Moobday: What a Zoo!

[flaming june]

GUH!!! That mouth!!!

 

[erised]

Rhymes with humming...

 

[flaming june]

I attached these yesterday, but since the site was being a bugger I'm just gonna paste 'em all in so everyone can see 'em.

That one's my new wallpaper...

 

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[flaming june]

Yeah... "drumming"...

 

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[flaming june]

I love that sesy smile!!! I imagine that's the same face he makes when he wants to do... stuff.

 

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[AngelofLarrydom]

aaahhhh
missed you guys.
Thanks for the pics!!!

 

[adamswildhoney]

Larry talks to "Propaganda"
1986




"Last year, in celebration of winning the reader's poll of American Magazine 'Modern Drummer', Larry gave his first Major Press Interview in years. Being such a rare event, and such a good interview, it is repeated here.

Voted Number One in the Up & Coming category of MD's 1985 Readers Poll, Larry Mullen Jr., is a different drummer. A universal blend of past and future, East and West, primitive and classical, his sound is huge and heroic. Even before he began drumming with U2 at the age of 16, he was, in his own words, "unteachable". Logic and reason do not define his approach to
drumming; spirit and instinct do. He treats each song as an experiment.

U2 bassman Adam Clayton refers to Larry's "dignity" as a drummer and adds, "He won't play anything that isn't natural to him." Assigned with a long shopping list of percussive paraphernalia to set up for experimentation in Larry's new home, drum roadie Tom Mullally describes Larry as "not demanding." But Mullally continues, "If he gets an idea, we work bloody hard to make sure it happens. He'll turn everything upside down."

Rebelling against the clutter in so much music, Larry allows the freshness and freedom of the open space to be important, and in the drummer's dangerous world of time and space, he knows when to hit and when not to hit. At 23, he's a young master. Unlike most musicians his age, he seems to have already lost his taste for "stardom", if he ever had it.

This interview explores the thoughts of a drummer who holds his ground. Whatever it took for Larry Mullen, Jr., to become himself, he made it. And he is truly one of the most gifted and innovative drummers in the world today.


LARRY: Let me say first of all that I don't do interviews, ever. I did the when the band first started, and then I stopped because I didn't enjoy them. I've seen issues of Modern Drummer. I like what the magazine does, so I decided to do this. But I'm not a talker; I hope you can make sense of what I say. I saw a piece on Russ Kunkel about how musical he is and all that. I
don't deserve that kind of praise in a technical sense; I don't consider myself great by any means. I wouldn't want the magazine to make me something I'm not. But what I do feel is that, if I'm going to do an interview, I want people to know that you don't have to be a technical drummer. You can follow your own rules and be in a successful band.

I: I think you're underestimating yourself.

LARRY: Maybe. There's no harm in that. It means that I'll continue to grow, hopefully.

I: Your music projects a global consciousness, but your roots are firmly in Ireland. What was it like to grow up there?

LARRY: There's no comparison with America or even Europe. It's a very isolated country - a totally different world. Things like abortion, contraception, and pornography don't exist. You have to fight - very hard - if you want to do anything different. To be in a band is really, really
difficult. There's nowhere to play. But it's an interesting and beautiful place, too. I live there now; I wouldn't live anywhere else. It doesn't have the pressures of rock 'n' roll. Somebody says, "There's the drummer from U2." Another person answers, "So what?" In America or anywhere else, you come out of the hotel, and people want to take bits out of you. In Ireland,
people have respect, and they leave you alone.

I: Did you spend much time by the ocean? Sounds of the ocean come across in some of your bass drum and cymbal work.

LARRY: Yes, I grew up in Dublin. You've always got the sea. From where I lived, it's about 500 yards down the road. Dublin has about a million people, but if you go just a mile outside the city, it's very peaceful, with green trees, and all the things you'd imagine are in Ireland.

I: Were you into native Irish music?

LARRY: Well, obviously, I listened to it. When I was growing up, there wasn't one rock 'n' roll station in Dublin. There was a station that played an occasional Beatles' song, but if you wanted to hear rock 'n' roll. You had to tune into a pirate radio station or a British radio station like Radio Luxembourg. I'd have my pocket radio under my bed, trying to tune in Radio Luxembourg so I could hear the charts. It wasn't until around the last five years that new bands would come to Ireland; before that, very few came. The Stones came about two years ago, which was the first time since '76 or '77. Now rock 'n' roll is big in Ireland. It's just that very few can survive playing it or doing anything original.

