Jasmine Star + Sina Drums
Ari Gold chats with Sina Drums and Jasmine Star
Transcript of INTERVIEW WITH Sina Drums and Jasmine Star on Hot Sticks Drum Show below.
Plus, see more about Sina and Jasmine on the “Adventures of Power” Official Site.
Ari Gold
I wish I could make Sina really big because she's who we're featuring in the in this drum live. She's a brilliant drummer who made her name first on YouTube, but he's actually has has a band called she might and is breaking out from covers into originals and is brilliant and can do anything. And can we start on the Zoom John? Okay, we're live. And then those of us on other channels I I've just introduced Cena and I also want to introduce Jasmine star, who is a multi instrumentalist. Most famous as a guitarist, she was named one of the top five young guitarist of the year, last year and by Guitar World, and she's a genius and she's just released a single called the cliff which you can get on all channels. Go to Spotify, follow her on Spotify, she is named Jasmine star and she is a star. And I for those of you who don't know me, my name is Ari Gold. I am in the Guinness World Records for air drumming. And I made a movie called Adventures of power, which I have on my it's kind of fading off of my headband, which Neal peered from rushes in and it's about air drummers in the American dream and it's a comedy and you can watch it on Amazon or if you don't live in the States. You can find it at Air drummer.com. And that's me. So I've been doing these weekly shows with bands like we've heard anthrax and Styx and suicidal tendencies and lit and their monta and mostly drummers, but we're honored to have when guitarists show up like Jasmine star or like Alex Skolnick did to talk about the meaning of music, the power of music, what inspires you? And then afterwards, we'll play my movie for those who want to stick around for that. So why don't we start with how we all kind of met. There is something we all have in common, you guys played a duet of from Germany to California of rushes, y, y, z. And I also played rushes, Y, Y, Z when I was in Germany for Neil Peart, the drummer of Rush so this is kind of a beautiful thing. I'm gonna try to stop this echo, I got a complaint of an echo.
Jasmine Star
Oh, good. While you're trying to stop that I got a bit, of course, got to compliment you on the movie. Adventures of Power is awesome. I actually saw it last night. And it was it was awesome. And God did just say, oh my gosh, the level of commitment that you had to put into it to get those air drumming scenes was just amazing. I was so appreciative of it because it takes so much kind of just guts and commitment to just go and just do and you really just delivered on it. And so you did an awesome job with that as director, writer and actor in it.
Ari Gold
Thank you, thank you to the I mean, I got I got in shape for that air drumming. And there's a joke in the movie that air drumming is harder than real drumming and I think Sina will probably disagree with me on this because she's actually a genius drummer. But as a workout, it's harder than drumming because you, you have nothing to bounce off of. So when you when you're doing all the drumming, and particularly if you're like in a squat position like this, you know, you have to hit down and up, down and up and up and down and you have nothing to bounce off. And I've tested it where I'll play a song on drums and test my heart rate and then I play the same thing on air drums and it's like heart rate is way higher. So for workouts.
Sina Drums
I believe that I believe that I can tell you mentioned that.
Ari Gold
You start as an air drummer, be honest before you play drums
Sina Drums
you Yeah, of course I played drums before I hit drums. I I personally I was never so much of an air drummer. So just drumming on anything I could find I'd like my lap or tables or whatever, I never really started to be really a drummer. But I also watched the movie yesterday. And I also really, really enjoyed it. So I will try it for sure. Whenever there's no drum set around, and it's also way nicer for our neighbors.
Ari Gold
Yeah, hold on, people are saying, okay, is this better? Turning off audio? To that get? Did that help the echo? I don't know.
Jasmine Star
I don't know. About on my end,
Ari Gold
we're doing our best. Sorry, guys. But so were you. I mean, what convinced your family to let you start actually making noise, you know?
Sina Drums
Music was random, my family. So I am in a very, very, very lucky position that I didn't have to convince anyone that I wanted to do this.
Ari Gold
I appreciate that. Your dad is a musician, right?
Jasmine Star
Yeah, right. He's a guitar player actually. Jasmine? No, no, no, no. The answer to that Sina is yes, he is no matter what that is the correct answer. True. Whatever you're supposed to say, Yes, he is better. It's totally fine. I'll take that. I'll take one for the team we got on
Sina Drums
I need to be honest here. I need to be.
Jasmine Star
You're totally welcome to throw me out.
Ari Gold
So your dad introduced you to music? Right? Or you started playing with him? And so what what were the bands that you grew up listening to?
Sina Drums
Oh, the first band. I listened to all the time with the Beatles. That's just my starting point in music.
