DARLING - Interview

"Music In Other Dimension" - Interview with Hal Darling

By Sergio Vilar

Q: To begin Hal, I would like you to count us your musical trajectory and the projects in which you have intervened.

DARLING: I began playing at age six, taught by my two elder brothers who were both drummers with bands of their own. As I grew up I took music more and more seriously until by age twelve or so, I knew that it was what I wanted to do with my life. By age thirteen I had my own power trio of guitar, bass and drums. We sucked, but we worked hard and practiced a lot- at least I did. Years later I attended the Percussion Institute of Technology in Los Angeles to study with two drummers I truly admired, Ralph Humphrey and Joe Porcaro. Joe is a studio legend of course, and Ralph had played tremendously well with two of my favorites- Don Ellis and Frank Zappa. After leaving school I moved around the United States looking for the perfect gig, the right combination of players, and never found anything that brought me much satisfaction. I eventually ended up in Europe, doing the same thing really, trying to find musical happiness.

In 1985, while living in Europe, I acquired my first computer. MIDI had been invented and promised to forever transform the way music was created. I embraced this technological innovation completely. I immersed myself in it entirely, eventually developing confidence in my ability to compose. This was liberation from the prison of my previous situation. I was no longer dependent on other musicians and composers, I realized that I could do the majority of it by myself. As the years passed I experienced a self-imposed rehearsal gauntlet, hours every day playing and composing and teaching myself about the recording process. When I finally returned to the States I had all but abandoned the idea of playing live ever again. I concentrated on building a studio for my personal use and equipping it so that it would be capable of professional sounding results. My latest release �D2R�, is the second complete disc that my studio has produced. A third is underway.

Q: How would you describe your music?

DARLING: My business card reads �An intense, complex, progressive, instrumental fusion of rock, jazz, and classical elements that is both expressive and powerfully electric, with an emphasis on musicianship�. That fits well enough I suppose, but I would add that it is sometimes funny, often angry and always anomalous. It is highly dynamic in the musical sense of the word, and varies widely in terms of style. It is highly structured but starkly unpredictable, it takes risks, it is dangerous. It requires an investment of time and attention from the listener to be understood. If you allow it, it will take you to strange and beautiful places, but parts of the journey are very unsettling. It is not background music.

Q: Who your relating ones are at artistic level? Who have influenced you in your formation stage like musician?

DARLING: When I was growing up musically my influences were many. At the earliest stages The Beatles and John Mayall�s Bluesbreakers figured rather prominently, quickly followed by Zappa, Hendrix and Cream. As rock music evolved, some of the musicians involved were becoming fairly accomplished as players. This made for a very exciting time and produced most of the groups that were my seminal influences- Jethro Tull, King Crimson, Yes, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, The Allman Brothers Band, Don Ellis, Joni Mitchell, The Moody Blues, Moby Grape, Jeff Beck, Genesis, Santana and Argent. Slightly later, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, UK, and Gentle Giant exerted a good deal of influence as well. Today I�m so busy doing my own music that I don�t have much time to listen to other�s. Contemporary bands whose music I really enjoy would be Djam Karet and Thinking Plague.

Q: Does it have that drummer of the current ones would mention as outstanding?

DARLING: If you are saying that you think the drummer on my latest release �D2R� is outstanding, then thank you very much- it�s me! I do work very hard at seeing that every track has an exciting drum part. I try to practice virtually every day, for my music, for my health, and for my sanity.

Q: Could you make a comment of each one of the songs of �D2R�?

DARLING: �Clown on Fire� : Relentless energy and humor was the original vision, and I�m very happy with the way it was finally rendered. One of the disc�s best tracks. Nice title too!
�Black Rhyme� : A nice change of pace, nice dynamics. Effectively spooky and funny at the same time.
�Prom Vomit� : Ten minutes worth of music in a three minute song... God, what was I thinking?
�Where Seraphs Despair� : Another change of pace, this one simple, somber, and desperate.
�Rope of Sand� : An unusual song for me in that it has no time signature changes, that almost never happens to me!
�Aggressive Biological Behavior� : A larger scale piece that taken as a whole, is hugely complex. Parts of it were very difficult to execute in real time, so it was recorded in sections.
�An Unsettled Score� : A stab at symphonic music by someone who doesn�t really understand it very well. I rather like the way it turned out, though.
�Run� : Music of constantly changing temperament. It is probably both a success and a failure, depending on where you are in the song!
�Dog Dreams� : One of my favorites on �D2R�, it is an experiment that worked. I got lucky I suppose. Sometimes these things work, and sometimes they crash and burn. I had fun laying down the drum track, that much is certain.
�A Breach of Species One Through Five� : A bagatelle really, both musically and sentimentally. And respectfully short enough to not be annoying.
�Mr. Smith Shows the Children How to Smoke a Cigarette� : A collection of themes that reprise themselves in different ways as the the music moves along, perhaps the most effective track on the disc from a structural point of view.
�Asunder� : A song of power, menace and desperation. The orchestration is as wide and deep as I could make it. A musical reflection of one of life�s lessons learned, if somewhat painfully, by yours truly.