I: How did you become a drummer?

LARRY: I started at about nine; I used to play piano. The teacher was a really nice lady, but one day she said, "Larry, you're not going to make it." (laughs) She suggested that I try something else. I was delighted, because I had wanted to say the same thing to her a year before that.

I: But your parents were making you take lessons?

LARRY: Well, they thought it would be good for me to be exposed to music, and since I liked music, I went along with it. But I wasn't good at piano; I didn't practice much. So, as I walked away from my last piano lesson at the College of Music, I heard somebody playing drums. I turned around to my old lady and said, "You hear that? I want to do that." She said, "Okay. If you want to do that, you'll pay for it yourself!" So at nine years of age, I saved up a bit of money and I got nine pounds for my first term of drum instruction. I wasn't very good at learning technique; I didn't practice much, because I was far more interested in doing my own thing. I wanted to play along with records like Bowie and the Stones. I didn't want to go
through the rudiments - paradiddles and all that stuff, you know. I carried on with this teacher for about two years, and I just got bored. This is terrible, but he passed away, and (pauses) I mean, I was only a kid: I said, "Wow, Divine Intervention! I don't have to do this anymore!" (laughs) So I joined a military style band: fife and drum - all that sort of stuff.

I: Why did you want to join that? It seems like more regimentation.

LARRY: Because it was more of a goof, because there were girls in this band, in the Color Guard.

I: I've seen some of those bands in competition. They can be quite sophisticated in their musicianship.

LARRY: Not this one. It was more "Let's have a good time and march in the St. Patrick's Day parade in Dublin." They would try to make us read music as well, and I could read, but this other guy and I said, "This sounds too drab off the sheet." So we just threw the sheet music away and invented our own things. I was in that band for two years, including the early days of U2.

I: I've read that you got kicked out of a military band.

LARRY: That was another band, the Artane Boys' Band. The band I was just telling you about was a bit more loose - a little freer. The Artane band was too rigid for me. I was in for three days, and they told me get my hair cut. And at the time, it was my pride and joy - you know, shoulder-length golden locks. So I got it cut a few inches, and they told me to cut it more. So I
told them to stick it, and I left! (laughs) I'd forgotten about that. I had a stage, too, when a guy tried to teach me jazz drumming, but again, the same problem. This teacher was really into Steven Gadd: Steve Gadd was his idol. I think Steve Gadd is a great drummer, but this teacher would play Gadd's records and tell me to play like that. I was rehearsing with U2 as
well then, so I gave it up. I just couldn't sit there and imitate someone else.

I: The story has it that you founded U2.

LARRY: Yes, and I was in charge for about three days! (laughs) We were all in the same school. And the prospect of leaving school and getting a job wasn't there. There were no jobs to get. It was like we were all going nowhere, so we decided to go nowhere together and form a band. Our school was an experimental, interdenominational school, quite liberal and open. We
had to do our work, and if we were interested in sports or music, for instance, we were actually given time. They gave us a room to practice in. There were very few schools in Ireland like that. Most were Christian Brothers schools where you studied, did your work, and that was it.
We started the band as punk rock was bursting on the scene, and when we heard it, we said. "Wow, this is amazing. This is energy!" Music was getting so boring. There seemed to be so much conveyer-belt rock where they'd just take the money and run, but punk rock had raw power. A lot of the bands couldn't play, but they had something to say. They gave it inspiration.

I: Did you ever think that the isolation, and maybe even the adversity, you experienced in your formative years in Ireland was an advantage?

LARRY: Yes. I don't honestly think a band like U2 could have come from anywhere else. We had time to grow at our own pace, protected and away from the circus of the rock 'n' roll culture. We never got involved in that. We can be ourselves, be with our families, and do all the things human beings are meant to do. Our music comes from being around real people in the real world. The title The Unforgettable Fire comes from a book we saw of paintings that were done by survivors of Hiroshima. And if you listen very closely to Bono's lyrics in "Bad" from that album, he touches on the huge heroin problem, especially in Dublin, and everything that surrounds it. We're very aware of those things. But go to London, and what some people are influenced by is the fantasy "scene" - the clothes, the dancing girls, how many drugs you can take. We just leave that behind. That's not what this band is about.

I: You talk to the public about clean living and spirituality, but you manage to walk a thin line: You're not wimps. You're still legitimate rock 'n' rollers.

