous for the guitar at the start of that Kylie Minogue song 'Spinning Around'!
"Sometimes though I
would love to cause a fuss just for once, for the hell of it, you know start up a brawl or
something!"
Jay Kay is often seen as the 'face' of
Jamiroquai does this ever bother you? What do you and Toby think of it all?
It doesn't bother me at all. Toby's like
me, we both do interviews for magazines and TV but it is nice not to have so much
attention like Jay, obviously he is signed to Sony and Toby and me are signed to
Jamiroquai. Jay fronts it and so you know he is the man! Sometimes though I would love to
cause a fuss - just for once - for the hell of it, you know like start up a brawl or
something!
You are playing at Knebworth for the
Ministry of Sound (55,000 people) is this because Glasto is off?
Could be, I think Ministry decided to coin
in on the opportunity. We are really looking forward to it. I am into my UK Garage and
House.
Who is your favourite house DJ then?
Roger Sanchez. I worked with him in New
York for a week at the beginning of the year and he is a really nice fella, easy to work
with and he'll work whatever ideas you have. But if something is not working he is not
afraid to bin it!
You guys have always kept up to date
technological advancements in the world of music - do you think this makes the sound
better or just different?
I think it makes the sound different -
still keeping the basis of the whole thing there, but bringing machines in with a jazz
funk element. Not like Limp Biz who use it to the max but by using a little bit with our
own stuff.
"I just stopped and
got a mind blank and everyone looked at me and I burst out laughing. Jay just collapsed on
the floor laughing and the whole audience cheered!"
You started playing the drums by banging
on your mums cake tins, how did you get where you are now?
I started playing at the age of 7 and then
practiced all the time. I had a few lessons with Lloyd Ryan who is very cool, he makes
learning fun, which is important, and he is a laugh a minute. And then I went to join a
local Reggae band for about 3/4years and then went on to another band called 'Heaven
Above' for another 3 years. It was a funky rock n' roll kind of band, the gigs were
brilliant and then I went off to another band Candyland for 4/5 years. We went to America
and toured the World. When the band got dropped I joined 'Urban Species' up until 1993 and
then got into Jamiroquai.
Did you always know you wanted to be a
drummer? What other occupation would you have perused?
I would have been a forensic scientist -
not that I am brainy but I would have done something to do with science or a journalist or
even stayed in Marks and Spencers, as the managing director of course! I worked in the
lingerie department for a bit ages ago and if blokes came in it was like 'my missus…'
and was trying to be as subtle as possible saying 'how erm big is your wife' by comparing
to women already in the shop, pointing at women without looking too obvious!
Do you play with your arms or your
wrists (heard about the incident with Raljex spray in Paris so guess you play with your
arms!) Any more drumming mishaps?
I used to play more with my arms, but now I
tend to play with my wrists. My arms once ceased up when I didn't eat properly before a
gig! I have also fallen off a stool a few times and there was this one time when I did a
gig in New York I think it was 'Travelling Without Moving' , I just stopped and got a mind
blank and everyone looked at me and I burst out laughing. Jay just collapsed on the floor
laughing and the whole audience cheered!
Your recorded your latest album in Jay
Kay's new recording studios at his house. It looks like you had fun from the photos on
your website - what was it like? Any goss on Jay or Toby?
Jay Kay is in the gym at the moment working
out really hard and he is single - he's great, he does have his moments though like
everyone , but we are just all normal really. There was one time though, when we were in
Benidorm last week and we did this TV programme and he got the news that we got played 14
times in one day and were 3rd in the airplay charts. So naturally, he was celebrating
jumping up and down glass in his hand, and he decides to jump in the pool by doing a front
somersault, we just stood there and didn't want to tell him that actually it was the
shallow end!!!
What do your ickle ones think of their
daddy being a drummer? Are you ready for the whole parent evening thing just yet?
They really like it. My youngest Kyle, he
was at Party in The Park watching it all backstage on the big screen and apparently he
kept shouting 'My daddy, my daddy' (aaah bless). My little girl is nine so she was more
interested in getting Hear'say's autographs.
Who has been your inspiration? Bands
like Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx have been likened to you - how do you feel about this? Do
you like their music?
I love Basement Jaxx, they have some mad
music sounds - that's really good. It is really flattering that they have been likened to
us. I love those bands they are programmed really well, like Leftfield and Daft Punk/ So
you have heard their new album then? Yeah, it is very good - I love quirky stuff - the
quirkier the better.
You rated Billy Cobham as your dreaming
hero. Why?
Cos he is the first drummer that I heard
who used the double bass drum technique and he has the fastest rolls on earth! He is
wicked, great technique and great drummer.
What do you think of Caroline - the
female drummer from the Corrs - do you think she would give you a run for your money?
Actually I have met her and she can
defiantly hit a drum and hold the groove - I say good for her!
How do you feel about this whole
Napster/Mp3 debate about free music over the web?
It seriously needs to be looked into
companies should pay licenses. Don't get me wrong I'm into the whole MP3 thing but it
should not be free. There is so much software around that you can burn music of on to CD's
that someone is making a mint and it's not me that's for sure! But don't get me started!