Q: Musically, the disk is of a great wealth. How long did it take you to carry out it?

DARLING: Thank you. The compositions took about five years, the recording process required about a year and a half. Due to a direct lightning strike on my studio that for all intents and purposes destroyed the first set of recordings, the disc had to be recorded a second time. During that process some new material evolved that was superior to the original music. This was developed into several completely new songs, consequently the recordings took much longer than expected.

Q: Changing topic. There was a moment in that it seemed that the progressive one could reach unsuspected limits and, suddenly this music received the general rejection of the I publish and of it criticizes it. To what was this owed?

DARLING: It was due to changing musical fashion as dictated by the pop culture and the societal forces that drive it. Popular culture usually reflects the lowest common denominator, many people just don�t like to think very much. It hurts their tiny little brains. So stupid sells, particularly when it looks nice. Even during that time when progressive music had some mainstream acceptance, the majority of the music on the pop charts was of an embarrassingly low standard. The popular culture mirrors the cumulative choices made by any society, but only up to the point that they are free to choose. At some point in the not too distant past, music became the music business. It stopped being a creative art form and became a commodity. The record companies were taken over by corporate leadership that was by and large indifferent to music, but they certainly had an ongoing love affair with the dollar bill. They built enormous publicity machines to get out their message, which was and is �Let�s party! Sex, drugs and rock�n�roll! Party! Whoo-hoo! Don�t make waves! Accept our popstars who are pretty and cool! Conform! Break it down now ! Soon this horrific mantra became reality. Music as a commodity was tightly regulated by a bunch of drooling, slack-jawed, meat slappers who would spend more time trying to decide which shampoo to buy than they ever would mulling over the relative merits of a composition or performance. Amazed by their own accomplishments, these corporate bozos refined their business model. Mindless, derivative claptrap was selling like hotcakes, so most things that were innovative or intelligent were simply dismissed. If it�s all you�re offered by the powers that be, you can learn to live with it, but you don�t have to like it. And more importantly, together, we can change it.

Q: What opinion does you deserve the current world progressive scene?

DARLING: I�m so busy doing my own music that I don�t have the time to listen to other people�s work as much as I�d like to. I�ve heard some things that I really enjoyed, but a good deal of the music I�m hearing doesn�t strike me as particularly �progressive�. But that�s just a difference of opinion I suppose. Any music that is going to meet my �progressive� criteria will be held to a very high standard indeed. Others see it differently. Innovation is critical from my point of view. It must be music that is more than just a step or two outside the mainstream. Having the ability to play a tight unison riff at 200 bpm doesn�t mean that you automatically qualify. I think that the progressive community by and large would benefit by taking itself a little less seriously. Humor is a good and healthy thing, let�s spread it around. Some of the lyrical content and cover art that I�m seeing is so silly and pretentious that you�d think it was 1971. That was a great year, but it�s over three decades past...oh what the hell, people love nostalgia- I shouldn�t make fun of them for it. There are parts of me that worked better then!

Q: Hal, what can we expect from your next works? For us it is a great one incognito...

DARLING: The next release will pick up where the last one came to a close. I will attempt to further expand my explorations of meter and harmony, and recent technological innovation with respect to manipulation of sound should allow me to grow my sonic palette rather considerably. Other advancements will enable me to use the drums as a true compositional medium for the first time. This alone may drive the music into some completely different territory. Time and experimentation will tell. I look forward to it with tremendous anticipation.

Q: Thank you, some words to close the interview?

DARLING: I thank you for this wonderful opportunity to reach your readers and listeners. I offer my sincere greetings and salutations to everyone in Argentina, and may the entire world soon understand the true joy of peace and love. Be well.

Nucleus interview: 11/03/04