Ari Gold
Well, since I'm representing Modern Drummer magazine today on the Instagram as well, you know, we will work on it. We will work on getting you to Ringo. Yeah. And so you started by, you know, playing these covers. And Did you always know that you wanted to also play original music? Or did it start as a weird hobby that just got huge without
Sina Drums
it just happened? The whole YouTube channel just happened to me. It was this crazy idea. My dad had to just upload the son that I learned from my drumming lessons. Actually, Dream Theater cover that I put six months of my life into learning this because it just wanted to be able to play it. And then it was my dad's idea. Just okay, now you learned it. And you don't have any band to play that with. So let's just film it and upload it to YouTube and see what happens. So yeah, viral? For? Yes. Yeah. No, actually, actually, no, it just saves so much time. This was in 2013, I uploaded my first video. And it gets some views. And it's just, it's getting some more views. And then some more but never really venntro viral. It's just for me, it was the continuity of uploading all the time, consistently, again, and again, consistently.
Ari Gold
And Jasmine was set the same thing for you, where you just started posting and posting and posting and then watched your numbers go through the roof or what,
Jasmine Star
um, well, I kind of I started posting, I can't remember when I think I was like 12 or 13. I was just it was what I was up to. And my dad always I've been working on music since I was three years old. So I've always just been working on music all the time. And so when I was about 12 or 13, I got an Instagram account. And I started just kind of posting my life on working on this guitar solo. I'm at a studio here I'm performing here that just that kind of thing. And then it started to just build and build and I've just really enjoyed being able to connect with other music lovers. And so it's been a really awesome experience and then I kind of moved on from Instagram I kept going on Instagram and kind of posting what I was up to and then I started on YouTube and Tik Tok actually have seen it I think, for my first 1000 subscribers on YouTube because I had already gained a little bit of traction on Instagram, but I didn't really have a lot going on on YouTube yet and then we did our YYC colab and that got me my first 1000 subscribers on YouTube.
Ari Gold
Oh wow. So your your more recent phenomenon. And Cena is responsible for your your she's like the Frankenstein and you're the monster that she's created.
Sina Drums
I didn't know Jasmine was really only talking about YouTube it's just Instagram this more her thing and YouTube was more and more my thing so those
Ari Gold
on those on Instagram right now we're saying Who is she and I'm going to your Instagram account is Jasmine
Jasmine Star
Jasmine star music
Ari Gold
okay it's it's she lost her phone so she's you can you can go you can go to to SInas YouTube no Sinas all of our Facebook's have this or actually go to the adventures by our Facebook because I know it's there and yeah so those on Instagram sorry it's just it's what happens with with the the Internet things can be challenging
Ari Gold
okay now I pinned it intended for those who are lost
Ari Gold
so and by the way Sina you're right, I held down my finger on it and that allowed me to pin so that was to wait for the YYZ rush thing I think the way where you see collab with Cena was was your your launch then Jasmine, I didn't know that
Jasmine Star
for you to pretty much I mean I posted some stuff on YouTube like I had been if you go onto my about on YouTube, it says that I've had an account there for a very long time, which is true, but it was mostly you know, when I was 1011 just posting up like classical piano performances and stuff not like YouTube content tomorrow just like this happened today. And then but that was like where it really started was with why why is
Sina Drums
so amazing.
Ari Gold
She watched all of your videos late at night, she's memorized them. She's gonna AirDrop to them So Jasmine, you your as a guitarist. It's strange that you that Carole King I've heard is what inspired you to become a musician. What What is the secret link between Carole King and why was he?
Jasmine Star
Well, um, wow, what a question.
Ari Gold
Gee, rock.
Jasmine Star
No, I, um, Carole King is awesome. Because she really, it shows that good songwriting is timeless, because you know, my grandmother used to listen to it. So then because of that my mom listens to it. And when she listens to it, she thinks of her mom. And now I listen to it. And I think Oh, my mom and my grandmother. So it's really timeless music, but really, I've been my start music was purely classical, my older brother who's five years older than me, and because he's the overachiever in the household. He was like, I'm gonna play classical violin at age two, because I want to make my sister who hasn't even been born yet. Look back, is basically how that happened. And then by the time I was three, he had already been playing for like six years. And so I have always been competitive my whole life. So I was like, okay, therefore, I'm doing that. And then I moved to piano pretty quickly, I found discovered pretty quickly after a couple of hours on violin that wasn't, wasn't my calling. So I switched to classical piano. And then I started singing when I was about seven, and then started playing guitar shortly after to accompany my singing. And then I heard Stevie Ray Vaughan and then yeah, that changed everything. And legitimately did that. Because I heard it. I was like, What is this? I must do this. And then that's when I really got into like,
Ari Gold
Okay, what is this? I must do so you were competitive, even with Stevie Ray Vaughan. Oh, you wanted to beat him?
