photo: Peter Gannushkin

E: How does your work as a drummer inform your work as a composer, or are they separate disciplines for you? 100 Aspects of the Moon is an amazing composition, and seems a very fluid, musical piece to come from a percussionist. How did you go about composing it, and how does composing a piece like that differ from something like Labyrinth.

A: Moon was inspired by the wood prints of Yoshitoshi and each story to go with it. It was made with 15 different structural ideas, moods and styles to flow overall connection. Labyrinth is made with more song-like forms and independent from each other. I often use layers of patterns, percussive grooves, to create different textures.

E: How did the group Mephista come together? Was the goal to create a percussion group? Do you look at it as a percussion group?

A: Basically we started because we became good friends a few years back. It wasn't our intention to make as percussion group because our role is very flexible, percussion melodies and inside piano sounds like electronics, and electronics to add more colors.

E: Describe your role in, or approach to, recent Dave Douglas projects. Is it more difficult to find space for your style of playing in "jazzy" groups? Does it change the way you play?

A: I sometime get intimidated not by the people I'm playing with but the scene and tradition and rules, so I need a lot of support to overcome my insecurity even though I know I was hired because I could add different layers of sounds to it.

E: What developments in music technology in the last couple years have you used in your music, and is there anything that you wish could exist (technology -wise) but hasn't been developed yet?

A : I'm using a lot more computers to create music and graphic in last few years. I wish my USB/sound converter always worked.

E: I am interested in where you get your source sounds. Do you fabricate them using electronics or are they found sounds? What is the process you use to get a sound to a point where you will begin to manipulate it?

A: Most of my sounds are from my old drum machines with/without effects, sometimes using the sounds created with max/msp player which are already manipulated (processed) by MSP patch.

E: Do you write your own software?

A: No, I only write patches.

E: Why did you put a sticker over the Apple logo on your Powerbook?

A: The reason to cover up the Apple logo is simple. I do many live performances and the Apple logo is too bright on the stage. And why advertise for the corporation?

Thanks to Ed Chang, Mr. Dorgon, Shanti Durkee, Paul Fox, Skip Heller, Jason Roth, Len Siegfried and everyone who sent in questions.