And finally how long do you think
Jamiroquai will stay around for?
Our plans are to keep on making music. To
play our cards right and to be still making the same style of music in
another 10-15 years!
Derrick McKenzie dá
uma entrevista ŕ Cnn acerca do último álbum da banda, Synkronized, da ultima tour e do
modo como evoluíram.
 (CNN) - In the retro world of
England's Jamiroquai, bubbly disco mingles with slick funk. Smooth jazz cozies up to
fluffy pop and polished club music.
Ask the British foursome about its
inspirations, and the artists -- led by limelight-loving frontman Jason Kay -- say they
know a good thing when they hear it. On Jamiroquai's fourth album "Synkronized,"
that magic ingredient is the Bee Gees, merged with the boogie beats of disco wonderland
Studio 54.
"We believe in disco funk,"
says drummer Derrick McKenzie. "We're fully into it. We felt we should produce and
write music along that sort of line, because at the end of the day, we want to make music
that we enjoy."
To create that musical Xanadu, the band
-- Kay, McKenzie, keyboardist Toby Smith and vibes player Wallis Buchanan -- holed up at
Kay's Georgian manor home outside London.
"We weren't pressed for time,"
says McKenzie. "You could start and finish when you want. You can work when you want.
It's excellent. You're your own boss."
And the final product, says the drummer,
is all about getting down and partying like it's -- well, you know.
"That's the message," says
McKenzie. "Enjoy. Get out and party. Have a good time. We want to entertain you, but
we want to entertain you in our own way."
The first single, "Canned
Heat," has been out since late May. The album, which entered the Billboard album
charts at 28, is currently perched at 53.
The video was shot by director Jonas
Akerlund, who's worked with Madonna, the Prodigy and Metallica. The album as a whole has
garnered mixed-to-positive, reviews. McKenzie says he hopes the silky beats of
"Synkronized" will serve as a breakthrough in the United States for the
London-born band.
"Music in England is like clothes.
It's a fashion thing," says McKenzie. "But we're still doing the same kind of
music we were doing at the beginning. We've just matured."
Boogie-down productions
 In 1993, when Jamiroquai released
its United Kingdom debut, "Emergency on Planet Earth," the British band was
dismissed as a one-hit wonder by the Fleet Street press. And although Jamiroquai's debut
had hit No. 1 on the British charts and became the U.K.'s top-selling debut album of the
year, no one took the band too seriously.
Three years and two albums later, the
U.S. audience had scarcely heard of Jamiroquai -- when MTV picked up a funky little ditty
called "Virtual Insanity" from Jamiroquai's third album, "Travelling
Without Moving."
The album went on to sell seven million
copies worldwide, and garnered Jamiroquai a best pop performance Grammy and four MTV Video
Music Awards, including a best video nod for the gravity-defying "Virtual
Insanity" clip.
"It was actually a good kick in the
ass. It was what we needed," says McKenzie. "The fact that MTV picked up
'Virtual Insanity' and played it really heavily was excellent, because it meant that
somebody took a risk in putting us on TV and plugging it. And when we went to work on this
album, we just thought to ourselves, 'We don't want to let MTV down.'"
Between albums, Kay wrote "Deeper
Underground" for the "Godzilla" soundtrack, and the entire band, already
bitten by the disco bug, performed a duet of "Upside Down" with Diana Ross at
the 1997 Brit Awards.
Disco inferno
In "Canned Heat," Kay says,
"You know this boogie is for real … nothing left for me to do but dance."
In the bleaker "Black Capricorn Day," he laments that "And I'm so rarely
understood. Well, I don't know what they want from me."
"Jay's writing and vocal abilities
have been influenced by Stevie Wonder," says McKenzie, "but more at the
beginning of his career. But this album is much more Jay, from a vocal point of view, than
previous albums. He deliberately stayed away from listening to a bunch of people so he
would develop his own style."
Despite a few darker messages, McKenzie
says that "Synkronized" is all about dipping into the disco revival -- not to
capitalize on bell-bottom nostalgia, but to pay tribute to a genre of music the band
loves.
"We're all into the disco
thing," he says, "the whole band, and not because there's been a revival. It's
because we're genuinely interested in the disco-funk thing. We wanted an up-tempo album
that we could party to. Play every track, one after the other, and just enjoy it."
"Synkronized" represents a
return for Jamiroquai to its London club-scene roots.
"We're doing that party, clubby,
disco thing -- so much so, that we're thinking of doing some really small gigs. That's one
of my goals for this year, to do some really small gigs," says McKenzie.
"They're a lot more intimate and the people there will be right into it."
He may have chances at that in the U.S.
tour, which kicks off on July 4 at San Francisco's Union Square, and includes a stop in
the not-so-intimate setting of Woodstock '99 on July 23. McKenzie hopes that being on the
road in the States will prove to American audiences what longtime British fans have
already bought into.
"We're ourselves now. We know what
we do, we know we do it well and we just want it to be us, rather than somebody
else," says McKenzie.
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