LARRY: All the sex and drugs in rock is so old, so boring, and so pretentious. I suppose some people think you have to go along with that old image to be a legitimate rock 'n' roller, but why should we pretend? If you actually met a lot of big name rock 'n' roll bands as human beings, you find they're a lot straighter than you think. It's a big game, and we don't play
it. People can make up their own minds about U2. People who see us live know it's not "wimp rock".

I: How would you describe your drum style, Larry?

LARRY: Well, I never thought of it as a style until somebody said, "You know, you have a really unique style." And I said, "Oh really, what's a unique style?" It's hard for me to articulate what I do. Other people have to tell me what they think. Once, there were two professional session drummers on Irish TV who took the drumbeats from "Pride", and explained what
they were in great musical terms, and explained how this technique was used. (chuckles) I mean, they could be right, but I never thought of it like that! I just do what I do. I've developed into something myself. Sometimes people ring me up, or write and say, "We think you're fab. Can you give us hints on how to drum?" The only thing I can think of is something I learned myself and that is, "Hit 'em hard!" Just put everything into it; don't hold anything back.

I: But you know when to hit 'em soft too. You're capable of subtlety in your drumming.

LARRY: Yes, we like to put light and shade into the music as well - not always hammering away. There are times to be lighter, but it's still strong. There are times to come down and go back up again. I don't hit the drums at the same intensity all the time.

I: Of course, one of the standard critiques of rock drummers is that they know nothing about dynamics.

LARRY: It may be true of a lot of drummers, but certainly not of all of them. You can't generalise, especially now. There are so many new drummers with new ideas. It could be said, though, that in the past I was sometimes just heavy-handed, but I think that, over the last few years, I've started to listen to music a lot more in terms of light and shade. It's a question
of maturity - of actually listening to more music and seeing other drummers. I was never interested in other drummers until about two or three years ago.

I: "Drowning Man", on War, comes to mind as an example of light and shade. The bass drum resonates as if from the depths of the ocean, with a stirring sense of ebb and flow.

LARRY: That song just evolved spontaneously. I did it with a 24" marching-band bass drum that I put up on a chair, and just hit with a mallet and with my hands. It was recorded in Windmill Lane, the studio in Dublin that we use. It's an amazing place, with its own character. You can get immaculate drum sound in the hallway, which is solid stone walls with a
really high ceiling. I set my kit out there, and they put mic's all the way down from the very, very top of the stairwell. I've recorded many songs out there.

I: You also use brushes on "Drowning Man".

LARRY: Yes, and on "Bad", too, among others. A while back, I started to use brushes on different songs, and it seemed then that it was catching on. Are you familiar with the band Echo & The Bunnymen? They did a complete album with just brushes; I really like it. The only thing is that so many drummers are using brushes now that I've sort of stayed away from it slightly.

I: There seems to be an Oriental streak in your playing, which I noticed first on "Drowning Man".

LARRY: Oh, did you get Oriental flavours in that? In The Unforgettable Fire, there are many Oriental touches, even in the design of the album cover, with the rich purply colour and the calligraphy. When we went to Japan, we avoided all the "touristy" trappings. Most bands stay in rock 'n' roll hotels there; we stayed in traditional Japanese hotels and ate a traditional
Japanese restaurants. Everywhere we went, we heard the traditional music, and it was fantastic. Obviously, we were all influenced by it.

I: You must also be aware of the marching-band influence, evident especially on War.

LARRY: Oh, yeah, I see it, although it's not something I cultivated. It was just there. It was very, very natural. Again, it was a case of someone asking me if I were ever in a marching band, because they could hear it in my style, and I said, "Oh really, can you?" I didn't realise it, because it wasn't a conscious decision on my part.

I: The sense of open space is prominent in your drumming. There are times when you allow the absolute maximum space between beats; you hold it to the last fraction of a second.

LARRY: Yes, I like gaps; I like to be able to feel the music - not to clutter the songs. Lots of new drummers tend to fill in all the gaps and leave no space. Technically, a lot of drummers leave me standing miles away, but they don't leave gaps. It may sound good for their bands, but it's just not for me. I've really been getting into R&B drummers. They're right down to earth - simple. All those jazz-head drummers are just so complex. It's like going to college. It's like "How intelligent you are? How many big words do you know?" It doesn't really matter, ultimately.