Jasmine Star
No, because he's seen Ray Vaughn. He's legendary. I have so much respect for him like, Oh man, I have so much respect for Stevie Ray Vaughan and I just love listening to his music. I love playing it. I love stealing his legs like all of it is just like, so awesome to me. I don't feel competitive with like a legend like that. I feel competitive with my older brother because why wouldn't I be
Ari Gold
competitive with him after all this time?
Jasmine Star
Um, yes, but there's so much of a mutual respect there. And he helps me so much to this day with whatever I'm working on and when I get a chance to I help him we work in completely different sides of music. He works in like Team Music and composing and scoring and all of that stuff and more on the classical side and rock. So it's, it's completely opposite and yet it's really helpful to be on completely different sides of the spectrum musically because then when we come together we bring completely different perspectives, which would make a project really special.
Ari Gold
Right? Okay. So and in terms of the the kind of connection between you, you and Cena like it seems like you have a shared love of of Rush obviously because y y z scene had you ever play Van Halen you guys could do a Van Halen cover together. Yeah,
Sina Drums
we actually did, but my part was pretty small. And then when
Ari Gold
you went like this once at the beginning.
Sina Drums
I worked very hard on that.
Jasmine Star
Was a little bit worried, though. Not gonna lie because I wasn't I did the hard part with it. Completely freeform, no click no anything. And because of that, I didn't have your drum part. I was recording it separately, that the three hits that we did together. We're gonna be out of time.
Ari Gold
Yeah. You have the time it you had to listen to her thing in time and pretend she was going like this.
Sina Drums
Right? Yeah, actually. So that's, that's where it gets difficult because usually I do a lot of collaborations and I know how to record on separate parts of the planet and edit it together and make it sound like we're in the same room and it works if you play on the same track, or if one person records their part first and then the second person plays on top of their part. But this time it just didn't work out. I don't remember anymore. Why probably I had to get off to the Netherlands. And we wanted a video so I just I played the drums on top of the original and then I left and I let my dad handle this and then Jasmine sent her part but she just played it like she said with no click and not on top of the original just at your own time when she was
Ari Gold
a free flowing musician
Jasmine Star
getting the eruption in time with Eddie it's gonna be impossible for me to get every single thing perfectly because
Ari Gold
we talked about this jasmine if you as a guitarist want to get on the cover of Modern Drummer magazine, you have to do you have to do fingerpicking and convince Modern Drummer that this is like paradise. That is but you know i The obvious choice for you guys would be to do hot for teacher because I know Jasmine's already done Han for teacher. It does have the most amazing drum part. And I have played hybrid teacher as an air drummer in front of 7000 people in Finland. So if you need a backup air drummer to do the second Tom part because actually when they play live, Eddie would stand next to Alex and hit times at the same time, which is something that you can listen to what it's like this is impossible. It's like yeah, it is impossible because there's two people but I'm happy to perform the
Ari Gold
air drums alongside you guys when
Jasmine Star
you're on vocals. You're on vocals.
Ari Gold
I'm on air Yeah, maybe I could do maybe I could do the vocals. He had his scream though. They believe Roz scream is unstoppable. Oh, he
Jasmine Star
could literally he was basically hitting pinch harmonics with his voice. Yeah, exactly. Harvest a key way I could say that he's doing and he's pinch harmonics, but with his voice.
Ari Gold
I think of him as like a tube and Tuvan throat singer where he can do like multiple melodies at the same time. Have you heard those guys from two?
Jasmine Star
I can do a really really really bad impression of it, which I will not be doing here and you can't say that. Please. The way you do it is how they do it or to originally get it because I've totally not gotten on YouTube binges and watch tutorials of how to do this because I was floored that didn't happen. So know how you have to do is you have to go from an EU to an E really slowly, super like in your head voice. slow enough you can start to get the harmonics. My brother and I have tried to get the harmonics in like chords in harmony and it is the most obnoxious thing in the world to my parents. And it's been I've strictly remembered already. This is probably probably like six weeks ago. It was like probably 1130 at night. My brother We're talking our parents into bed because we go to bed. We were telling them good night, and somehow doing multi harmonic throat singing came up. And so my brother started trying to imitate it while they were trying to go to sleep at like 1130 at night, and then try to get me to do the harmony on it. And what about as well as it sounds? And that is all I will be saying,
Ari Gold
wait a minute. No, I'm imagining that it actually sounded good.
Jasmine Star
You severely overestimate our harmonic challenge.
Ari Gold
Well, I think you I think you should work on that because I think adding throat singing to your repertoire. I mean, I know the clip I mentioned the cliff again to Cliff, your new single on Spotify now, everywhere. The 2022 version of the cliff, I think should have throat singing in it. And I think it should to bring everything hums Cena should play her drumsticks on on a guitar. Tina, you did that on a track? I did, which can be done. I have a ukulele as someone you don't want to hear that. But I have a little miniature miniature keyboard A melodica you know, like a miniature essentially accordion and a miniature guitar, AKA a ukulele and a miniature surfboard. So I have a question about the shuffle. For Cena. I am also a big fan of Jeff Porcaro. There's something that feels like brain massage to listen to his drumming. I feel like it could heal people from traumatic brain injury because it's so rich. What? What do you love about Jeff Porcaro? And what's really hard about doing his drumming?
Sina Drums
That's, it's so hard to explain. I think. When I when I grew up, when I started to play drums, actually, my dad would, who is a huge influence for me, we already talked about that. But he said, Okay, the most difficult thing you could ever learn on drums, is there wasn't a shuffle. So, of course, I went like, Okay, I have to figure this out. So I went to my drumset. And I said, Okay, I want to learn this. And he showed me how to do it. So I knew, Okay, it's the shuffle. It's done. You do that with your right hand, and then you fill up the space with your left hand. And so I learned that, and I wanted to be able to play it. And then I was, I think I was 14 years old. And I thought, okay, that's easy. I can do this novel. So I recorded the video, I uploaded it. And I thought, Okay, nice time. I'm amazing. I could, I can play Rosanna finish now I don't have to learn anything. And it was only later that I realized I couldn't do anything. It just what I did sounded so horrible. And then I only realized how incredibly hard it is to play the Roseanna shuffle like Jeff Carroll did. It's just, I don't think it's possible.
Ari Gold
It's just, it sounds so relaxed.
Sina Drums
He sounds so relaxed. And he also he is relaxed.
Ari Gold
It's well, I mean, but think about this though. John Bonham did his own version of a shuffle inspired by Jeff Porcaro. And he made it his Yeah. So you know, on, on the obvious song. Don't blanking on the name of the song. Jasmine helped me what's the name of the song
Jasmine Star
that I took from her so she gets to kind of follow the rant. It's funny though, because I went through a phase where I'm like, I'm gonna learn drums, which I would still love to do, but I just really haven't had time to properly put in the work to learn drums. But I went through a bit of a time where I was like, Okay, I'm going to really dedicate myself to this and do and I understand basic music theory. So like, I can understand what I'm supposed to be doing. It's just a matter of actually doing it. But fool in the rain, that was one of the first beats that I learned was that and I could play it out of time. However, my hands and feet lined up, so I will take that as a win. Even though if you put a clip to it, it would be so embarrassing. But it was the digit right? And so I remember instead of learning it like the proper drummer, where I learned it like a pianist where I just really They tried to, I just looked at like the drum tab for it and tried to just remember what went together so I could view it as one sequence. So it was like, kick in hi hat that goes together, then snare then that's a ghost. And I wasn't viewing it as a beat as like a continuous phrase, I was viewing it as every single beat. It's just this to this to this and try to learn the coordination like that. And I showed it to a guitar coach who I was working with at the time, who also is a really good drummer. And I remember him looking at me like, I don't know how you learned that as your first when I graduate. This was terribly executed. I'm not like I was amazing. It was not amazing adult, let's get this very much. But that was like one of the first beats that I learned. And I'm a little proud of myself for it. But I know if I watched a video of it, I'd be very ashamed of myself for it.
Sina Drums
You really shouldn't be that's, that's just the way to start.
Ari Gold
I think the way to start is to watch the Bernie party shuffle. Because Have you guys seen those videos? Yeah. The way he talks about ghost notes is a shuffle in itself. I mean, it's just like, his love of, of ghosting makes you just like you start moving your chair and like, I think, I think Jeff Porcaro got his shuffle as a kind of development of the Bernie party shuffle and then John Bonham got it from so it's it's beautiful how people it's like the the Chinese food in in San Francisco that was American style Chinese food was started by the the workers who came over to build the railroad and were trying to imitate the cooking of their families back home and didn't know what they were doing. And they just kind of made it up as they went along. And that made American style Chinese who, and same way as like the shuffle can. Someone who doesn't know how to like, Maybe Jeff Porcaro thought he didn't know how to do the marine shuffle. Maybe. John Bonham thought he didn't know how to do the Jeff Porcaro shuffle, but each person by trying ends up accidentally creating their own version of it. And I think that's,
Sina Drums
yeah, that's the whole point of music, isn't it? Everyone starts learning their instrument by playing stuff they like, and then playing it wrong. By playing it wrong. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Ari Gold
Well, hello, something just happened here. Oh, sorry. Technical difficulties. So I'd love to hear from getting an echo. And I'd love to hear what you guys are planning on doing next. With each other, and then maybe each of you can tell tell everyone what your what your next big project is on your own. Have you ever met in person? The two of you? No, no. Okay. So
Jasmine Star
first time actually even like talking to each other in real time. Email or DM?