I: There are some who would say that the technique - all those big words, if you will - gives you a greater vocabulary to convey the musical message.

LARRY: Well, to me it's like the difference between a novel and a poem. Sometimes, you can say everything in one line or even one word. I don't mean to knock anybody; there's room for everyone. But what happened to the whole punk thing - just getting up and doing what you feel? I'm into the spirit, not the musicianship."

 

[adamswildhoney]

"Propaganda", 1995
(Interview to "Rhythm Magazine", by Mark Cunningham)






"Larry Mullen Jnr. could never be described as a great fan of the 'rock interview'. He usually leaves that to the other three. But he did recently agree to talk with the specialist drumming magazine 'Rhythm'. In a candid conversation with Mark Cunningham, Larry revealed the birth of U2 in the Mullen Family kitchen, reflected on his unusual pedigree as a musician and wondered a little about the band's future direction."


"After more than a decade at the height of commercial and critical success with ground breaking albums such as War, The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby and Zooropa, it is hard to believe that U2's epic journey to success began when 15-year-old Larry Mullen Jr. pinned a 'Musicians Wanted' ad on the notice board at Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin. Nineteen years later the band is arguably the most talked about and revered on the planet.

As the chameleon-like quartet enjoys a well-earned sabbatical from the limelight, Larry recalls those early days when the fledgling U2 rehearsed in his parents' kitchen. "We'd all had some form of interest in music and there were about six or seven of us, plus a couple of friends, jamming away with no real direction. The idea was to see who could and couldn't play, as
normally happens with new bands. The thing that was most interesting about the meeting was that Edge (then plain Dave Evans) and his brother Dick, who later played with the Virgin Prunes, had built their own very funky looking electric guitar, which didn't work very well. Everything else was borrowed or didn't work, and it was pretty chaotic.

It was the following day, they figured out who was going to be in the band. "It was down to who had the loudest voice and the most money," explains Larry, tongue firmly in cheek.
"I saved up my cash from mowing lawns to buy my first drum kit: Edge attempted to build guitars and Adam already had a bass. But Bono was slightly in dire straits and we wanted him to play guitar, although he insisted on singing. Now we know why - because he didn't have to buy or move any equipment."

Larry is quick to destroy several well-documented myths that have gone down as 'facts' in the U2 history books: one of which concerns the bands original name. "At the first rehearsals people were referring to the band as Larry Mullen's Band, for want of a better name. We never played under that name but I think it was done to protect my ego at that stage, because we had
rehearsed at my house and when Bono came in he could sing better than me, looked better and was just plain that bit older. He basically shot my chance of becoming the leader of the band." It has also been cast in literary stone that a Bay City Rollers cover was a regular feature of their early set. "That was bullshit - we only did it once for a laugh. Very early on we started writing our own material, albeit badly. It wasn't until much later, in 1978-79 that we had some idea of musical direction. The band had gone through a whole lot of changes and it wasn't a proper working band until '78 or '79."

Growing up in the mid-seventies, Larry's staple musical diet consisted of glam-rock greats, like The Sweet, T-Rex, Roxy Music, Slade and Gary Glitter, whose two-drummer band fascinated the Dublin lad. "I just knew that this was something I wanted to do. If you listen back to a lot of that music as far as beat is concerned, it was so 'on' and rhythmic in a very simple way. I also loved Bowie - rhythmically he was so advanced, and that's why Ziggy Stardust and a lot of that seventies music still stands up today. At the other end of the scale there were Steely Dan, Bruce Springsteen and Yes, but I knew nothing about them, even though my sister would bring those albums into the house. Glam rock was certainly the foundation of my influences and I used to take out a pair of drumsticks and hit things along to the records."

U2 producer Brian Eno has said that he thought many aspects of Larry's distinctive drumming style and sense of rhythm had their origins in his experiences as a young marching band drummer. Larry agrees: "Yeah, certainly some of it did. I'm very interested in Irish traditional music and rhythm and that's really where I come from. I have played in a lot of military
style bands and at some point I think it crossed over into U2. If you listen to the first three or four albums you can spot the influence. One of the things I find when I listen back is that my playing was very simple, kind of inventive at times, but at other times it didn't have a lot of rhythmic qualities."

"When you're playing with two guys like a bass player and a guitarist, there are a lot of spaces to fill. A good example of that was The Police, where they filled those gaps in quite a sophisticated way compared to U2. We were rhythmically unsophisticated, and a lot of that came from the fact that when I was playing in military bands there were other people covering all those different areas. You had percussionists, another drummer and three or four bass instruments, and there was confusion over who exactly should be providing the beat."