Ari Gold
Well, so I'm playing matchmaker, although you guys are already in that. So I have a vision because Jasmine is a singer guitarist and wants to play Wembley Stadium, and Cena is one of the great drummers coming up on the planet right now. I know Cena you will have a band. Which I'd like to talk about she it's called she might It looks like she might for those of
Sina Drums
you that. It's she made us the name of the project. It's not the name of the band. So
Ari Gold
okay. Okay, so that's where you collaborate with other artists have a band
Sina Drums
and play together with different musicians. Okay, I called the project you might it's not a band. It's just
Ari Gold
so what is keeping a band of you guys forming?
Sina Drums
Yeah, it's on opposite sides of the planet love so much to be in a band with your Jasmine and all this creativity that just flowing out of you. And it's it's incredible the amount of instruments you can play on level. It's just it's totally amazing blows my mind. I would love to be in a band with you. But it's just so difficult.
Jasmine Star
Thank you, Sarah. You're I mean, you're absolutely incredible. You're just such an amazing drummer and such an amazing person. You've always just been the nicest person to me and like for me, my thing has always been I want to work with like the best most kind people on the planet and definitely When you qualify for that, so one day, hopefully at some point, if I get to visit Germany at some point, probably post pandemic and all of that, at some point, I would love to get to jam with you, at some point, really I opposite sides of the world. And it can it works for like covers and stuff when we both already know what's going on. But for the actual, like, creativity of like being in the room with someone I want.
Ari Gold
It's a different thing. It's, I mean, in, even in my movie Adventures of power, there's a whole I mean, it's a joke, because it's all about air drummers. But there's this thing about a team of oops, sorry, audio went out. There's the thing about how you create a team energy and the difference between, you know, someone being their own hero versus being a hero because you have a group and, and and let's say there's a five person group, and that becomes 10, or 20. And there is a strange thing that's happening right now in music with people becoming, and there's no criticism in this, but people becoming stars playing in their, in their rooms, or in their closet or whatever. Obviously, the the culture now is experiencing life through these screens. But being in a room with someone and other musician, and being in a room with the audience is, is a completely different experience. And do you guys have any nervousness about making that transition from, you know, the comfort of your rooms to playing with other musicians who have other egos, and playing with an audience that has its own ego and desires? If any, either of you can answer was curious if you're scared.
Jasmine Star
And soon, I hope you don't mind. If I know. For me, I live performing is my passion. That's what I truly do. I just love it so much to me that being on stage is the best feeling in the world. And I started as a Live Performer and I am a Live Performer. And as the world kind of starts to open up, I hope to be doing more live performances. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that that is just what I love so much. And I haven't been able to do it as much because of the pandemic. But that is my passion. And that's where I just feel just I just love it so much that I'm not nervous about it. Because right now, any chance at all to get to play live, I just get so excited for whether it's the smallest venue in the world or the largest venue in the world. I just get so excited and I think that we live
Ari Gold
with I mean, speaking of Germany, and liveness you played live with scorpions, right? On KOLs Are you over zoom? Okay, over zoom, okay. I would you know, you if you you could get into one of their good cases and sneak your way to Germany with them and then possibility form you
Jasmine Star
know, I agree that's, that's definitely what I'm gonna do. I'm just gonna actually I'm leaving for that tonight. I haven't told anybody because you know, I got it, like sneak into the drum case or whatever. But that was part of the plan.
Ari Gold
You know what you say when you when they pull you off the tarmac and they open it up and it's you in the inside and you're in Germany, you say
Jasmine Star
imitation and impersonation of what is going to happen. I'm excited for it. That is what I'm going to do.
Ari Gold
Just give me 10% of everything you make as a as the the scorpions cover band. We tour all the favorite places in Bavaria to play Scorpion covers. No, you guys have bigger, bigger bigger dreams than that. So okay, so and see now how about you have you done much live performing?
Sina Drums
Yeah, I do not have a lot of experience with that. So I did not start a live musician. For me, it was the other way around. I just didn't have a learning how to play the drums and I didn't have a band. I didn't have the possibility to meet with other people because there was just no one around where I live. So I started a YouTube channel not knowing what to do with my
Ari Gold
life off in the countryside somewhere.