"For me in military bands I was providing a form of rhythm but not necessarily the +/+ beat, and it was only after we started working with Danny (Daniel Lanois) that I started to understand what the position of a drummer in a band was. I know it sounds strange but we don't have a rock 'n roll tradition in Ireland and when you're 15 or 16 and starting out in a
band like I was, it's hard for a drummer to instinctively know what to do in that role. Do you provide a musical element or just a beat? It was a dilemma and I notice it now when I listen to some of our early records. I suppose it's the challenge for drummers to both provide the beat and be inventive, all at once. In traditional Irish music, where they play bodhrans, it's
rarely on the +/+, it's always on the off-beat and other instruments like spoons and bones provide the +/+. So I guess those things have had a huge influence on me."

These influences do not come any stronger than on the U2 classics 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' and 'Pride (In the Name of Love)', the latter exhibiting some of the most electrifying snare fills in rock's 40 year history. "When it came to recording 'Pride' for the Unforgettable Fire album, Danny was able to pick up from me that I had some interesting ideas but here was a slight
lack of focus. My kick drum technique was then, as it is now, completely underdeveloped and I never got a chance to practice and learn like most people would. In the marching bands, I only used a snare and when I first got a kit, I never learned how to properly use all the elements together."

"So I went and listened to a basic demo of 'Pride' and tried to play a beat just using the kick and snare. But I couldn't get the kick to do what I wanted, so I got a floor tom down and did what I'd done in the past, which was if I couldn't physically do what was necessary, I'd find another way around it. I couldn't do what most people would consider a normal beat for
the song, so I chose alternatives. Those snare rolls were originally very straight, until Bono told me it didn't sound right. So I spent a couple of hours trying things out until I came up with the build-ups and the accents you hear. If I'd had the knowledge I would have done something completely different, but I don't think it would have been half as interesting. You give up something to get something else, and my drumming career has always been based on a complete lack of expertise!"

Despite Larry's razor sharp self-criticism, there is no doubt that his unique approach is highly effective in the context of U2's music. "I've never thought of myself as U2's drummer but rather a contributor to the overall sound. I'm still earning about rhythm and over the last year since
U2 have taken some time off, I've been working with a couple of guys in America. It's shown me how professional drummers really play, because I really want to know. I don't necessarily want to emulate them but I certainly want to know how it's done."

Keen to improve his craft, Larry practices whenever time permits at his North Dublin home. In fact wherever in the world he roams, a set of electronic drums is not far away for the occasional honing of paradiddles and other rudiments. "I have some exercises I go through, although I don't do it as often as I should. But I try and keep my hand in as often as possible. As I said my kick drum technique leaves a lot to be desired, but the time comes when you think 'Hey, I really want to be able to do this shit!' I won't stop doing all the other things but it's getting a little embarrassing now to ignore it!"

It is clear from talking to Larry that the musical traditions of his homeland run thick in his veins and he is not averse to dabbling with that most famous of Irish percussion instruments, the bodhran. "I played one on the last two U2 albums and also on the new Nanci Griffith record (which also features his remixing talents), although I don't play it in the traditional way. I play it with mallets or my hands or any way I can because, again, it's not something I learned to play properly. But it's a great versatile instrument that's underrated. That and the tabla are my favourite items of percussion."

The kit on which Larry began his career was, he says, "a bit of a nightmare". Made by a Taiwanese toy company, it was a mother of pearl ensemble of odd-sizes including a 19 ?" kick drum that Larry had to cover himself with calf hide, due to the absence of off-the-shelf skins. "I
persevered with it for quite a few years and, like an old friend, I was sorry to see it go," he remembers.

These days with considerably more punts in his pocket, Larry has been able to improve his set-up and regularly used up to three kits in the studio. "My main kit is a Yamaha Studio kit with a 22" kick, one mounted rack tom, a floor drum on the left and right, a Brady 13" snare, Yamaha or Ludwig piccolos and a selection of Paiste cymbals. There is also a monitoring
system around that set-up. I also have a Yamaha cocktail-type kit with an 18" kick, a couple of toms and another Brady snare, but without any monitoring. In addition, Edge has an old Slingerland kit that is always thrown up in one corner for me to play if necessary. Then there are various percussion instruments, but the volume affects Brian (Eno) these days so I have to find the kit that's furthest away to avoid upsetting him!"

For a real live drummer with an 'organic' approach, it is surprising how warmly Larry has embraced experimentation with drum samples, loops and machines. Although this use of technology began to infiltrate the band's music as early as 1984 ('Bad') and progressed with spectacular effect on 'God Part 2' (from Rattle and Hum), it was not until Achtung Baby and
Zooropa that it became an integral part of their sonic make-up. Vital to this process has been co-producer and engineer Flood. "It evolved quite slowly and gave me a chance to understand what was going to happen by the time we got to make Achtung Baby because we were using a lot of machinery by then and we were able to strike a good balance. Flood has a vast knowledge of how studios work and the use of electronics, as his work with Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode demonstrates."

"My relationship with Flood has always been about taking basic ideas and making them special, using the technology available in the studio. As far as playing with samples and things like that is concerned, a lot of that is done during the putting together of a song. There might be some sort of pulse or rhythmic idea that's been used in constructing the melody, and when
we get to playing on that, it will be a question of maybe emphasizing more of the machinery and using less of the real drums. I believe the future will see more of a marriage between rock 'n roll and technology. That is definitely the way forward. For me, it's not like I'm coming from a position of strength where I can say 'Hey, I know better'. I'm open to anything that will make it sound better. Machines do that, so I'm perfectly happy with that marriage."

"I actually get off on playing alongside machines and it has certainly improved my playing a hundredfold. There may have been a bit of resistance in the beginning because I think the expectations for what would happen between machine and drummer were very high.

When you actually work through it, you find that it's not about one or the other, it's the marriage of both elements to create a musical atmosphere in which the best work can come out. However it has to be an equal marriage, otherwise it's disastrous. There are some producers who prefer not to use drummers, letting the machines take over and concentrating on the
"musicians" but it's important to strike a balance." There are one or two bands around at the moment, including the rather excellent Doppelgangers, who are marketing themselves as U2 copycats."

To change the mood of our conversation I ask Larry if he finds this flattering or should they go away and get a life? "I don't have any strong feelings on it at all really. Whatever gets you through the night. If that is what they need to do to earn a living, then fair enough. I have no
problem with it." For the first time in their brilliant career, U2's members find themselves with time on their hands to catch up with their personal lives. "We are all individually out in the world, doing whatever we need to do to get ourselves in a frame of mind whereby we can get back together at some point and make a great record. One of the mistakes we made between
Rattle and Hum and Achtung Baby, was that we didn't give ourselves enough time to get back into listening to music and being musical. The whole process of the Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum was so difficult that we kind of hibernated for a while, and when we re-grouped, we didn't have any new ideas. But this time around we are going to keep our hand in to make sure we don't repeat our mistakes."

How the hell do you follow an album like Zooropa and a multi-media extravaganza tour like Zoo TV? "To be honest, I don't think you ever can follow something like that and I don't think I would ever want to. On a musical level, I still don't believe U2 has reached its peak and there are a lot of things for us to do. I look forward to that challenge and without that goal there is no point in continuing. But I don't want us to repeat anything we've done before and instead of improving on Zooropa and the tour, I think we should do something different, although there's no telling what it will be like. I'd like to think that whatever happens will be better not bigger."

Does Larry think that there is a danger of the band's apparent obsession with unpredictability eventually compromising its music? "Musically, I think U2 is unpredictable but I don't think it's contrived, it's just a fact of life. We've never been proficient enough to be regular and have always worked in an ad hoc way, experimenting with different producers, and I don't think that will change. Surely that can only enhance the music and not take away from it?" Finally, I ask Larry what it is that makes U2 so special. "Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with the four individuals, but what happens when we get together and the music we make as a collective unit. The band's greatest strength is that there are no boundaries, there are no limits. You can't get any bigger, we have been able to achieve everything, for the most part on our own terms. That's the most satisfying thing for us."


(A version of this article originally appeared in 'Rhythm Magazine').

 

[flaming june]

^ Thanks for posting those interviews adamswildhoney!

 

[kellyahern]

^ Thanks for posting those interviews adamswildhoney!

Ditto. They were very interesting reads I liked the fact that Larry still practices

 

[smk1379]

Thank goodness no one is here with me!!

P.S. Scruffy

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Not Zoo, but here's a new Larry pic from Gavin's concert