Sina Drums
Yeah, in the middle of nowhere, actually.
Ari Gold
That's a beautiful thing. That never would have happened in the past that someone could become like a world renowned musician, while stuck in a small town to like, put their their instrument on their back and hitchhike to New York City and You know, live in the bus station for a couple of weeks and work their way up. And you know, you're able to turn on, turn on off camera and show your talent. That is a beautiful thing.
Sina Drums
Yeah, that's that's so true. And I appreciate that so much. Yeah, really, it's I, I also I, of course, I want to be a live musician I want to perform also, I also want to continue the YouTube channel, because this has just been such an amazing experience for me. And
Ari Gold
people love you. There's a lot of people who love you, as as you I know that there's a lot of people ask him to marry which is gets to be a headache, I guess.
Sina Drums
Yeah, yeah. I actually put that on my FAQ.
Ari Gold
No, thanks. The FAQ was no thanks.
Sina Drums
Sorry, most probably not sorry, the bearer of bad news.
Ari Gold
So what else? I mean, I, I wanted to bring up by the way, some drummers that I mean, you were trying to get I'm trying to get Greta Van Fleet to do my show. But you did a great Brandon fleet cover? Who would you love to open for with the band a band that is yet to be formed? Maybe Maybe you're gonna play drums for Jasmine star and her slaves or whatever she calls?
Jasmine Star
Certainly not what I would be calling it.
Ari Gold
Well, this is a question, sir, I want to go back to you for a second. But like you said, you were toggling between I'm not sure I want to be a band or just be, you know, had to be my thing. So like, the question is, Could you could you see something where you actually have a collaborative band? Or would you want to? Like what were? What were something where you could actually disappear into a band? Even if you're the singer? Can you imagine
Jasmine Star
my dream since I was very little like the Wembley Stadium thing, just so you know, isn't like a new thing. I've been walking around telling people that since I was like, nine years old. So at this point, it's gonna be really embarrassing if it doesn't happen. So like, the cliff, check it out. Now stream it? No. Yes. No, but my dream since I was little has always been to Front my own band. And that's always been what I've been working towards is to be the lead of a band of like it being Jasmine star, and just having a backing that and that sort of thing has always been my dream. But that doesn't mean that I'm not open to other things. I love working with other musicians, I think it can be a lot of fun. And so there's always room to work with awesome people. Like, I think that the world would be a better place if we all just took some time and got to work with super talented, super awesome, super kind, nice people. And so I'm always down to do that. That's always my my dream has always been to be Jasmine star and to have my own show, and I have my own band and to do but with that being said, I'm still so open to working with awesome people, especially people like Cena, because like, she's amazing. And like, why wouldn't I want to? She's incredible.
Ari Gold
Yeah, I think I mean, I think about someone like, I don't know, Sting where, you know, when he was able to call all his own shots, it takes on a certain very sting like quality, but when there were three egos clashing, what the police were able to create, even though sting wrote, you know, more of the songs or he wrote most of the songs on, you know, technically
Ari Gold
the musical contributions of, of the two other guys was, was equal and, and the combat of artistic differences. I think, you know, when you're lucky, you can create something that a solo artists, for me anyway, as a listener, like I always like a band when I can hear everyone with their own complete and like the gist, you can hear the disagreement in the police and I love that you can hear like winnaman that doesn't fit together or shouldn't fit together. And yet, it's amazing the energy of these three guys with totally different tastes and influences fighting each other and then putting that into the music. I love that. So maybe you too.
Jasmine Star
Well, I think you can do that without fighting each other like you can have disagreements without it being an ego thing. out of the picture,
Ari Gold
I have a twin brother who did all of the music for adventures of power his name's Ethan gold he's also on Spotify, even gold on Spotify. But, and we we would fight all the time loving fight. I don't necessarily mean that people want to strangle each other but just you know, artistic artistic disagreement is people bringing you know someone who has like a scene out you know, kind comes out of loving Ringo and Jeff Porcaro and Zeppelin. And there's like, kind of like the influence of her father's musical tastes like in her. And then Jasmine comes at it with a completely different thing that you actually additive. It's like, if you only listen to yourself, you only have your own influences. But if you know if you were to bring on I don't know, like, an African bass player who never listened to rock and roll. Yeah, yeah,
Sina Drums
I totally agree. I totally get what you're saying. Of course, you can need to play with other people just to, to, to make your Horizant bigger. I don't know. That's a German expression. And sorry. I don't think
Ari Gold
you can do expression.
Sina Drums
Awesome. That's awesome. And now I would start again, I would say it again, I think it's incredibly important to, to work with other musicians as well. Of course, like I said, everyone has a different background, and everyone I played with, I have learned something from, of course. So I hear something, I, I take it, I feel it, I make my own thing out of it. I think by meeting life, and in person in the same room, this happens much easier and faster. Of course, but I'm also what I was doing, like working with so many different musicians on on to made. This was such an amazing experience. And I will continue to do it because I love it so much to work with so many different people. And each
Ari Gold
song has a different, completely different collaborator. Right? On
Sina Drums
Ashima. Yeah, yeah, almost every song has a different people playing on it. Yeah, it's it's different genres. And it's just me finding, finding myself finding, finding out what I like.
Ari Gold
And when I'm directing, like you always, I always come at approach to seeing like, Oh, I know exactly what they want. I know what it should sound like, I know what the actors should look like. And then of course, you cast it. And the person is never what you thought in advance. And if I if you remain stuck with like, oh, wait, this character is supposed to look like this. And then you start forcing the actor to do that, you're not going to find out the amazing secrets that they have, if you let them bring their own energy to it, I think of like, you know, the trainer character in the measures of power, this guy named Steven Williams, who I have to admit, I hadn't heard of him before. And he wasn't at all what I pictured for the part of the trainer. And by sort of by chance, you know, he auditioned and I was like, There's something about him that feels completely different than what I expected. But let me try this. And for me, he he's one of my favorite things in the in Adventures of power is that this, this guy has so much like humor and rage about having, like, lost his arm so he can't even play aerodromes anymore. And like, I mean, whatever, it's it's a comedy, those of you haven't seen it. But
Ari Gold
if I had stuck with my idea of what that character was supposed to be, like, I had him as like, younger and more kind of like a little bit more full of himself. In my head. I was picturing like a like Moore's day in the time type type of vibe.
Ari Gold
But he brought something else which, which brought all this gravity to it. And now I look back and I'm like, God, if I had stuck with my idea, you know, when I was by myself in my room writing if I had stuck with that, I wouldn't have had that amazing performance in the movie. And so I hope you know, I hope you get a chance soon to start playing with people you respectfully Jasmine respectfully disagree with I don't mean fighting like hating each other. But you know, people who, who come into the room with a different style, you know, you know, play with, I don't know, play with other drummers, Jeff Porcaro played with himself. Of course, like, on some of his tracks, you'd have one drunk you'd have two different ideas, one on one side and one on the other. Like in when he played for Bob's gags, someone told me this. You can hear if you listen to the left side, there's 16th notes playing on the other side. It's it's eighth notes, which sounds great together apparently. He played two tracks and they they put him in at the same time but I heard more recently that he actually didn't want to do the 16th notes because he thought it was like a wannabe disco thing and he was opposed to the whole like everyone pushing for like the disco style and so he did it reluctantly and then the producer like shoved in so but actually I love the way the drum sound in that track. You know, the mix of the for the mix. sub two Jeff Porcaro is playing with himself. In his case, he can be influenced by himself. Well, actually, you know what? I just talked myself into it, he was forced to do something he didn't want to do.
Ari Gold
Yeah, yeah, that's thing for musician.
Jasmine Star
That's one of the ways that I mean, and I love to play with other musicians. I love bouncing ideas off of other people. But right now, especially with the state of how the pandemic has been for the past year and a half, almost where everything's been locked down. One of the ways that I really enjoy pushing myself in a different ways, I like to write guitar solos over all different styles of music. And I'm not particular to like one style of music. Like I love all different genres of music. And so one of the ways that I kind of tried to it will never be the same. But one of the ways that I enjoy pushing myself in a way while I while we've been in lockdown and whatnot, is to just write solos over everything, because there's so much awesomeness to be found in so many different genres, if you just look for it, and you just find it and so it's so much fun to me, because I love all this kind of music and then but to try to put a guitar solo on something that was so obviously written to not have a guitar solo on has been so much
Ari Gold
for what can you give an example. Um,
Jasmine Star
I've put a lot of guitar solos on stuff on super modern, popular music right now, which I don't particularly think that a Doge cat song, a guitar solo was what they had in mind for it. But that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be there. Right. Like, I like it. And so I honestly don't your cat kills it. I love her. Like, I think she's awesome. But um, it's cheaper. I'm not sure. I don't think so. There's been some times where the artists has seen it. And that's always a lot of fun. Um, but like, I think that all of this music is just so awesome. And I love just giving myself the challenge of let's put a baseline on that. Well, I don't think they intended a guitar solo there. Let's put it on there anyways, and that just brings me so much joy.
Ari Gold
Yeah,
Sina Drums
I love that idea so much. It's, you have so many videos where you're just doing that. And you can just sit there the whole day and watch those. It's amazing. Yeah. So So So what I did, actually, about that? Well, while we're on that topic, I did a totally crazy thing of I started to study music. I started to study jazz and pop music. So why did I do that? People asked me, obviously, I'm a rock drummer. I love rock music. I love playing rock. But it's just you learned so much from just putting yourself into situations you're not so comfortable with. And I feel like I've learned so much in this past year. That's, that's so valuable for me and for my role playing as well. So I totally get what you're saying.
Ari Gold
I mean, your peer, you know, in the last years of his life, he was traveling to Africa to learn different Polly rhythms. I mean, you no one should remain a student forever. That's how you expand. That's how you grow. And I mean, it's great. And, and particularly with music you don't like or it doesn't, you don't think you'd like it, but there's so much you can get from that. It's like, I mean, same thing with with movies to people like Oh, would you ever do, you know, sci fi and like, and then you start thinking and now I'm like actually creating sci fi, you know, because you simply because it's not something that I normally do. So we're about about at our timeout. So I want to thank you both so much for doing this. And those of you who who don't know whether this was the original excuse for this was my movie adventures. The power works with Modern Drummer to do these talks with drummers and sometimes with guitarist as well. And the movie Adventures of power. If you see it, if you watch it on on Vimeo, you can buy it on Amazon, and in many countries, you can watch it. The movie supports MusiCares, which is the Grammy Foundation that helps musicians in need helps them with food in the case of the last year or addiction if there's drug problems, and there's a really beautiful organization that's helped a lot of musicians. Some who just play at your local bar and some who were who were famous at one point and made songs that changed our lives and might be on hard times. So anyone who watches the adventures of powers prints the word about it, just know that you're also supporting a good cause and hopefully having a fun One hour and a half watching me. Air drum with Michael McKean from spinal tap and Jane Lynch and
Jasmine Star
Neil, go stream it
Ari Gold
on Amazon. Yes.
Jasmine Star
Amazing It It seriously go through that.
Ari Gold
Yes, thank you. And so we're going to, some of the channels are going to continue to stream the movie when we sign off. And if not, you can go to Eric dermer.com and follow the links and check it out. And you too, are so amazing, so inspiring. I your your hunger for music and your enthusiasm makes me certain that Siena you're going to be on the cover of Modern Drummer and I will be hammering but no, you'll be in Wembley and I like I really, I want to hold the vision that you guys do a band together like a band band. And that doesn't mean you can't do your song that doesn't mean that she might want to exist doesn't mean Jasmine star. You know and company won't exist but a band where it's like the two of you are able to disappear into each other's tastes and, and beautifully fight with each other and create something that the world has never heard before. So I'm gonna believe in that. And I will air drum to it. When I hear
Jasmine Star
awesome, I will be air dropping into it too, because I can't play drums
Ari Gold
I'll bet you can. No, I'll bet you.
Jasmine Star
I'm sure she can. With some practice I could. Currently I cannot. I'm not gonna say that I could never drop. I'm just saying that right now. I could technically play drums. But does it mean that the kick drum would be in time with a metronome? No, it does not.
Ari Gold
Okay. Well, you're creating your own Polly rhythms then.
Jasmine Star
It's like when you're out of tune. You're not out of tune. You're experimenting with quarter tones. It's different.
Ari Gold
Mm hmm. Yeah. Right on that quarter note. People are cool with this is on this on these notes, I have a keyboard next to me as well. Thank you so much. Good night to those of you I'll probably be in Berlin in the coming months. Maybe we can High Five somewhere or air high five whatever it is. And Jasmine would be able to see you on Venice Beach if you ever come out here and wave at me surfing. So everyone, please follow these these geniuses. Cena drums you can find everywhere and Jasmine star you can find everywhere. My name is Ari Gold. I'm with Modern Drummer and with my movie Adventures of power. And thank you so very much those of you want to stay on and watch the movie. If it plays you can watch it if not find it. We're in technical, technical hell. And thank you, John, and upstream media for making this insanity possible. And Didi as well for helping organize all the questions and graphics and everything. So have a beautiful day evening, wherever you are. Bye.
Sina Drums
Thank you.
Ari Gold
Thank you so much. Bye. Power, keep the rock. Thank you so much for listening to hot sticks drum show. Please stream the movie Adventures of power at Air drummer.com and support the Grammy MusiCares Foundation. And don't forget to subscribe at hot sticks.fm And of course, feel free to ask me any questions or make drummer requests at Ari Gold on social media and keep marching to the beat of your own drum. Even if you don't have one. We are air drummers everyone of us , imagine that